I have a question about the Big Bang, my curiosity piqued from reading The Elegant Universe recently. I know that nothing can go faster than light, and I do not doubt this, but how could the universe have expanded to 10 to the 30th power in such a small period of time without violating this principle? Is it simply because the universe was so itty-bitty at the time that this impressive expansion isn’t really all that big in actuality? Also, stars, galaxies, etc. way out in the boondocks of space are quite red-shifted, which I believe indicates expansion. It was also mentioned that the universe is curved in on itself; could the red-shifting possibly be evidence of this curvature? Like looking at a a design on a ball?
Space itself is expanding. No thing can travel faster than light. But space is not a thing. Even now, objects far enough away are receding faster than c. They are not traveling faster than light in their vicinity.
The objects that are receding faster than light are now outside our observable universe;
we will never see them, or recieve any information of any kind from them
(assuming that faster than light communication is impossible, which seems likely).
It doesn’t seem likely that the universe is curved to any great extent, despite some indications that Homer was right and it has a donut shape on a scale larger than the observable universe.
SF worldbuilding at
http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html