Wikipedia: "GN-z11 is a high-redshift galaxy found in the constellation Ursa Major. The discovery was published in a paper headed by P.A. Oesch and Gabriel Brammer. GN-z11 is currently the oldest and most distant known galaxy in the observable universe." Saw this on a science show last night on the Discovery Channel. Awesome. Did you know that it is about 95 Billion light years from Earth? Did you also know that it is receding from us at greater than the speed of light. Assuming these guys on that show know what the hell they're talking about, and they strike me as being that bright, that is incredibly thought provoking.
Greater than speed of light? That is what I question, could be artifact. I would need to read original paper.
It's called the expansion of space. If you sent a rocket to GN-z11 at the speed of light and it could travel at that speed in that direction forever, it would never get there. Every second the rocket would get farther away from GN-Z11. Yes, the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light. The reason for the expansion is a poorly understood paradigm called dark energy.
I have studied physics Just, I have seen claims for faster than light speed that haven't held up to scrutiny.
Dark energy is a whole new ball game. Dark energy is causing the expansion of the Universe to accelerate. It's dominating dark matter. Eventually I've heard it said that everything will disintegrate even sub atomic particles.
Let's rename this thread "Theoretical Physics", because that is what we're talking about here. If you find out the name of the show you watched on Discovery Channel, let us know. I'd love to watch it.
I think the show is called How the Universe Works and I believe the show I watched was Edge of the Universe.
This kind of stuff is why there are so few physicists. They spend so much time contemplating the unknowable that they seldom get laid.
What is this getting laid thing you talk about with a wry grin on your face. It seems like I heard of this before a long long time ago. Come to think of it, it put a wry grin on my face too back then.
Its the old greek way of learning. They philosophie, learn and argue all day long and never get around to doing anything.
Physics, black holes, infinitely expanding universe, infinite time, whew, I think it's time for a beer.
There are millions of people living in their parent's basements who are contemplating the unknowable (to them) and rarely get laid. They contemplate this unknowable using porn. hence, the solution to the mysteries of the universe are porn (and using this logic, there are millions of physicists). Q.E.D
Most of the universe is receding from us faster than the speed of light, due to the expansion of space. Physicists posit that in billions of years, anything not in our local cluster of galaxies will be outside of our light cone, or observable universe. I mean, assuming we, as humans, still exist by then.
yeah, I wonder about anything exceeding the speed of light. Of course, if that galaxy and our galaxy are going in opposite directions, theoretically, the speed of light could be less than separation speed IIRC, the theory is that all matter is accelerating, I guess even on a sub-atomic level, and eventually, matter will annihilate itself from the acceleration. mind blown of course, we can't even figure out a good way to measure NBA defense...and yet we know what the universe is doing?
Interesting explanation of how the universe can be expanding faster than the speed of light. Of course, after watching it and kind of understanding it, I have to assume I'm not getting laid tonight. Crap.
In 1980 I worked with an oscilloscope, the 7904, at Tektronix that had a sweep rate that was faster than the speed of light. Check out the max. Sweep Rate at: https://www.testequipmentdepot.com/usedequipment/tektronix/oscilloscopes/tek7904specs.htm You will see that a graticule is one centimeter and that the fastest Sweep Rate is 500 pico seconds per centimeter. 500 pico seconds is 500 X 10 to the minus power of 12. That gives you a sweep speed of 0.5 nanoseconds per centimeter. That's 500,000 Kilometers per second or about 310,000 miles per second. The speed of light is about 186,000 miles per second. Some of you will figure out why this is possible and others will be deeply confused but it is true.
