Expansion Greater than Light Speed?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around whether the expansion of the universe has ever exceeded the speed of light, particularly during the early accelerated phase. Participants explore implications of this expansion on the behavior of photons and the nature of galaxies receding from us at superluminal speeds. The conversation includes theoretical considerations, observational evidence, and speculative ideas regarding dark matter and energy.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Mathematical reasoning

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants propose that certain galaxies are receding at speeds greater than the speed of light, particularly those with high redshifts (z > 2).
  • Others argue that if the universe never expanded faster than light, it could still expand at light speed, suggesting that the expansion does not necessarily imply superluminal motion of objects.
  • A participant mentions using a calculator to determine that galaxies with redshift greater than 1.7 were receding faster than light when they emitted the light we now observe.
  • There is a discussion about the implications of galaxies receding beyond light speed on their relativistic mass, with some questioning whether this leads to infinite mass.
  • Participants discuss inflation theory as a potential explanation for regions of space that appear similar despite being separated by distances greater than light.
  • Speculative ideas about dark matter and dark energy are raised, including the nature of mass in relation to space and the properties of vacuum energy.
  • One participant presents a hypothesis about distinguishing between potential and kinetic mass, suggesting that the expansion of space relates to these concepts.
  • Another participant asserts that "space" itself does not have mass, prompting further inquiry into the nature of vacuum energy and its implications.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a range of views on the expansion of the universe and its implications, with no clear consensus reached. Some agree on the observational evidence of galaxies receding faster than light, while others challenge the interpretations and implications of this phenomenon.

Contextual Notes

Participants reference various cosmological parameters and calculators, indicating that the discussion is dependent on specific assumptions and definitions related to cosmology and redshift. There are unresolved questions regarding the nature of mass and energy in the context of expanding space.

  • #31
Antonio Lao said:
Does anyone know whether the expansion of the universe ever exceeded the speed of light taking the early accelerated phase into consideration?

If not then the early photons must have bounded back and forth within the boundary of the early universe and a few or maybe many of all photons we are seeing now are rebounded photons.

According to Alan Guth, the first to clearly develop a model of the inflationary universe at an earlly stage around ten to the minus 34 seconds or so, the size of the universe doubled many billions of tiime. However, if we considered the universe a crystal lattice and you were at one of the host sites, you would see everybody moving away from you at "many orders of magnitude" greater than the speed of light. However, no one would feel the slightest acceleration as it wasn't mass that was expanding, it was the space that was growing so rapidly. In this inflationary time gravity was effectively "repulsive". This kind of expansion was necessary to overcome the speed of light limitation for the calibrating of pariticles separted by large distances in order to maintain a perfect state of equilibrium while the universe achieved a minimum safe size to ensure continued expasnison. If the universe weren't perfectly uniform for some critical time the expansion would have been a dud and the universe would collapsed back on itself.

As the inflationary expansion did not involve movment of matter through space all mass was effectively immobile and mainitained a oerfect state of equiilibrium and order, and not inviolation of any relativistic constraints. This problem proved somewhat embarrassing later when the COBE sattellites showed cosmic back ground so perfectly smooth that the formation of stellar bodies would have been impossible, according to BB theory. Mass could not have congealed into the massive obsjects and in the formative patterns we see. A reassesment of "interferences in the data '" of "near Earth influence", was subtracted out and sufficient disturbances were observed in the background microwave remnant. Suffiicient perturbations were found buried such that we have stars and galaxies as we see. :wink:
 
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  • #32
The formation of atoms, stars and galaxies, in my research, is attributed to the existence of various forms of acceleration. These accelerations are the manifestation of a hidden absolute acceleration (the acceleration of one dimensional space) in a spacetime geometry such that the inner product of the generalized acceleration, a, and the effective distance, r is an invariance.

\vec{a} \cdot \vec{r} = c^2

where c is the speed of light in vacuum.
 
  • #33
Antonio Lao said:
Does anyone know whether the expansion of the universe ever exceeded the speed of light taking the early accelerated phase into consideration?

If not then the early photons must have bounded back and forth within the boundary of the early universe and a few or maybe many of all photons we are seeing now are rebounded photons.
Absolute Time (Gravitation) has not delay, i.e. it is faster then light.
 
  • #34
There is a reference to Tachyon Condensation in String theory, but to get there one would have to have formulated the graviton from http://wc0.worldcrossing.com/WebX?14@13.V7KsbfYf1Sa.0@.1ddf2ad5/9 , and then speak about FTL?
 
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  • #35
Although, from my own independent research, I have nearly all fermions and bosons structured using H^{+} and H^{-} but I still can't structure one for graviton and the Higgs boson. The structures for quarks and leptons and bosons are all evenly numbered. The logical thing to do is to structure both graviton and Higgs boson as a single H^{-}, so they must have acquired their evenness (getting a partner) from a parallel universe which indicates the existence and a connection between two universes at the core of a graviton or a Higgs boson, even the center of a black hole or at the center of the big bang singularity.
 

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