No, the speed of light constrains how fast things can move IN space. It does not constrain how fast space can move. This is discussed in hundreds of threads here on PF. I suggest a forum search, or just do some basic reading in cosmology.Gondur said:Hello,
If the speed of light is the maximum speed limit in our universe, how was the big bang event possible because surely the expansion would have been constrained by the speed of light?
Short answer: in General Relativity, the speed of light limit is a local limit. It means that nothing can outrun a light ray.Gondur said:Hello,
If the speed of light is the maximum speed limit in our universe, how was the big bang event possible because surely the expansion would have been constrained by the speed of light?
And by the way @Gondur I wrote that reply rather hurriedly. It's really not correct to say "how fast space can move" since space doesn't really move. Space is just geometry. A more appropriate way to say it is that recession velocities due to changing geometry of spacetime are not constrained to c.phinds said:No, the speed of light constrains how fast things can move IN space. It does not constrain how fast space can move. This is discussed in hundreds of threads here on PF. I suggest a forum search, or just do some basic reading in cosmology.
The expansion of the universe cannot be constrained by c anyway. The expansion of the universe has dimensions of 1/T and c has dimensions of L/T. You cannot compare the two so there is no way to say that the universe is expanding faster or slower than c.Gondur said:Hello,
If the speed of light is the maximum speed limit in our universe, how was the big bang event possible because surely the expansion would have been constrained by the speed of light?
Kind of a pointless warp drive since you can't use it to actually go anywhere.sweet springs said:In inflation of universe (distance between us and a galaxy far far away) / (Universal time) is proportional to distance that seems to have no upper limit, so this "speed" does not have an upper limit. It seems like a natural "warp" in sci.-fi. to me.
Thanks. Well, there is no clear border between local and universal. I would like to know how much or small in quantity does this receding universe affect to our daily life physics represented by special relativity or maximum "speed" of c, I assume.kimbyd said:The limit is only local.
The expansion of the universe is not a speed so it cannot be limited by c.sweet springs said:Thanks. Well, there is no clear border between local and universal. I would like to know how much or small in quantity does this receding universe affect to our daily life physics represented by special relativity or maximum "speed" of c, I assume.
No effect at all.sweet springs said:Thanks. Well, there is no clear border between local and universal. I would like to know how much or small in quantity does this receding universe affect to our daily life physics represented by special relativity or maximum "speed" of c, I assume.
As discussed elsewhere, the effect of the expansion on gravitationally-bound systems is literally zero. There is a small effect from dark energy, but it's too small to be detectable.sweet springs said:Thanks a lot.
Another point view I had is that expanding universe effect is much much smaller than nearby gravity from the Earth, the Sun, the stars and the galaxy and so on. We cannot pick such a small and background effect up from these big noise disturbance.
The speed of light is a fundamental physical constant that represents the maximum speed at which energy, information, and matter can travel through space. It is denoted by the symbol "c" and has a value of approximately 299,792,458 meters per second. In the Big Bang theory, the speed of light plays a crucial role in the expansion of the universe. It is believed that during the early stages of the Big Bang, the universe expanded at a rate faster than the speed of light, but since then, the expansion has slowed down due to the effects of gravity.
The speed of light was first determined by the Danish astronomer Ole Rømer in the 17th century through his observations of the moons of Jupiter. He noticed that the time it took for the moons to orbit the planet varied depending on whether Earth was closer or further away from Jupiter. This led him to conclude that light must have a finite speed. Later, in the late 19th century, the famous experiments by physicists Albert Michelson and Edward Morley confirmed that the speed of light is constant in a vacuum, regardless of the observer's motion. This constant speed is an essential concept in Einstein's theory of relativity.
According to our current understanding of physics, it is impossible for anything to travel faster than the speed of light. This is because as an object approaches the speed of light, its mass increases, and its length contracts, making it more and more difficult to accelerate further. As an object reaches the speed of light, its mass would become infinite, and it would require an infinite amount of energy to accelerate it. Therefore, the speed of light is considered a universal speed limit.
The speed of light is incredibly fast, but the universe is vast. This means that light from distant objects takes a significant amount of time to reach us. For example, the light from the Sun takes approximately 8 minutes to reach Earth, and the light from the nearest star takes about 4 years to reach us. This delay means that when we look at the stars in the night sky, we are seeing them as they were in the past. The farther away an object is, the further back in time we are seeing it. Therefore, the speed of light allows us to study the history of the universe by looking at objects that are billions of light-years away.
The speed of light plays a crucial role in our understanding of the Big Bang. As the universe expanded and cooled after the Big Bang, the first particles and atoms formed, and photons (particles of light) were released. These photons have been traveling through the universe since then and can still be observed today as the cosmic microwave background radiation. By studying this radiation, scientists can gather information about the early universe, such as its temperature and composition, and confirm the predictions of the Big Bang theory.