Questions about the Location of the Big Bang and the Age of the Universe

[SilverMain]

Assumed facts:
Galaxies are traveling at velocities that cause very little compression of space.
The big bang occurred at one point in space and all matter is moving away from this location.
The universe is continuing to expand
The farthest galaxies are about 92 billion light years apart or 46 billion radius.

Question 1: Is there a location of the big bang where no matter exists because all matter has vector moving away from this point?
Question 2: If the galaxies have traveled 46 billion light years away from each other but at velocities well below 1% of light speed how can the universe only be 13.7 billion or 26.7 billion years old?

 

[PeterDonis]

compression of space

What do you mean by "compression of space"?

The big bang occurred at one point in space and all matter is moving away from this location.

This is not correct.

Since your questions are based on a false premise, I think you need to rethink them.

 

[Ibix]

The big bang occurred at one point in space and all matter is moving away from this location.

The big bang occurred everywhere - it is not an explosion from a point.

The farthest galaxies are about 92 billion light years apart or 46 billion radius.

The farthest ones we can see are that far apart. Our current best model is that the universe is infinite in extent, and if it is not infinite it is "closed" which means that you can set off in a straight line and return to your starting point (although such universes can also have a big crunch, and you may not have time to circumnavigate them).

Question 1: Is there a location of the big bang where no matter exists because all matter has vector moving away from this point?

No

Question 2: If the galaxies have traveled 46 billion light years away from each other but at velocities well below 1% of light speed how can the universe only be 13.7 billion or 26.7 billion years old?

Defining velocity in curved spacetime turns out to be quite complicated. In some senses very distant galaxies are moving much faster than the speed of light compared to us (and this is not a problem because "nothing can exceed the speed of light" is a simplification of "nothing can leave its future lightcone", which remains correct). In others they are more or less stationary but the distance between them grows (this is the sense people use when they talk about "the universe is expanding"). Either way, the answer is "importing everyday assumptions into curved spacetime will come back to bite you surprisingly quickly".

 

[PeroK]

Question 1: Is there a location of the big bang where no matter exists because all matter has vector moving away from this point?
Question 2: If the galaxies have traveled 46 billion light years away from each other but at velocities well below 1% of light speed how can the universe only be 13.7 billion or 26.7 billion years old?

There are a number of Insights here on the Big Bang. These might be worth reading:

https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/big-bang-happen/

https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/velocity-universe-expand-can-faster-light/

https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/radius-observable-universe-light-years-greater-age/

 

[SilverMain]

What do you mean by "compression of space"?This is not correct.

Since your questions are based on a false premise, I think you need to rethink them.

My understanding is from some reading and internet reading so I know I have a small understand which is the source for my questions

Large masses in space - say the mass of our sun cause space to bend and/or light to bend - for my conceptual understanding i see this as space being compressed around a very large mass

From the sources i have read about big bang- the initial size of the big bang is very small. If this is incorrect I would love a link or explanation to correct my knowledge base

 

[PeroK]

Large masses in space - say the mass of our sun cause space to bend and/or light to bend -

The Sun determines the spacetime geometry. The usual geometric term is curvature. There's little point in changing this to compression.

From the sources i have read about big bang- the initial size of the big bang is very small. If this is incorrect I would love a link or explanation to correct my knowledge base

If the universe is infinite, then it has always been jnfjnite. The key point is that at the big bang it was very dense. That said, the current observable universe was much smaller.

Many sources do not distinguish between universe and observable universe. Nor between dense and pointlike. Which they should.

 

[Orodruin]

for my conceptual understanding i see this as space being compressed around a very large mass

You should not, because it is wrong.

 

[Ibix]

Large masses in space - say the mass of our sun cause space to bend and/or light to bend - for my conceptual understanding i see this as space being compressed around a very large mass

That's not a particularly helpful image. Spacetime is curved, and its often not the curvature of (what you might call) space that is the important bit.

From the sources i have read about big bang- the initial size of the big bang is very small.

You are either confusing the observable universe with the entire universe, reading something that's talking specifically about a "closed" universe, or reading bad sources. The observable universe is the finite region that we can see, and it was once very small, but is not the entire universe. The universe itself was only ever very small if it's actually a "closed" universe, which is not ruled out by observation but is most definitely not a certainty. In any case the Big Bang was everywhere.

 

[PeterDonis]

Large masses in space - say the mass of our sun cause space to bend

No, they cause spacetime to curve (the curvature is in four dimensions so "bend" is too simplistic a description).

and/or light to bend

The paths of light rays in spacetime are geodesics--i.e., the curved spacetime analogues of straight lines.

for my conceptual understanding i see this as space being compressed around a very large mass

This is not a good conceptual understanding.