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The Distant Universe Is The Early Universe


hazelm

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Or, is it?  The Subaru Telescope has captured about 1800 images of exploding stars, some 8 billion light years from Earth.  They say the distant universe is the early universe.  I once read that no matter where we are in the universe, we are at the center of the universe.  If that is true, then everyone in every part of the universe has a different "most distant".  There seems to be a fallacy somewhere here.  Perhaps in what shape we are giving the universe?

 

 

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We have been told that we are living in an expanding universe which raises the question "what is the universe expanding into?"  I am sure I will be "corrected" shortly in the error of my ways, but from what I understand of inflation theory, the universe is expanding in all directions, which presumably would be a uniform expansion.  Assuming that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant, anything we observe that is farther away is also farther back in time.  The light from an object 8 billion light years away therefore should have left the source 8 billion years ago.  Logically the farther back in time we look the fewer objects there will have been to observe since they were still forming.  No matter how advanced our observational capabilities become, I don't believe we will ever be able to see the "Big Bang" or anything formed shortly thereafter.

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...I once read that no matter where we are in the universe, we are at the center of the universe.  If that is true, then everyone in every part of the universe has a different "most distant"... 

 

My wife is the center of my universe.

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  • 3 months later...

I once read that no matter where we are in the universe, we are at the center of the universe. If that is true, then everyone in every part of the universe has a different "most distant". There seems to be a fallacy somewhere here. Perhaps in what shape we are giving the universe?

My understanding is the same (each vantage point) is entitled to lay claim for, "center of the universe". Detection distance ability is governed by technology. At any given point in time (technology time) distance is a static or fixed amount. Rotating around, in every possible distance, establishes your observation sphere. Outside of that sphere is an unbound universe (debatable by some, I believe it though). Two different vantage point spheres may or may not overlap (if close, likely overlap)...it will never be edge to edge though...or concentric. Both will have some unique observation edges.

 

As to a fallacy? I am not sure I quite understand. I will have to back read everything a few more times.

 

Edit: I think I get it. I understand it to mean if you and I are inline with a common observation direction, whoever is in front (between the rear person and the observation direction) will indeed see an earlier universe. You will receive photons before the person behind. Thus, you seen an earlier universe first.

 

My take on it anyway.

Edited by Kardashev6
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Well the key to this is that we are looking at the light from said location it takes light time to travel from point A to point B. The further away an object is to our location the longer it takes light to travel to our location thus you get a look backward further in time from more distant locations. It could be that we are relatively in the center of the universe thus it seems like matter is all around us but if we took a galaxy near the edge that we would see a void in one direction past a certain point as matter would not have moved fast enough to have moved beyond that certain point in the universe's edge for us to observe anything in that direction or there could be much we don't know about the geometry of the universe if at all locations there seems to be equally an amount of matter that has moved beyond every point meaning stars in every location in the universe from every observation point.

Edited by VictorMedvil
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