General relativity prooves that space-time is bent and infact can be bent by extremely strong gravitational fields. Now, as we all know, the big bang was hypothesized to occur around 13-14 billion years ago (13.7?), and since space-time is not 'straight' or 'flat', the (commonly accepted number I guess) range of our observable universe is 78 billion light years -- so basically light was bent and traveled much 'further' than it would have in a 'flat' space-time...but does that mean space time by nature is curved? (as in light it the furthest possible reaching product of the big bang, and thus fans out much further than actual space-time warping masses would...right?)

are you saying there are stars that are over 13 billion light years away? i suppose i could imagine stars being 26 billion light years away or so, if one star travelled at light speed in the exact opposite direction as another, also travelling at light speed. what do you mean, exactly, by 78 billion light years away?

Thats exactly what I mean, your intuition tells you that the furthest anything in this universe could be apart is 26 bililon light years because of the big bang's theorized age, but infact the bounds of our observable universe is infact 78 billion light years away because the space-time doesn't always follow a linear path, so basically light took a shortcut instead of traveling straight and traveled 78 billion light years in 13 billion years.

these phenomena are possible because of the "instantaneous" nature of gravity
I'm not going to claim to be an expert in this area so I encourage you to look into it more yourself but gravity in itself is a misleading and misunderstood force which hasn't been explained by modern physics as of yet
all other forces have a particle associated with them but any attempt to study or document he gravitron (alleged particle behind gravity) have failed
it's actually really interesting and this is making me want to look into it more

I heard somewhere that Joao Magueijo? had a theory that the speed of light at the instant of the big bang was much faster than its current speed and has been slowing down ever since then to its present state of 186,000 mi/s

Anyone know if this is true or not? Or am I imagining shit?

it sounds like youre asking the question "if nothing can move faster than light, and the universe is 13 billion years old, why is it larger than 26 billion light years across" (assuming we were on the outmost edge, it is still larger than 26 billion in one direction)
this is why i do not like the big bang. the reason scientists say this universe is larger than 26 billion light years across is because in the moments right after the big bang occured energy/matter moved, having higher than light speeds yet having lower than light velocity. basically, since spacetime was still expanding, space itself was essentially moving, causing matter occupying that space to move with it. google inflation for the techinical jargon
let me put it this way, im on air craft carrier that is a mile long. i walk from end to end at 2 miles per hour and it takes me 30 minutes to do it. now essentially youd think i traversed a length of 1 mile? however, the carrier itself was moving at 20 miles per hour for 30 minutes meaning i traveled a total of 11 miles. likewise, the matter may have had velocity at lower than light speeds (my speed jogging) however its speed far accelled that since the space (air crafter carrier) that "carried it" was moving mch faster, the matter essentially achieved higher than light speeds, with a lower than light velocity.
all of this, to me, seems like absolute bullshit.

This post was edited by Kamikizzle on Dec 27 2008 01:19am

Wrong, While you cant see our space-time as Flat, you cant see it as curved either.

what you have to realize, is that at the time of the big bang, everything traveled faster then the speed of light, due to the combining for the 4 forces (Strong Nuclear, Weak Nuclear, Gravity, and Electo-magnetic. thus nothing was matter, thus able to travel faster then light. but "Things" traveled at different speeds faster then light, then for a time, floated around as pure energy before forming shit.)

so you have to remember, we aren't at just ONE edge. we dont know where we are in relation to the center of the universe, or the edge.

Granted, dont think the universe as having an edge, think of the observable universe being 13.6 billion lightyears in each direction, thats the FURTHEST we can see, because that is how long light from the Furthest "Visible" star has had to reach us. so the further you move towards any "edge" the further it becomes. what is past OUR visible universe, we do not know.

or atleast, this is how I was told to understand it. and 13.7 billion is a bit off, because of rapid inflation and planks time... so closer to 13.4billion lightyears.

This post was edited by EKMEnforcer on Dec 27 2008 09:27am

Yea seems sort of like "well, big bang has taken us this far, it would be a shame to let all that work go to waste" something like that. And I got two different answers here, but eh, they're both just as crazy lol.

to my knowledge the furthest known object is a small galaxy that is just about 13 billion light years away. meaning what we see is a galaxy that, 13 billion years ago, was 13 billion light years away from the position the earth is currently occupying. which means one of several things. this galaxy formed just about smack dead in the middle of the location of the big bang, and we are on the very edge of the universe. though this doesn't take into account the time it took us to move to this position because unless we were moving at light speed (and we clearly are not) we would have seen this object when it was much closer (and therefore would not appear to be 13 billion light year away), or B) the universe has a radius much larger than 13 billion light years. the latter is much more likely

and a quick google search confirms my assumption of the farthest known object since 2004
http://www.universetoday.com/2004/03/01/record-for-furthest-galaxy-is-broken-again/?132004

This post was edited by Kamikizzle on Dec 27 2008 06:52pm

Hmm i noticed you said Shortcut...

The 5th dimension has many shortcuts.

This is the NORMAL path of light. Y = years

--------------------------- >

0 Y:::::::::::::::::::::: 500 Y

This is the projected path of light with the 5th dimension. (aka time)

--|~~~~~~~~~~~|-- >

0 Y::::::::::::::::::::::: 5 Y

Teleportation. (Aka, energy Sap from an entity connection of a black hole) Notice Both have travelled the same length.

Just another add-on. If black holes have SO much power that Light can't even escape. Perhaps Light can be Propelled faster with this gravitational pull?

Just a couple Thoughts

Visualization



This post was edited by Showny on Dec 28 2008 03:36am