tar

Iggy, In general relativity such and such is true. In special relativity such and such is true. Is there not, that is should there not be that which is true any way you look at it? Perhaps I am critically devoid of the knowledge of which you speak. I do not know when a theory is being applied to reality and when reality is being utilized to form the theory. If we observe the universe from here and now, then what we see is the universe. I am at a loss, from the beginning of this, as to what the rules are, when we use the term "currently" and apply it to a galaxy moving away from us, at superluminal speeds. Such a galaxy is by definition "out of sight" currently. But if we were to be looking at such a galaxy, which is currently receeding at such speed, it obviously is neither invisible, nor moving away in an unnoticable fashion, NOW. That it is an "old" image, from which we have derived it's "current" location, demands a shift, a mental shift between the same galaxy as what it was, and what it is. This is confusing, because one of us, does not know "which" galaxy is being referred to, by the other, in a given consideration. And since by common sense, there must only be one instance of said galaxy, we should either go by what we see of it now, or go by what we will never see of it, but not consider what we will see of it later, by considering it in a state that we will never see. We should, in my estimation, consider only what we see of it now. Measure how what we see of it now is changing over time, and project that out to whatever time we would like to place a future Milky Way scientist, in. We need not be concerned about ever seeing what is currently going on, in a distant galaxy. They are too far away, for that. Regards, TAR2

ACG52, Excuse me for using my own frame of reference and not being specific about it. The three seconds I am using, is a "human" moment. It is our timescale and here and now sense, that I am giving to the eternal observers, stationed at the position of the Milky Way, before it formed. When the universe went transparent, it happened everywhere in the time frame you are suggesting, but I am an observer of the event, without godlike powers to see it all at once. A photon can not reach me, that was emitted during a time prior the clearing. One second after the clearing,(from a godlike perspective), I as a Milky Way area observer, could not possibly "see" further than 196,000 miles. After three seconds (a human moment) I could see no further than 600,000 miles. That was the picture I was painting. Not the clearing happening from a Godlike perspective, but the clearing happening from an observer's perspective. And that is the best way to look at it, because that is the way we see it. Regards, TAR2

Zapatos, Your wifes car has a very small speed, compared to the speed you can run. You can run at C. The recessional speed of a galaxy, from ours is how the slowly accelerating speed of your wifes car has eventually exceed C. If you were to leave the house, after she has exceed C, you would not catch her. But her car itself, is actually standing still, on the road, for the analogy to be more appropriate. In fact she might as well get out of the car, and wait for you, it is the road that is expanding in length, and the distance between her and the house, is increasing faster than the speed of light. I am wondering, under the stationary wife, waiting for you next to her car, whether we should reevaluate the possibilities of you, moving at C, reaching her. The wife and the house, are receeding from each other at greater than C, and the road continues its slow stretch. It is not the speed of the accelerating stretch you need to overcome, as much as the incredible distance between the house and the wife, at the point at which the slow stretch of any peice of the road, has added up to an above C recessional speed of the house to the wife. But each peice of the road is only slowly expanding, compared to your C speed, and you can actually make progress from cobble to cobble. Even though the cobbles are expanding, there is still the same number of them, so to speak, on the road. And from one end of a single cobble to the other, the ends are NOT receeding from each other, at greater than C. At C, you can transit a cobble, even though it keeps taking you slightly longer to transit the next. There is only a finite number of cobbles to transit, so at any length of time it takes to transit a cobble, you eventually should be able to reach your wife. Right? So let me hold in reserve the possibility that I might not agree with the statement that light from a galaxy receeding at plus C can not eventually reach our Milky Way, and put that aside for a moment, as a side question. The actual question does not pertain to what photons that distant galaxy is emitting now, it pertains to the photons it emitted in the 13.7 billion years prior to now. If we can see it now (as sparce and redshifted as it is), that requires that we have been seeing it, since the universe became transparent to us (eternal Milky Way observer types), at that distance. I would imagine that the (three second) moment the universe became transparent to photons, we could see clearly about 600thousand miles out, surrounded by the fog of an untransparent universe. This clearing of the fog, would expand out at the speed of light, as photons released at the clearing reached us. At some point, probably only a few 10s of millions of years, (but let's say 10 billion just to make sure) the first light of this distant galaxy reached the Earth, and from that point on, we have watched it age in close to real time, dilated only by its increasing redshift. That galaxy's actual age, is 13.7billion years old, but we are seeing it much younger than that. We have yet to see it age to 13.7 billion years old. All the photons, from when it was young till now, are on there way here, now, regardless of its current recessional speed, and we will be receiving those photons when they get here. Regards, TAR2

