Spyman

Yes, but do you want to learn more about it? I am not able to interpret a conclusive answer to my inquery in your reply. Lets say that advanced aliens in that distant galaxy are able to turn off the light, just like you can do in your home. When they do, it does not represent a time, here, at the Milky Way, at which the galaxy can't be observed anymore. There is a lag in time, while the previous photons traverses the distance, but there are only a FINITE amount of photons in route and eventually the last one will arrive and that galaxy will get dark in our sky. Tonight, when it is dark, I suggest you test this for yourself, turn off the light and watch if there will ALWAYS be photons in the cosmic grid between your eyes and the lamp, for the rest of eternity, or if it will get dark when the time lag catches up. When the distance between the photons and us are increasing faster than what the photons can travel, then they can no longer make progress towards us, therefore photons from that distance will not arrive here. The cosmic horizon will create a gap in the line of photons and that gap will grow and follow the last photon on our side all the way to Earth. People will judge you for how you behave and not after what you demand. You are currently in conflict with known science and refuse to accept it. There are photons in the space, between us and a distant object, that will inform us of events in the future, but they will not last forever, if they stop coming there will eventually be a moment when the last one in the line reaches us. This is also already a fact, known by everyone. Whats left for you to speculate about is whether they will stop coming or not, but known science derived from observations agrees with the prediction Krauss made. No, you are merrily exploring a mighty dream.

When the metric of space is magnified relative your ruler, then the new distance as measured by your ruler has increased. The metric expansion of space is the increase of the distance between two distant parts of the universe with time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_expansion_of_space

When distant objects gets carried away by expansion of space they are NOT considered traveling through space. Here is a list of current observational evidence we have of space expanding, as have been said already, there is no theoretical constraint in general relativity for space to expand faster than light. If you want to question relativity or space expansion then I suggest you make a new thread for that. Observational evidence Theoretical cosmologists developing models of the universe have drawn upon a small number of reasonable assumptions in their work. These workings have led to models in which the metric expansion of space is a likely feature of the universe. Chief among the underlying principles that result in models including metric expansion as a feature are: the Cosmological Principle which demands that the universe looks the same way in all directions (isotropic) and has roughly the same smooth mixture of material (homogeneous). the Copernican Principle which demands that no place in the universe is preferred (that is, the universe has no "starting point"). Scientists have tested carefully whether these assumptions are valid and borne out by observation. Observational cosmologists have discovered evidence - very strong in some cases - that supports these assumptions, and as a result, metric expansion of space is considered by cosmologists to be an observed feature on the basis that although we cannot see it directly, scientists have tested the properties of the universe and observation provides compelling confirmation. Sources of this confidence and confirmation include: Hubble demonstrated that all galaxies and distant astronomical objects were moving away from us, as predicted by a universal expansion. Using the redshift of their electromagnetic spectra to determine the distance and speed of remote objects in space, he showed that all objects are moving away from us, and that their speed is proportional to their distance, a feature of metric expansion. Further studies have since shown the expansion to be extremely isotropic and homogeneous, that is, it does not seem to have a special point as a "center", but appears universal and independent of any fixed central point. In studies of large-scale structure of the cosmos taken from redshift surveys a so-called "End of Greatness" was discovered at the largest scales of the universe. Until these scales were surveyed, the universe appeared "lumpy" with clumps of galaxy clusters and superclusters and filaments which were anything but isotropic and homogeneous. This lumpiness disappears into a smooth distribution of galaxies at the largest scales. The isotropic distribution across the sky of distant gamma-ray bursts and supernovae is another confirmation of the Cosmological Principle. The Copernican Principle was not truly tested on a cosmological scale until measurements of the effects of the cosmic microwave background radiation on the dynamics of distant astrophysical systems were made. A group of astronomers at the European Southern Observatory noticed, by measuring the temperature of a distant intergalactic cloud in thermal equilibrium with the cosmic microwave background, that the radiation from the Big Bang was demonstrably warmer at earlier times. Uniform cooling of the cosmic microwave background over billions of years is strong and direct observational evidence for metric expansion. Taken together, these phenomena overwhelmingly support models that rely on space expanding through a change in metric. Interestingly, it was not until the discovery in the year 2000 of direct observational evidence for the changing temperature of the cosmic microwave background that more bizarre constructions could be ruled out. Until that time, it was based purely on an assumption that the universe did not behave as one with the Milky Way sitting at the middle of a fixed-metric with a universal explosion of galaxies in all directions (as seen in, for example, an early model proposed by Milne). Yet before this evidence, many rejected the Milne viewpoint based on the mediocrity principle. The spatial and temporal universality of physical laws was until very recently taken as a fundamental philosophical assumption that is now tested to the observational limits of time and space. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_expansion_of_space#Observational_evidence ----- This is what you said: and it is wrong, when distances increase due to expansion it takes longer time for light to traverse this new distance. ----- After 9 pages and 175 replies your claim to be in pursuit of logic and knowledge is wearing pretty thin. When comparing to other large threads in this particular area of the forum, one specific similarity emerges: someone continues to repeatedly make claims against conventional wisdom and dodges any replies that point out flaws or tries to explain why those claims are wrong. From my experience people searching for knowledge and understanding, ask questions instead of repeating the same inaccuracies. It is evident that we have failed miserably in our attempts to explain for you, a model in which space can be expanding such that it can bring current visible objects beyond a horizon from where they can't be observed anymore, such that you can understand it and take it to your heart. The burning question is IF you want to learn and understand or if you simply will reject any explanations that challenges your current belief? I don't see any point in continue and debate with you if you refuse to try to understand, I gave you the benefit of a doubt but it is fainting fast.

