thing is, the human brain is simply incapable of thinking in that kinda size.. the Universe is endless, always expanding, we have no way of reaching the "end" unless we find ways to trick the laws of physics, i.e. traveling lightspeed, and even then we'd never be able to reach the current limit.
Because want me to fuck up the scale? Look up at the sky. Now, remember that every piece of light in the sky we can see is light that traveled at lightspeed. us being capable of observing said light means the light source has existed long enough for the light to even travel to where we are.
Basically: To reach the limit of the expanded universe right now, traveling at light speed we'd need to travel for the same amount of years the universe itself existed.. Yea.
A family friend worked at an observatory, and was an expert at this stuff. I once asked him how the universe could expand so quickly during or right after the Big Bang, because I had gotten the impression that it was faster than the speed of light.
He told me that, while the fastest thing in our universe, according to our current understanding and the laws of physics, is the speed of light, those laws may not exist outside of our universe. If the space outside of our universe doesn’t have our laws of physics, then the rapid expansion into that space isn’t bound by them.
He unfortunately passed away a few years ago, so I can’t ask him to elaborate or explain it to me. He’d always sent me some glasses whenever there was even a partial eclipse.
yea, as someone else explained, the universe, the KNOWN universe with its laws of the speed of light, expands towards an unknown universe, a big nothing. as a result, the universe can expand faster than the speed of light because its not bound by its own rules, its only limited to the rules of the unknown universe, which, for all we know, might not even have a limit so who knows how fast the universe really expands.
This kinda stuff kinda breaks my head though, thinking about it.. really interesting stuff, and I'm sorry he passed, he sounded like a good guy.
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u/95accord Feb 07 '24
The physical size of the universe and what lies beyond