Can optics see past 13.6 billion light years
- Thread starter Luckyflux
- Start date
well no. it's not just a theory. plus the explosion happened in a spherical pattern, we will still see old stars
You'd have difficulty seeing past the radiation-dominated epoch, which lasted until about 50,000 years after the BB. Even after 350,000 years, the universe was still relatively opaque to light. The remnants of that era are what we observe as the 2.7K cosmic microwave background radiation.
Remember that only 200 years ago we figured the Earth was only 5000 or so years old with most of our scientific beliefs based on the bible. I have to giggle a bit every time I hear someone state absolutes drawn from the conclusions of a science that is so young. I'm sure that our decendants will laugh out loud at our ingnorance. Factual, theoretical, whatever... we know so little. It would be more wise to state that we know that the known universe is 13.6 billion years old... that may be subject to change with revelations that await us in future study.
Well.... our estimates of the age of the universe have been getting more and more precise over the years, not less, and they have not varied wildly for a long time. While we may discover new physics, I think the age of the universe is just going to vary +- on the scale of hundreds of millions of years, decimal points after the 13-14 billion years. If it was significantly younger or older a lot of the science we do understand to be factual wouldn't make any sense. The assumption of strong priors in this case is pretty solid. It's like gravity: we've learned a lot in the past 200 years and we certainly don't know everything yet, but even though we now understand that Newton wasn't 100% correct he was right enough that we can still use his calculations for most subjects.
I completely understand the viewpoint that science is still in its relative infancy compared to what it could become, and compared to what it was a thousand or more years ago it has come such a long way... but to say pretty much everything is going to be ultimately invalidated in the future just because things have been invalidated in the past is fallacy. I don't feel smarter or more wise believing that everything we now know will inevitably prove to be false and that our ancestors will look back on us as being ignoramuses.
Science has proven to be so valuable because it tends to uncover more questions and more truths, not because it makes substantiated claims that are then proven false time and time again. We tend to add to our knowledge and then modify previous beliefs, but once something has become solid theory it's pretty rare that it is completely thrown out the window by new information. Some creationists are positive that we're just one piece of evidence away from blowing the entire theory of evolution out of the water but anyone with even an ounce of objectivity or knowledge on the subject would say the odds of that happening are astronomical.
It's got nothing to do with the power of our optics. Theoretically, they could see farther than 13.6 billion light-years if they just kept looking long enough to gather enough light. But they can't, because the universe isn't old enough yet. The light we're seeing from 13.6 billion light-years away was given off 13.6 billion years ago. That's when hydrogen atoms formed and the universe became transparent to radiation. We can't see anything more distant than that because light simply hasn't had time to reach our telescopes yet.
And the range of our telescopes isn't the only basis for our estimate of the universe's age. That comes from various different techniques that have pretty much converged on an estimate between 13.5 and 14 billion years old, the current "best fit" estimate being 13.73 +/- 0.12 billion years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe
As for the Big Bang theory, its validity isn't directly related to our measurement of the age of the observable universe. After all, we only obtained that age estimate a few years ago, while the theory has been around for decades. The theory isn't about when the universe began, but how. The when is an observational result, not a theoretical prediction. And it's just one of multiple observational results that support the Big Bang model.
Or at least that support the model of a universe expanding from a far denser state beginning a bit over 13.7 billion years ago. What triggered that expansion is certainly open to question; there are various theories, and we'll need more observational evidence to support or refute them. Science is an ongoing process.
Actually plenty of science that is over 200 years old is very valuable today, just none of it was based on the bible. If you read Newton, for example, he never really mentions god at all when writing about his scientific theories, and only invokes god when he is talking about things that are past the edge of what he can do with his theories. This is really common among the minority of scientists who are believers.
Besides, you cannot base a scientific belief on the bible as you state above. A scientific belief needs to be based on the scientific method, or it is something other than science.
The thing that boggles my mind is that it shouldn't take 13.6 billion years for light to reach us from 13.6 billion light-years away. Since the universe is expanding, that light started out "closer" to our current position than the objects are currently.
Unless it's one of those weird "speed of light is relative" things again.....
No, you are right. Those sources of light were very close to our current position when the light originated... but that light has been fighting against the expansion rate to get here. The distances might have been small back then but the expansion rate relative to the universes size was massive compared to today.
But rather than everyone attempting to distill a larger topic into a post the size of a tweet, why not take the time to learn the subject in a little more detail...
Honestly, if it is worth the effort to start a thread asking these types of questions, it should be worth the effort to make sure you get complete answers. and complete answers aren't easy (and can't be distilled into a single post). But they are worth the effort.
Actually, I think it's more that the universe went through a very rapid period of early inflation, so that those galaxies actually were 13 billion light-years from us when they formed, and today they'd be even farther away, if they still exist. We're seeing them where they were back then. Just like how, when a jet flies overhead, you hear the sound coming from behind it, from where it was when it emitted that sound rather than where it is when the sound reaches you. Maybe the expansion of the universe increases that distance to some extent, but it's not the only factor.
I happen to have a physics degree, so I probably know more about the subject than any YouTube video could possibly teach. I choose to use qualifiers like "I think" to acknowledge that my memory may be a little rusty and to avoid sounding like a know-it-all. It just goes to show, try to be reasonable and polite on the Internet and somebody's bound to interpret it negatively.
Don't worry, I'm not going to take your post too personally... if I had posted what you had posted, I'd be pretty upset too (which is why I was hoping you'd make your own corrections).
Obviously you're more concerned with saving face than having the correct information. I'll keep that in mind next time.
Obviously you're more concerned with saving face than having the correct information. I'll keep that in mind next time.
It sure didn't help you in that post any, so why bring it up?
Let's not get nasty with each other, there are a lot of valid points being made here. My only point is, that tho we're not altogether wrong, we're not altogether right either. When the first Dinosaur bone was discovered in England (it was half of a thigh bone) it was assumed to be the petrified scrotum of an ancient giant (now you have to laugh at that). Physists have found that even Einstien got it wrong, and his theories about gravity lose ground in the sub-atomic world. Though he was smarter that anyone of us shall ever be, it just goes to prove that it's going to be a long time before we have all the answers.
As far as the religious aspect, I didn't say that science was based on religious beliefs (read the post!!!) I simply stated that most of what man believed a few hundred years back was based on what he had been taught by the bible. It was one of the few ancient writings generally accepted by the population as the truth, and no one at that time was going to argue with church orthodoxy.
As far as degrees go, I have two (2), but my thermometer has many more than that and look where it gets stuck.(lol)
As far as the religious aspect, I didn't say that science was based on religious beliefs (read the post!!!) I simply stated that most of what man believed a few hundred years back was based on what he had been taught by the bible. It was one of the few ancient writings generally accepted by the population as the truth, and no one at that time was going to argue with church orthodoxy.
As far as degrees go, I have two (2), but my thermometer has many more than that and look where it gets stuck.(lol)
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My bad Doran. When you said, "with most of our scientific beliefs based on the bible," I thought you were saying that most of our scientific beliefs were based on the bible. I was just pointing out that if it is not based on the scientific method, it is something other than science.
I would agree that many people held and still hold non scientific beliefs based on the bible if that is what you meant to say.
I would agree that many people held and still hold non scientific beliefs based on the bible if that is what you meant to say.
