The speed of light and expansion of the Universe

[btiffin]

I have a theory, or had until a second ago;

If you look out into space, the universe is expanding at the speed of light as you watch. Every second, the farthest point down your line of sight gets 300,000km farther away. I believe this from using a flash light thought experiment. If the expansion is slower, a beam I send out will eventually have to bump into an edge. If faster than the speed of light, then a multitude of flash light beams will never get to the edge and it won't be the Universe anymore, lightless. I was all good and satisfied with this until I added the back of the head flash light.

Expansion from my point of view is at the speed of light in all directions, as would be expected by just changing where you look. But, the size relative to the eyes and the size out the back also has to be expanding at the speed of light. So when ever you look out in a straight line to the 'North edge' "it" witnesses the expansion of the 'South edge' as relative to the speed of light. So, now I'm stuck pondering how two points in opposite directions of space that I see as expanding, see the other point as expanding at the same rate.

I'm asking here as I was wondering if anyone is currently studying Lorentz contraction and could tell me that the math makes sense, or that I should revisit my belief systems.

Cheers

[Tony]

btiffin @ Mon Jan 24, 2011 10:44 pm wrote:

If the expansion is slower, a beam I send out will eventually have to bump into an edge.

You're assuming Euclidean geometry, which is not necessary the case.

btiffin @ Mon Jan 24, 2011 10:44 pm wrote:

So, now I'm stuck pondering how two points in opposite directions of space that I see as expanding, see the other point as expanding at the same rate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity

Quote:

Special relativity incorporates the principle that the speed of light is the same for all inertial observers regardless of the state of motion of the source.

[btiffin]

Tony, Tony, Tony;

I ask a philosophical science question and you send me an RTFM? I could ask ELIZA for that.

Non-Euclidean or not, we have to wrap the Universe as it expands in the c restriction. That means we are completely missing a dimensional view, in my humble opinion. Brains currently incapable of breaking through thought in x,y,z, and t. No?

Can humans grasp what the fifth dimension even "is". Our sense of the 4th dimension, time, is so completely different than our sense of space, in-out, up-down, right-left. Time just ticks. I'll wager the 5th dimension vibrates and we are still struggling to comprehend the sensation.

I do count time as the fourth dimension, each second that we experience contains all the space versus the weird sensation of envisioning each point in space containing all the time...

I could go on with my quantum-hologram 5D Mobius wrapped into itself for 10, in the 11th container but to be honest I was hoping for a little philosophy along with some math.

Not to dismiss the post Tony. Good info, and thanks. I'd prefer blabbering about it some more though, if there are any takers.

Cheers
and I'll add, the species that may evolve from us, may well get to play in some wicked cool computer science, where All-of-History is as easy as "now", stored in a quantum vibration and retrievable, by vibratum index, on demand.

[bbi5291]

Present theories of cosmology depict the universe as having no boundary, like the surface of a balloon. If the universe were not expanding, or were contracting, you would be able to go all the way around and get back to where you started. But given the rate of expansion of the universe, the effective "circumference" increases by a lot more than 300 million km per second, so even at light speed this cannot happen.

Also, when the universe expands, it is a bit like blowing up a balloon. The new space is created by the "stretching out" of the space that was there before. Distances between all pairs of points are scaled uniformly, or at least very close to uniformly.