Is our Universe 13.7 billion years old ? I'm not quite convinced

[Nigel G]

In my mind things don't quite add up.

Hubble deep space image has galaxy's at 13 billion light years , ok I got it,  experts say this image would be much the same any direction hubble pointed. 

OK so if hubble turned 180° from the deep space image and done another million second image you would see galaxy's at 13 billion light years.

surely that makes our Universe at least 26 billion years old ?

Your thoughts please.

Nige.

[Davey-T]

The Earth is not the centre of the universe Nige, much as we may like it to be 

Dave

[Nigel G]

8 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

The Earth is not the centre of the universe Nige, much as we may like it to be 

Dave

That I  understand, hence the at least 26 billion years. If they did turn 180 and saw 20 billion light years that would make 33.7 billion? Right or wrong ?

However we could be the centre of the universe  ?

[SilverAstro]

13 billion years ago everything we can see was here. We are at the centre of everything that we can see and it has all been travelling away from us since way back then. Everyone else can say the same thing about the bit of the universe that they can see (assuming there is anyone else out there !

[SilverAstro]

11 minutes ago, Nigel G said:

However we could be the centre of the universe  ?

I think we xxed in the post ! We are at the centre of our bit of the universe. see above.    13by ago everything was here and it was all very very small, but the guy over there on his bit of the quantum fluctuation was a very small distance from us ( and was very hot as well) however he got removed from us an enormous distance away by inflation such that he is now beyond what we can observe. But he will swear that he is at the centre of a 13by old universe as well ! 

[Nigel G]

2 minutes ago, SilverAstro said:

13 billion years ago everything we can see was here. We are at the centre of everything that we can see and it has all been travelling away from us since way back then. Everyone else can say the same thing about the bit of the universe that they can see (assuming there is anyone else out there !

I need to think for a while LOL . A whisky and some thoughts. I see what your saying but it still makes these galaxy's over 27 billion years apart viewed from here.

?

 

[Nigel G]

1 minute ago, SilverAstro said:

I think we xxed in the post ! We are at the centre of our bit of the universe. see above.    13by ago everything was here and it was all very very small, but the guy over there on his bit of the quantum fluctuation was a very small distance from us ( and was very hot as well) however he got removed from us an enormous distance away by inflation such that he is now beyond what we can observe. But he will swear that he is at the centre of a 13by old universe as well ! 

[DRT]

6 minutes ago, Nigel G said:

A whisky and some thoughts.

I think I have spotted the problem. My 10 yr old Talisker is currently the centre of my universe, as is your whisky to you. That doesn't mean we have 20 year old whisky

 

[SilverAstro]

Pour one for me as well ! Yes, that is right 13b in radius, but little green man over there to the right 13bly away cannot see our chum the other lgm over there to our left 13bly away that way, they cannot see each other, their lights have not had time to travel that far! Because of inflation the universe can be much bigger than 20sumthing bly across, we have no way ( yet) of knowing how big it really is.

[SilverAstro]

3 minutes ago, DRT said:

That doesn't mean we have 20 year old whisky

Brill ! 

[Scott]

7 minutes ago, Nigel G said:

I need to think for a while LOL . A whisky and some thoughts. I see what your saying but it still makes these galaxy's over 27 billion years apart viewed from here.

?

 

they may well be 27 billion ly apart. don,t forget a ly is a measurement of distance, not time. 

[Nigel G]

Jura single malt scotch slightly peated 

[Nigel G]

4 minutes ago, Scott said:

they may well be 27 billion ly apart. don,t forget a ly is a measurement of distance, not time. 

Which would mean they are travelling away from each other at a combined speed of  twice the speed of light

[SilverAstro]

15 minutes ago, Nigel G said:

Which would mean they are travelling away from each other at a combined speed of  twice the speed of light

Not a problem, they dont know that, cant see each other, different frames of reference etc&etc  and no communication between them, doesnt confound Albert. Space(the universe) can expand ( during inflation for example) faster than the speed of light.