No, CaptainPanic asked: To which I replied: What I meant was that IF our visibility is highly reduced as in a fog, then it is possible that we could be able to notice a blurring.

(bolded mine) Yes you do. Taking as granted that C is NOT influenced by the scale factor: how is it possible to state that "Photons are not able to reach us when space between them and us is expanding faster than they can propagate"I'll let you think more about this point. I'll do the same. I quit this thread for a while. No, Michel you are mistaken, I don't see any contradiction with what Iggy has said or what I am saying. Maybe you are reading something into my words that I didn't intend to say or you could possibly be misinterpreting Iggy.

No, in modern cosmology the expansion of space can and does cause us to measure receding speeds greater than light. There is a distinction between a redshift in cosmological context as compared to that witnessed when nearby objects exhibit a local Doppler-effect redshift. Rather than cosmological redshifts being a consequence of relative velocities, the photons instead increase in wavelength and redshift because of a feature of the spacetime through which they are traveling that causes space to expand. Due to the expansion increasing as distances increase, the distance between two remote galaxies can increase at more than 3×108 m/s, but this does not imply that the galaxies move faster than the speed of light at their present location (which is forbidden by Lorentz covariance). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift#Expansion_of_space While special relativity constrains objects in the universe from moving faster than the speed of light with respect to each other, there is no such theoretical constraint when space itself is expanding. It is thus possible for two very distant objects to be expanding away from each other at a speed greater than the speed of light, and this is true for any object that is more than approximately 4.5 gigaparsecs away from us. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_expansion_of_space

My analogy was intended for a discussion of how a varying expansion of space can allow us or prevent us from seeing distant objects receding very fast, as such it doesn't take into consideration any source for the expansion. The water is only a symbol representing space and space is expanding as a scalar, there is no new space flowing into the universe from another outside realm. In the analogy you can view it as the water molecules are multiplying, such that if there are 100 water molecules in a volume and if the growth rate is 10 percent per day then there will be 110 water molecules in that volume the next day, which will force 10 molecules to flow away, on the surface a distance covering 100 molecules will increase to 110 molecules over this day. In this analogy there are only boats and harbours and they all get carried by the flow. It is an outward flow because when the water multiplies everywhere then everything gets pushed apart equally. If space would be contracting then we could discuss models with an inward flow, but as of now observations shows an expanding universe. The only properties needed to understand in the river analogy is that all boats travels with the same speed c relative the surface of the water, that all harbours are stationary with the local water around them and that the speed of the flow increases unlimited with distance from the Earth harbour. The boundary always exists, from the start of the universe to its end, since the expansion has varied it has moved an been at different distances at different times, but it has always been and will always continue to be a certain distance from us depending on the rate of expansion. There is no need for simultaneously communication between different parts of the universe, there is no physical fabric connecting distant objects.

(Bolded mine) But we can observe such objects, don't we? If "such objects" are objects that where much closer in the remote past when they emitted the light that we can recieve today because our observable sphere have been growing for billions of years and encapsuled those distant photons, such that space BETWEEN them and us did expand slower than light. Then Yes, we can see "such objects" that are receding from us faster than light. But otherwise No, we can NOT recieve photons located beyond where space, BETWEEN us and those photons, is expanding faster than light. placed next to Iggy's look to contradict each other. If velocity "has absolutely nothing to do with the scale factor", then it has nothing to do with the scale factor. Point. Velocity cannot in the same model be influenced by the scale factor in such a way that "Photons are not able to reach us when space between them and us is expanding faster than they can propagate". No, I am not contradicting Iggy, YOU are the one claiming that velocity is influenced by the scale factor in the model, NOT Iggy and me. (Velocity has nothing to do with the scale factor, however distances are determined by it.)

