2007-01-16 18:37:00 · 8 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
The claim is made.
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy00/phy00990.htm
I want to know why, in laymans terms.
2007-01-16 18:51:55 · update #1
As with many of these things, the basis for thinking the universe expanded faster than the speed of light is direct experimental observation. We can make observations that date parts of the universe and we can project the rate of expansion from what we see now, and when you multiply one by the other (age by rate of expansion) you end up with a universe that is much smaller than the one we see.
So at some stage the universe must have been expanding faster than now, and it turns out it must have been expanding very fast. But when we look at very distant galaxies we are looking a long way back in time, and nothing odd is going on with what we look at, so the period of rapid expansion must have been a very long time ago - very shortly after the big bang - and must have been very short. Otherwise we would be able to see it.
So the theory of inflation came into being.
The only tiny flaw with inflation is that we have no theory of how it happened. However, we do know that it would not violate the limit of the speed of light on things in the universe, because what we are talking about is an expansion of space and time itself.
It is always very tempting to think that space time is lovely and flat, just like a map in the car. However, we know this is false just as you would realise that your map in the car is false (if you drove far enough you would go right round the Earth and arrive where you started). General relativity tells us that gravity curves space time, and that changes in gravity can propagate through space time as waves. So it is clear space time can change in this sort of way.
2007-01-16 19:40:31 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
Okay, first of all, the "inflationary era" is not the same as the "big bang", but just a short moment during the Big Bang, approximately 10^-35 seconds long, after which the size of the universe was only about the size of a beach ball. It's important to make this distinction. Now, things cannot go faster than the speed of light IN this universe, but there is no such restriction on the size expansion of this universe, because it's not really "expanding into something", like some kind of a bomb explosion. The best analogy I can give right now describing this "inflationary" moment is to imagine a pond of supercooled water, below freezing and yet still liquid (yes, this can be done). If you dropped a pin into the pond, it would nearly instantaneously freeze over. Something like this happened, and that is the reason why with COBE measurements of the microwave background of the universe today, we see very little anisotropy of the radiation, but just enough, as predicted by the inflationary hypothesis.
2007-01-17 03:14:12 · answer #2 · answered by Scythian1950 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
This is a theory that was postulated by D Gouth in the 1980s
The principal that limits the speed of light existed when the first space-time pulse came into existence,
If it inflated ,why would it stop? and not continue to infinity?
The universe expanded into nothing,it:s acceleration had to be controlled by something.
The process of acceleration is an event,which takes time.it must have enough time to occur or it can"t progress.
It took one thirty-billionths of a second to accelerate to the speed of light then the acceleration stopped.
2007-01-18 08:53:15 · answer #3 · answered by Billy Butthead 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
hey, captain getalife.
get a life.
and we don't have any reason to believe it did travel faster than the speed of light right?
update: ahh I see how that would happen. but it does say that it didn't necessarily go faster than the speed of light since space also expanded. so it was the universe that grew, not just matter traveling away from itself. like drawing a picture on a balloon and then blowing it up so the picture just grows along with the ballon?
p.s. that stephen hawking needs to get up outta that chair and play some hoops or something. he thinks too much.
update again: thanks scythian for that wonderful explanation in laymans terms. I got that something freezes in a pond that has freezing water... wait, not frozen. so that has what to do with the big bang and matter traveling faster than light?
2007-01-17 02:45:41 · answer #4 · answered by collinchristine_edwards 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Well, when I created the universe, shortly afterward I threw my shoe at my divine brother and it hit him in the face before he saw it.
2007-01-17 02:41:39 · answer #5 · answered by Captain Getalife 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
None. As far as I know, this claim is not made.
2007-01-17 02:45:56 · answer #6 · answered by RjKardo 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
None
2007-01-17 02:52:51 · answer #7 · answered by Mez 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
None .. no one was there.
2007-01-17 07:21:10 · answer #8 · answered by Gene 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