Hold up, hold up! “Faster than light speed”!?! How does that work?
Space, as a whole, is expanding.
The very fabric of the universe itself. So, over vast distances, the net effect is faster-than-light expansion.
I thought that theory was common knowledge?
This has nothing to do with Faster Than Light Travel, I see no way that your link, or quote, is relevant.
From the OP:
[quote]
It would be said that we just reside in the area which the big bang occurred.
[quote]
I think that this is the root of the misunderstanding, here. Yes, we do live in the location where the Big Bang occured, but if there are aliens living in a galaxy 10 billion lightyears away, they also live in the location where the Big Bang occured. Every location in the Universe is the location where the Big Bang occured.
Quoth Whack-a-Mole:
The observable Universe is finite, but that doesn’t mean that the whole shebang, including the parts we can’t observe, is finite.
Nothing is being violated here.
First off, some “things” can exceed light speed. The trick is no information can be transmitted faster than light speed (and matter counts as “information” in this context).
For instance, imagine a powerful spotlight that could shine all the way from the earth to the moon. If I moved my hand in front of the spotlight fast enough (but well, well below light speed) the shadow it cast on the moon could travel across the face of the moon faster than light speed. Nothing is being violated here. No information is being transmitted FTL.
In the case of the Universe we have a cumulative effect at work. No single part is expanding faster than light speed. However, every little bit adds up. So (numbers being totally made up here) say that space expands by 1 inch for every billion miles of space per year. So, in one year the space between Earth and (roughly) Saturn expands by one inch. Double the distance and something there will have had two inches added. Keep doing this out to the edge of the universe and these things keep adding up till you exceed light speed even though nothing is actually moving at light speed (or over).
This has been observationally proven. The more distant a stellar object the faster it is receding from us. Beyond that horizon we cannot see although there may well be stuff there. If I could magic you out there the universe would look largely like it looks from earth and nothing odd is happening there at all. If you look back to earth you would see the earth receding at near light speed and about to disappear from view forever.
if by Universe you mean space and time that began at the Big Bang, then it is indeed finite since the Big Bang happened a finite amount of time ago. Some parts of this universe are beyond our event horizon (used loosely) and are not observable.
Perhaps. Indeed there is almost certainly stuff beyond our observable horizon.
My understanding though is that nothing outside of the light cone as viewed from earth can possibly have any effect on us whatsoever.
So, while there may be more, we can utterly ignore it as if it did not exist as for all practical purposes it does not exist to us.
It can’t effect us, now.
But it has major implications for how we view the formation and the early universe.
I am not so sure. I think the idea is that information could not have gotten from one side of the early universe to the other even fractions of a second post Big Bang. That information is still traveling to the other side even today.
Certainly it is interesting in understanding the early universe but I think my statement above still stands…even if you were there 1 second post Big Bang info from the other side of the universe just does not affect you.
It doesn’t effect you, now.
However, the mathematical understand of the big bang effects everyone, in some way. So yes, it does effect me in that manner.
It could have long lasting implications, as to the shape of the universe, the longevity, etc.
Inasmuch as understanding the Big Bang goes sure. That is a worthwhile endeavor.
I am still not seeing the potential for an infinite Universe per Chronos though unless we are talking about a metaverse that includes “outside” of our universe and/or parallel universes and such.
Our universe, assuming Big Bang cosmology is on the right track, simply must be finite. It started at a finite time in the past and expands at a finite rate. So while big by definition finite. To be infinite I think we’d need to suppose an infinite expansion rate or that it popped into existence infinite in extent.
In a sense, we can completely ignore everything outside of the observable portion of our Universe. But to say that it “doesn’t exist” is rather solipsistic, and the easiest way to ignore it is not to assume that it is empty, but to assume that it’s pretty much like the parts that we can see.
But to assume that it’s like the parts we can see is overly simplistic, and while easy, not necessarily correct.
I’m not saying what we can see is unique and that everything outside our field of vision is different, but to assume that everything outside our field of vision is identical, and is infinite is an assumption far too bold and unscientific to make much sense.
This topic is way over my head but I did forward this thread to a cosmologist friend. He runs a site that delves into a variety of topics of an astrophysical nature. He said that he would address the topics in this thread in his Friday article. His site isstartswithabang.com
That’s pretty cool, would you mind posting in this thread / pm’ing me when he does?
I have a nasty tendency to… erm… forget things.
Heck for all I know he might even pop here himself but I will post a link.
Check out his current article on dark matter - he explains things in terms even I can follow… 
What? Did you actually click on it? From the very first paragraph:
Or are we talking about some other type of “Faster Than Light” that has nothing to do with that link? 
See my post #26 above.
This is different and violates no laws of physics because no single thing is going over light speed. Just the cumulative effect adds up to a speed over light speed.
I’m a bit confused. Why are we even discussing the possibility of an infinite universe. Doesn’t this argument deny that possibility?