It is only an analogy and far from perfect, however for describing the effects of accelerated expansion of space to tar I think it is good enough. Photons are not able to reach us when space between them and us is expanding faster than they can propagate, no matter what. There is a very important difference if photons are emitted from objects traveling through space or receding from us due to expansion of space. When for ever lightyear they travel in our direction there will be two new lightyears between us and them, then they will never reach us. No matter what. That's what "no matter what" means. And while the concept might seem very peculiar to you, it is still common standard cosmology.

I think it depends on the definition of "very large meteors and asteroids", what is "very large" in the context? An Earth killer with a diameter of 10 kilometers or a worldwide catastrophe bringer of 1000 meters across is certainly unstoppable if it reaches our atmosphere and blowing it up would only add to the damage its impact will cause. However an object with only the size of 100 to 150 meters across is still big enough to be considered a potentially hazardous object by our current spaceguard. A potentially hazardous object (PHO) is a near-Earth asteroid or comet with an orbit such that it has the potential to make close approaches to the Earth and is of a size large enough to cause significant regional damage in the event of impact. An object is considered a PHO if its minimum orbit intersection distance (MOID) with respect to Earth is less than 0.05 AU (7,500,000 km; 4,600,000 mi) (approximately 19.5 lunar distances) and its diameter is at least 100 to 150 meters (330-500 ft). This is big enough to cause regional devastation to human settlements unprecedented in human history in the case of a land impact, or a major tsunami in the case of an ocean impact. Such impact events occur on average around once per 10,000 years. NEOWISE data estimates that there are 4,700 ± 1,500 potentially hazardous asteroids with a diameter greater than 100 meters. As of 2012, an estimated 20 to 30 percent of these objects have been found. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentially_hazardous_object The Barringer Crater in the Arizona desert was caused by an nickel-iron meteorite about 50 meters across: Aerial view of Arizona Meteor Crater, September 2010 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_Crater Personally when imagining the consequences of a hypothetical impact of a 50 meter object in a city, I would consider it BIG. Blowing up a 50 meter diameter object high enough up in the atmosphere such that we end up with fist sized or smaller pieces spread out over the continent instead of a full sized impact in or close to a highly populated area would probably save many many lives. The biggest benefit with a direct destructive approach is that it can be deployed with short notice when our reaction time is limited.

Ok, can you give this simple river analogy some thought and then tell us how the TAR model differs and why? Simple river analogy Earth is our harbour in a river, space is the water and photons are boats from other harbours along the river. (All other harbours are stationary relative the local water they float in and not relative the riverside.) When the river is not flowing we will recieve a boat from a new harbour further away for everyday that passes. This is simply because after two days a boat from two days travel away will reach us and after three days a boat from three days away will make it here and so on. (not flowing river = static space without expansion) If the water in the river would suddenly start to grow with a constant percentage each day, then the river would start to flow away from our harbour and the speed of its flow would increase with the distance from us since twice as much water grows twice as much and so forth. At some fixed distance very far from us the river would be flowing away faster than the boat speeds. Boats from harbours beyond this border can not reach us because the river will carry them backwards away from us even though they race forward very fast against the water beneath them. (constant growth = expansion of constant rate) If the growth of the water would start to drop, that is for each days that passes the growth would be a little lesser than the previous day, then the fixed distance where boats are carried away faster than they can manage to go forward would change equally, moving this border further away from us. Boats that yesterday was slightly outside of this border and unable to reach us will get passed by this outward moving border and find themselves in water flowing slower than the boat speed, such that they can start to make progress towards us again. (decreasing growth = decelerating expansion) If the growth of the water would enlarge, that is for every day that passes the growth would be a little higher than the previous day, then the fixed distance where boats are carried away faster than they can manage to go forward would change equally, moving this border closer towards us. Boats that yesterday was slightly inside of this border and making slow progress towards us will get overtaken by this border and find themselves in water flowing faster than the boat speed, such that they now are receding away from us. (enlarged growth = accelerated expansion)

Well Michel, you are still wrong, Iggy is perfectly correct and your inability to understand doesn't change that. If you really want to learn, I suggest you start putting a lot more effort and thoughts into your questions.

