Neil T

I referred to CMW merely as an identifiable marker point in the history of the universe which we can't see beyond in either time or distance but which we can and do estimate to be a specific time and distance away from which we extrapolate the age and size of the universe. "so red-shifted (and faint) that it is no longer detectable" is the red shift approaches infinity I referred to.

I was under the impression it was sooner than that, which might invalidate my hypothesis (though possibly not) but you seem to be misunderstanding my references to CMB. First though... if this is the case then we can potentially see (via the speed of light) quite a lotmore of the universe than actually exists. The CMB and time limits prevent seeing out that far I know but that doesn't seem to jibe with what others here are saying. Let me see if I got this straight... Per your envelope: the speed of light and rate of expansion currently allows us to see about 17 billion light years of universe but we can only actually see about 14 billion light years of universe because the universe is only about 14 billion years old. That doesn't fit with my idea terribly well, but it also doesn't seem to match up with what others are saying in this thread. And it also doesn't match with what I took a decade convincing myself of about light, that it travels at the same speed for both pitcher and catcher regardless of their relative velocities. But even given your numbers, we are traveling away from the furthest galaxies at circa 3/4 the speed of light (or vice versa). I don't know how to factor time dilation into those calculations but it seems like it should be a factor. It also seems like time dilation could account for the difference between 14 and 17 billion years making my original hypothesis viable again. For that matter, when people talk about how far away distant galaxies "are" I've never heard them be specific about when they're actually talking about or make any mention of how time dilation plays into that. That's a bit off topic though so only respond if it's relevant and/or simple to explain.

How can it be true for any point and any time and still be static speed in conventional terms? Like miles/hour? And if its at "any time" how does a place carry on seeing the light it's already seen?

I left that out because I didn't think it was relevant.Why do you think it is? I'm not sure what all you're trying to tell me but I've read several times that at the rate the universe is expanding the furthest reaches of what we can currently see will soon be lost to us because they will be receding faster than light. That was accompanied by a longish explanation of how that's possible which sounded like nonsense to me and was a part of what led me down this line of thought. But if the furthest reaches of the universe are receding at a speed which "will soon make them invisible to us when they are receding beyond light speed" I take that to mean that they are currently close to it, more or less. I've seen some graphs of red shifts which look at first sight like the furthest visible objects might be about the same proportion of the way to being infinite as the CMB is between us and the big bang. This is sort of what I was saying but the context makes me suspect there is a misunderstanding involved. I have read several times from respected (although populist) physicians that the expansion of the universe will "soon" make the outer limits of it invisible because light from those stars can never reach us.That sounds to me like "infinitely red shifted". But the distance we can see (almost to where light can never get to us) seems to roughly correspond to the distance in time we can see (almost to the big bang). I'm suggesting that maybe that's always true for every point in the universe because that's how the speed of light works. Your suggestion that it's true for any point in the universe makes sense now, but doesn't that make this moment in time special? Isn't that an assumption we ere enjoined to avoid?

I am coming at this as an interested layman and quite a lot of the mathematics is beyond my abilities, but I do read an awful lot and am aware of most of the general principles, so please be gentle. Relevant General principles: There is nothing about local space or time that is unique or special. The speed of light is not about light but is more accurately thought of as the speed of causality or something similar. Odd facts The furthest in time our telescopes can see in time is almost to the "big bang" and prevented from seeing further by the cosmic background radiation. That corresponds with the furthest in distance our telescopes can see because of the red-shift of distant objects approaching infinity. That makes me think: We seem to be in a very interesting and specific point in time in which in which we can see almost exactly to the big bang. Is it plausible that we're measuring the speed of light wrong? Is it possible that it should be measured, not in "miles per hour" or similar but as a constant fraction of the size of the universe? Is it possible that the speed of light is such that it would always reach the limit of the universe in the life of the universe? This should be easy to test but might require finer instruments than we have available but if this were true the speed of light should be increasing very, very slightly (as measured in miles/hour) proportional to the total size change of the visible universe. I've tried to imagine this in four dimensions (which is admittedly very hard) but I think it would mean that everybody in the universe could see exactly back to the big bang (assuming mw bg not in the way) with red shift approaching infinity at that point. A big thank you to anyone who takes this seriously.