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Old 25-January-2006, 11:53 PM
mancur's Avatar
mancur mancur is offline
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Default Looking backward through time...

I'm missing something.

Let's say I start at position X and when the starter's gun makes a Big Bang, I drive 100MPH for 100 miles to position Y. This trip takes me 1HR.

X.................Y

I then instantaneously stop and look back at position X with my telescope (to in effect look backward into time). In doing so, I see position X as it was (100/186,000) or ~537us ago. The remainder of my 1HR was lost in my travel time.

Now, perhaps someone else started in the exact opposite direction at the same time and travelled the same speed to arrive at point Z.

Z.................X.................Y

If I look from Y to Z, I now see backwards into time for ~1074us. The remainder of the 1HR (since my creation event) is still lost.

-----

So here we are in our Universe. The Hubble's most distant find is reported to be an object 13 billion light-years away. The Universe is believed to be ~13.8 billion years old.

I'm probably missing something embarrassingly obvious, but.....how is Earth's travel-time (to its present location in the Universe) accounted for, in relation to our ability to see backward through time?

In other words, is the matter that condensed into our solar system assumed to have travelled at faster than light speeds?
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Old 26-January-2006, 05:53 PM
John Dlugosz John Dlugosz is offline
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Quote:
how is Earth's travel-time (to its present location in the Universe) accounted for, in relation to our ability to see backward through time?
As I understand it, an object whose light is just reaching us after 13 billion years is actually 87 billion lightyears away now. And it was rather close when the light started its journey.

Quote:
In other words, is the matter that condensed into our solar system assumed to have travelled at faster than light speeds?
The objects (gas clouds that condensed into today's galaxies) are not moving away from each other through space. Rather, the space between them is growing. They are not moving relative to each other in the Special Relativity sence.

The total "velocity" is proportional to how far apart the objects are. So small structures need very little to keep from being torn apart.
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Old 26-January-2006, 06:04 PM
peter eldergill peter eldergill is offline
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Also note that velocities near the speed of light do not add like integers.

If you are in a spacship travelling at 95% of light relative to a person on earth and measure the velocity of an object inside the ship at 95% of light, the person on earth will not measure the object inside the ship moving at 190% the speed of light. The velocity of the object relative to the person on earth will still be less than light speed

There are equations to add up "fast" velocities. Maxwell's? Lorentz? I'm not sure which.

L8R

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