I only skimmed the thread so someone might already have mentioned it, but it seem to be in very close proximity to India's nuclear test site. Smiling Buddha, formally designated as Pokhran-I, was the codename given to the Republic of India's first nuclear test explosion that took place at the long-constructed Indian Army base, Pokhran Test Range at Pokhran municipality, Rajasthan state on 18 May 1974 at 8:05 a.m. (IST). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smiling_Buddha Pokhran (also spelled Pokaran) is a city and a municipality located in Jaisalmer district in the Indian state of Rajasthan. It is a remote location in the Thar Desert region and served as the test site for India's first underground nuclear weapon detonation. Pokhran located at 26.92°N 71.92°E. It has an average elevation of 233 metres (764 feet). Surrounded by rocky, sandy and five salt ranges, Pokaran means "the place of five mirages". It is en route both from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer and Bikaner to Jaisalmer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokhran

Maybe Wikipedias list of environmental issues can be of help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_environmental_issues

First of all, you are completely missing the point of my example and I can't even understand what your example is trying to show. Secondly, Krauss is NOT talking about a itsy bitsy tiny winy *few* billion years, he speaks about one hundred billion years, which is more than seven times the current age of the Universe, that's a whole lot more than a few, even in cosmological timescales. Further more, I think that in the context, Krauss is trying to say that future civilizations are unable to use their telescopes and observations of the sky, to peer back in time and see distant galaxies like we currently are. All traces of the Big Bang, such evidence that we currently can observe, will by then be gone forever. They will view a different universe than us and will therefore make other conclusions based on their observations. Like zapatos, I would like to know why you can't accept that different information will cause different conclusions about the same event?

I am sorry Tar but you are the delusioned one, neither Krauss, any other professional cosmologists, scientist in general or any one else in this thread are claiming that models are superior to nature or that we can predict the future exactly with one hundred percent certainty. While people like you and me can have problems trying to understand math, diagrams and advanced models on our free time as amateur cosmologists, the professionals knows about these things, models are tested and compared against reality, models that fails gets discarded. If I drop one hundred apples, I can guess the next apple will fall to the ground too, after some billion apples I will be pretty certain what will happen to the next one. We are currently observing the Universe in all directions, everywhere we look and how far back we look it behaves in a similar uniform fashion. From redshifts they can determine how fast objects where receding from us when they emitted the light we measure and with the help of standard candles like certain supernovas they can determine how long time it took for this light to reach us. When they use this knowledge together they can make a model of how the Universe has evolved the last 13 billion years, this model is far from being a fantasy about a Turtle carrying Earth on its shell. Imagine a man is who is running towards the edge of the roof on a high building, people are telling him to stop, that he is going to get hurt, but he is determined to make the leap of faith. He covers his ears and eyes trying to resist their attempts to save him and shouts vigorously to them that Newton is preposterous believing his model of gravity is superior to nature. Newton is concerned over absolutely nothing real, he tells them, that if we are to go on his flights of fancy, there could even be the possibiliy that Ents will save me. Why should I be scared? You can jump all you want, but I am concerned enough to take the stairs back down.

Tar seems to be to focused on burning Krauss for some personal reason, that he is beyond reading and understanding any explanations.

Ned Wright's Cosmology Calculator agrees with the value from Wikipedia, a redshift of 7 corresponds to an age of ~780 million years. Link: http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/CosmoCalc.html JohnStu, you don't seem to even have a clue.

I am sorry but I don't seem to be able to understand what points you are trying to make.

