Feel small..

[Celerity]

The expansion of the universe is a bit tricky. Now before you go looking at Hawking and Tyson, I want to point out that the blue shift on all objects in space are also appearing to move away because time is known to change near great mass.

The theory of an expanding universe is still a theory. The key here is to abandon everything you know of spacial cognition, and instead think of space as time. What you find is that "speed of light" still applies, but only in terms of time.

Basically, people in New England refer to distances in terms of time. "How far is it to Bridgeport?" "It's about 20 minutes". Think of the universe in the same way.

 

[xj0hnx]

what about the expansion of the universe? it seems to me that at any given time, the universe is a finite size, but when looking at the size long term you can say that the size is infinite.

Size at (t) = x
Size at (t+1) = x+y
...
Size at (t+n) = inf
as n approaches inf.

and for the term "universe" which is supposed to encompass EVERYTHING, if the universe is expanding (which it is), what is it expanding into?

How can something that is infinite in size expand? If it is infinite, it is already as big as it can be.

 

[Briansol]

Basically, the universe is the 2nd derivitive.