[Ruud]

Every place is at the centre of the universe and in every place the oldest light coming in is 13.8 thousand million years old.

The universe has been expanding since that light took off, so everywhere in the universe, the observable universe is now 92 thousand million light-years big.

The universe as a whole is possibly infinite. If it is, and if it has a finite age,  it must have started at an infinite size because it can't have grown from finite to infinite in a finite time. Unless it grew at an infinite rate.

It's mind-boggling.

[DRT]

5 minutes ago, Ruud said:

The universe as a whole is possibly infinite. If it is, and if it has a finite age,  it must have started at an infinite size because it can't have grown from finite to infinite in a finite time. Unless it grew at an infinite rate.

It's mind-boggling.

Not if you are on your third Talisker 10 yr old malt - all becomes clear

 

[SilverAstro]

Oh no ! Multiple infinities, can one infinity be larger than another, yes it can but let us not do Cantor and Aleph-null at this time of night please my Ard Beg is not strong enough !

[DRT]

4 minutes ago, SilverAstro said:

can one infinity be larger than another, yes it can

Not even my Talisker can help me with that one! Surely the answer is no?

How can something that has no outside be larger than something else that has no outside?

 

[SilverAstro]

6 minutes ago, DRT said:

Not even my Talisker can help me with that one! Surely the answer is no?

How can something that has no size be larger than something else that has no size?

 

Not doing that till tomorrow ! For today we still have to convince Nigel that the universe can be really really big without upsetting AlbertE. Ruud was being a bit naughty (if I may be so bold) introducing infinities. They are not needed in this 13.7by age of the universe thing. [ They are not really needed for the big-bang, it doesnt need a singularity to produce the observable things for example. Only when you try to formulate quantum gravity stuff and speculate upon what might have brought the big-bang into, well into whatever it did !  Way outside Albert's stuff. ]

 

[Mak the Night]

I get it, space is really big and old.

[DRT]

 

3 minutes ago, SilverAstro said:

Not doing that till tomorrow ! For today we still have to convince Nigel that the universe can be really really big without upsetting AlbertE. Ruud was being a bit naughty (if I may be so bold) introducing infinities. They are not needed in this 13.7by age of the universe thing. [ They are not really needed for the big-bang, it doesnt need a singularity to produce the observable things for example. Only when you try to formulate quantum gravity stuff and speculate upon what might have brought the big-bang into, well into whatever it did !  Way outside Albert's stuff. ]

 

Thank goodness for that. For a moment I thought this thread was getting confusing!

[Aaron F Johnson]

We are working with a theory that the expansion of the universe is constant and ever increasing based solely on the extent of what is visible to us...as we observed with Pluto things with few pixels and even less arc seconds can upset prediction and theory to extremes. To say that all of the universe is expanding and excellerating at the same rate without knowing it's absolute full size and dimensions and to base those equations on sample alone may seriously corrupt the results. leaveing any other theory based on those same equations to have the same or even more seriously corrupted results...Short awnser...We don't really have a clue as to what the size or age of the universe is...yet.

[Nigel G]

I'm going to re read this tomorrow later today, got side tracked by clear sky's, a rare thing lately. 

Nige.

[Dave In Vermont]

The COBE is the Cosmic Background Radiation that may be the expanding edge of the radiation leftover from the Big-Bang. If so, it is the farthest/oldest material in the universe. It's farther out than any galaxy. And continues to get further due to this being an expanding-universe. Which proves the Big-Bang theory of the beginning of our universe. More info? Try starting here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_background_radiation

"If i only had a brane..."

Dave

[Aaron F Johnson]

Hawkings wrote that the universe may be infinatly larger than we could imagine and there could be many bigbangs with each reshaping the universe anew. Cosmic background radiation is just the signpost of a begining but there may be many and some theorists as well as Hawkings think at some point it will slow and a retraction will begin. The big bang could be as common as supernova at the larger time scales making the universe a cycle of infinity in wich case nothing in it can be as old as it. Really deep stuff, I wrote an essay on the big bang in grad school that was pretty boring stuff compared to the understanding of the universe we have today...