Age of the universe?

Question

If the age of the univese is 13 billion years or so, and nothing can travel faster than light, how can the universe be 150 billion light years across?

Answer 1

this morning I read an article that said it might be 15 billion years old, and 180 billion light years across. You do realize tho, that the outside is being pushed by it's continually growing inside? So the outside would move alot faster than the inside. Get it??:P

Answer 2

There are several theories out there.
One basic theory is the light speed is constant in vacuum and nothing can travel faster than speed of light.
We used to think that we can not travel faster than sound not too long ago.

However the 13.5 billion years based on the nearby galaxies etc which are born after a so called big bang. We are in this cluster of galaxies we call it universe. This cluster is 13.5 billion years old.

However 150 billion years I am hearing for the first time. We can not look further than 15 billion light years. So possibly some mathematical error

Finally when some one say something in ashtronomy few theories are very well proven beyond any doubt. like earth is round we are orbiting the sun etc. Many are estimates and unproven. Including the light speed can not be broken.

Answer 3

Immediately after the Big Bang there was a time of great expansion called inflation, when the Universe expanded rapidly. This allows it to be much larger than the distance that a photon could travel in the time it has existed.

See, the speed of light is a limit on the movement of photons in space, but inflation involves the movement of space itself. See, a lot of people have this idea that there was this big emptiness, and the Big Bang threw matter out all over this emptiness, and the stuff is moving through this space. But space is defined by matter. There wasn't any space before the Big Bang.

Answer 4

older than me

Answer 5

humm, that's interesting