According to report just released from NASA, they've determined that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, and this expansion is happening faster than the speed of light. However, this doesn't violate Einstein's theory of relativity, which states that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light through space.
Here's why: Space itself is expanding: The expansion isn't about objects moving through space; it's about the space between objects expanding.
No object is exceeding the speed limit: While the distance between galaxies is increasing faster than the speed of light, the galaxies themselves are not moving faster than the speed of light through space.
Think of it like blowing up a balloon with dots on it. The dots are moving away from each other, but they're not moving through the balloon's material at a speed faster than the balloon's expansion.
Didja get all that? Makes my head hurt just trying to conjure what it means. I love this stuff...
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Expansion is faster than light speed, as the universe is pure consciousness, not atomic BS. Plus, wasn't it interesting that on the 1950s Superman TV Show had bullets bouncing off him, but he'd duck when the crook threw the gun at him?
ReplyDeleteThe song at the end of "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life" covered this quite well.
ReplyDeleteThat's why we're able to observe light from 12 billions years ago. If we weren't moving faster than the speed of light, we would see nothing.
ReplyDeleteExpanding faster than the speed of light explains objects leaving a central point. They can move from that point at a maximum of the speed of light, but relative to each other the space expands between them at the sum of their speeds. Of course, mine is a high school understanding of what they're saying.
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