The singularity is not part of the Big Bang theory and is in general considered to show a limit for applications of the theory of Relativity. There is little evidence regarding the absolute earliest instant of the expansion. Thus, the Big Bang theory cannot and does not provide any explanation for such an initial condition; rather, it describes and explains the general evolution of the universe going forward from that point on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang Extrapolation of the expansion of the Universe backwards in time using general relativity yields an infinite density and temperature at a finite time in the past. This singularity signals the breakdown of general relativity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang#Timeline_of_the_Big_Bang However, certain physical phenomena, such as singularities, are "very small" spatially yet are "very large" from a mass or energy perspective; such objects cannot be understood with current theories of quantum mechanics or general relativity, thus motivating the search for a quantum theory of gravity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_gravity If each galaxy started out with its own little bang then they should be rapidly expanding, but that is not what we observe. We see galaxies of different ages and structures that are all growing by accumulating matter from their surroundings and by mergers with other galaxies. Galaxies and clusters of galaxies are observed to be bound by gravity and not expanding like the Universe on a large scale. A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system consisting of stars, stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component called dark matter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy Galaxy groups and clusters are the largest known gravitationally bound objects to have arisen thus far in the process of cosmic structure formation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_groups_and_clusters In addition to slowing the overall expansion, gravity causes local clumping of matter into stars and galaxies. Once objects are formed and bound by gravity, they "drop out" of the expansion and do not subsequently expand under the influence of the cosmological metric, there being no force compelling them to do so. There is no difference between the inertial expansion of the universe and the inertial separation of nearby objects in a vacuum; the former is simply a large-scale extrapolation of the latter. Once objects are bound by gravity, they no longer recede from each other. Thus, the Andromeda galaxy, which is bound to the Milky Way galaxy, is actually falling towards us and is not expanding away. Within our Local Group of galaxies, the gravitational interactions have changed the inertial patterns of objects such that there is no cosmological expansion taking place. Once one goes beyond the local group, the inertial expansion is measurable, though systematic gravitational effects imply that larger and larger parts of space will eventually fall out of the "Hubble Flow" and end up as bound, non-expanding objects up to the scales of superclusters of galaxies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_expansion_of_space Formation Current cosmological models of the early Universe are based on the Big Bang theory. About 300,000 years after this event, atoms of hydrogen and helium began to form, in an event called recombination. Nearly all the hydrogen was neutral (non-ionized) and readily absorbed light, and no stars had yet formed. As a result this period has been called the "Dark Ages". It was from density fluctuations (or anisotropic irregularities) in this primordial matter that larger structures began to appear. As a result, masses of baryonic matter started to condense within cold dark matter halos. These primordial structures would eventually become the galaxies we see today. Evidence for the early appearance of galaxies was found in 2006, when it was discovered that the galaxy IOK-1 has an unusually high redshift of 6.96, corresponding to just 750 million years after the Big Bang and making it the most distant and primordial galaxy yet seen.[80] While some scientists have claimed other objects (such as Abell 1835 IR1916) have higher redshifts (and therefore are seen in an earlier stage of the Universe's evolution), IOK-1's age and composition have been more reliably established. The existence of such early protogalaxies suggests that they must have grown in the so-called "Dark Ages". The detailed process by which such early galaxy formation occurred is a major open question in astronomy. Theories could be divided into two categories: top-down and bottom-up. In top-down theories (such as the Eggen–Lynden-Bell–Sandage [ELS] model), protogalaxies form in a large-scale simultaneous collapse lasting about one hundred million years. In bottom-up theories (such as the Searle-Zinn [sZ] model), small structures such as globular clusters form first, and then a number of such bodies accrete to form a larger galaxy. Once protogalaxies began to form and contract, the first halo stars (called Population III stars) appeared within them. These were composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, and may have been massive. If so, these huge stars would have quickly consumed their supply of fuel and became supernovae, releasing heavy elements into the interstellar medium. This first generation of stars re-ionized the surrounding neutral hydrogen, creating expanding bubbles of space through which light could readily travel. Evolution Within a billion years of a galaxy's formation, key structures begin to appear. Globular clusters, the central supermassive black hole, and a galactic bulge of metal-poor Population II stars form. The creation of a supermassive black hole appears to play a key role in actively regulating the growth of galaxies by limiting the total amount of additional matter added. During this early epoch, galaxies undergo a major burst of star formation. During the following two billion years, the accumulated matter settles into a galactic disc. A galaxy will continue to absorb infalling material from high-velocity clouds and dwarf galaxies throughout its life. This matter is mostly hydrogen and helium. The cycle of stellar birth and death slowly increases the abundance of heavy elements, eventually allowing the formation of planets. The evolution of galaxies can be significantly affected by interactions and collisions. Mergers of galaxies were common during the early epoch, and the majority of galaxies were peculiar in morphology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy#Formation_and_evolution

Tar seems to think that we should not talk of Science. Because he believes there is a God, a supernatural that currently exists beyond our vision, that we should be concerned about, instead. The obvious difference is that we actually can see and measure reality, scientific models make predictions which can be tested against the real world. At no point does scientists claim superiority over nature, in fact they persistently doubt their models and continuously test them to find flaws.

