Saturday, August 7, 2021

Just thinking

  

We're told cosmologists can see to the edge of the cosmic horizon 46 billion lightyears away, in every direction.  That is the farthest we can see, because looking out across the universe is looking back in time.  One might think that means that the universe is 46 billion years old, but no.  In round numbers, the universe is determined to be 14 billion years old.  My first thought would be that we couldn't look back more than 14 billion years, past the big bang, but given the expansion of space since then, that stuff is now 46 billion lightyears away.

 

The universe is constantly expanding in every direction from where we are.  No matter where we were in the universe, if we could move ourselves about for observational purposes, the universe would still be expanding in every direction, and the cosmic horizon would still be 46 billion lightyears away in every direction.  There is no center point.  The big bang didn't start at one point and expand from there, the entire universe expanded equally.  The universe is the same no matter where we observe it from.

 

I can say the words, and kind of understand them, but the grasp is tenuous.  I'm still working on it.

 

 

 

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