Maybe you are missing the point, while I agree with all arguments against perpetuum mobiles there is a slight possibility that Dr. J missed that part of the thread and only wants to charge the battery for normal use with lights and stuff. There is no mentioning of any DC motor powering that bike, which likely is converted with a simple engine kit that don't have a built in generator for external electrical components like the lights. Standard motorcycles have generators charging the battery and powering electrical equipments and for that purpose the gasoline is efficiently used. EDIT: Scratch that since in my second read through I googled "electric front wheel" and found out that it in fact is an electric motor with the purpose to help powering the bike. You need a generator that is adapted to your battery voltage or otherwise something will likely get damaged. But that generator seems capable of charging a standard 12 VDC car battery - if used wisely since it doesn't have any electronics protecting it against overloading or overheating. Also it is not sealed against outdoor weather and needs to be enclosed. EDIT: As noted in my above edit I agree with InigoMontoya about the ineffecient use of the gasoline, your driving range will get much shorter.

IMHO, I think you should leave God outside of this discussion, it only complicates explanations and muddles interpretations. Statements like: make me question what you are trying to say with: We humans are capable of modeling the universe's past, present and future, and althought our models could be very wrong it is still we, the HUMANS, that make this views and imagine them, as such we can definately seriously consider that we are taking humanlike perspectives and not godlike ones. There is no God or supernatural deities included in our scientific models of the universe. (There might be a God or other supernatural deities but that is a different question.) ----- Further more I think the thread is mixing two different but related concepts, models of how the universe evolves and the physics of a continuously accelerating expansion. The simple truth is that Krauss and current scientific cosmological models could be wrong of how the Universe will continue but our understanding of physics and nature is definitive in that a continued accelerated expansion will make the sky darker in the distant future. I suggest that you separate your inqueries, as whether you want to learn more about current models and observations or if you want to better understand how an accelerated expansion will cause light to be too stretched out to discern from the background radiation in our galaxy. ----- That light will never reach the galaxy UDFy-38135539 with a confirmed redshift of ~8.55 which in standard models is receding from us with ~1.5 × c. "UDFy-38135539 (also known as "HUDF.YD3") is the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (UDF) identifier for a galaxy which has been calculated (as of October 2010) to have a light travel time of 13.1 billion years with a present proper distance of around 30 billion light-years. The galaxy is suspected to be the second most distant object yet identified after UDFj-39546284, though UDFy-38135539 is still the most distant object spectroscopically confirmed." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UDFy-38135539 ----- As for your "estimation", you are of course entitled to retain your own opinion and continue to imagine a view of an universe with different laws of nature than what we have so far discovered or an universe in which the accelerated expansion will come to a stop due to some yet unknown reason. But our current understanding of physics says that a continued accelerating expansion will make very distant light practically impossible to detect in the far future and our best models from recent measurements indicates that the expansion will continue to accelerate for an eternity. (Note. I did read parts of this long thread at different separated occasions so I apologize in advance if I managed to miss an important point.)

Ooh, that's why the name sounded familiar, after a google search I found this very similar OP: From the very old thread (2006): The Great Error Of Physicists!!! Link: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/16952-the-great-error-of-physicists/

Formation of the first galaxies After the Big Bang, the universe, for a time, was remarkably homogeneous, as can be observed in the Cosmic Microwave Background or CMB (the fluctuations of which are less than one part in one hundred thousand). There was little-to-no structure in the universe, and thus no galaxies. Therefore we must ask how the smoothly distributed universe of the CMB became the clumpy universe we see today. The most accepted theory of how these structures came to be is that all the large-scale structure of the cosmos we observe today was formed as a consequence of the growth of the primordial fluctuations, which are small changes in the density of the universe in a confined region. As the universe cooled clumps of dark matter began to condense, and within them gas began to condense. The primordial fluctuations gravitationally attracted gas and dark matter to the denser areas, and thus the seeds that would later become galaxies were formed. These structures constituted the first galaxies. At this point the universe was almost exclusively composed of hydrogen, helium, and dark matter. Soon after the first proto-galaxies formed, the hydrogen and helium gas within them began to condense and make the first stars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_formation_and_evolution#Formation_of_the_first_galaxies Baryonic and nonbaryonic dark matter Fermi observations of dwarf galaxies provide new insights on dark matter.A small proportion of dark matter may be baryonic dark matter: astronomical bodies, such as massive compact halo objects, that are composed of ordinary matter but which emit little or no electromagnetic radiation. Study of nucleosynthesis in the Big Bang produces an upper bound on the amount of baryonic matter in the universe, which indicates that the vast majority of dark matter in the universe cannot be baryons, and thus does not form atoms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Baryonic_and_nonbaryonic_dark_matter