Zapatos, Yes I believe those things. But it is because I believe them, and because we see the galaxy now, that I am sure we will always see the galaxy, when we look in that direction. It can never run out of photons, as long as it exists. And those photos, that started out in our direction, have only essentially three attributes, relative to us. 1. They are on their way to us, 2. They are now reaching us, 3. They missed us on the way by and are on their way to some area of space behind us (should we be facing the galaxy in question). There is not an age we can reach where these three conditions are not still valid. Regards, TAR2 fourth condition. They get absorbed, and inform some other entity between us and the galaxy, or some entity behind us. Which allows for the possibility that that entity might re-emit a photon, analogous to the original.

Zapatos, Well here is exactly the point I am trying to make. The object is not what we see. It is the object's photons, informing us of its existence that we see, here and now. Whether the galaxy itself is now a black hole, invisible to everywhere, even its neighbors, is not critical or even pertinent to what we see. We see what it was at an earlier time, and that informs us as well, of its distance from us. Starting now, we watch the young distant galaxy. It gets smaller, ages more and more slowly, its photons get sparser, and more redshifted. If it mathematically must be, currently moving away from us, faster than the speed of light, but we currently see it, what it is doing now, is not important. That information might never get to here. But every moment of that galaxy's existence, between its age now, and its age when it's recessional speed reaches C, must be on its way here, and we will see the appropriate photons coming in, when we look in its direction. If now we see it at a Z of 5, we will see it age only a year, in five years? As it's redshift increases over the eons, it will age slower and slower, never reaching the age of 13.7 billion years in our 100billion year old eyes. When we are 500billion years old, it MUST look younger than its age when it's recessional speed exceeded C. Either that, or we would see it older than 13.7billion years old, which physics is predicting is not going to happen. The light stream between us, and that galaxy has no way to break. We are connected to that galaxy in this fashion. Forever. 5 or 10 billion years worth of ants are currently on their way here, on that rubber band. And there is no "last" ant, to arrive. There is always the next one, just a stretched wavelength behind. Regards, TAR2

All, I am operating on the TAR model, and that is the only one I am capable of considering. It can and has been modified over the years, by evidence and logic provided by others. I can focus on, and evaluate various aspects of it to consider if something is or is not the case. When my conclusions differ from the conclusions of others, it is difficult to drop my notions, in favor of theirs. However I generally give particular others, or individual others, the benefit of the doubt and demand of myself that I either accept as true, that which they are telling me, and modify my model appropriately, or find an objective view from which both my model and theirs are modeling the same reality. In this pursuit, I am assuming there is a consistent reality, that is similtaneously being modeled by both me and the other. When both I and the other, understand the same thing to be the case, take a distant galaxy for instance, we envision that galaxy as having to be like ours, or similar in nature, and as we can concieve of the Milky Way as one spiral galaxy, that we can view all at once, in a simulated graphic or an artists rendering, we can take the same type unit and place it out, billions of lys away, and consider it truely to be out there, right now, doing something we will not see it do for 10s of billions of years, or in the case of a very distant one of these galaxy units, not EVER see what it is doing now. But this envisionment leaves out an important consideration. We do not see anything immediately. We see it after the photons make the trip, hit the back of our eye, form signals that are then interpreted by our brains and fed into our model. We have to make the interpretation that there is a one to one correspondence between the object in question, and our internal model of it. We think of the thing as being outside our bodies and brain, because it is. We have learned how to interpret this one to one correspondence. It is actual and real. You and I both, have a model of the Statue of Liberty, standing in NY harbor. Even though we do not currently see it. It only exists once in reality. That is, there is only one instance of the Statue of Liberty, and it always stands in NY harbor. How many instances of this distant galaxy must we consider to currently be the case? There is only one instance of it. And it is always spiraling in its location in space surrounded by its neighbors. If we can see it now, we know its there. Right where we figure it to be. If space has been, and will be expanding, we will see it standing there tomorrow at a slightly diminished power level, and at slightly redder wavelengths. Less photons tomorrow, than arrived today, and longer wavelengths. A long time ago, that galaxy was "out of view" of a human eye. We had to construct huge eyes, huge lenses to focus the sparse photons on a CCD and interpret the signals and piece the data together over hours and days, to determine that that Galaxy must be spiraling out there, now. It exists in our universe. One instance only. We see it now, and I contend a future race will be able to peice together its existence so that they too will know it is spiraling out there, in the massive way it is. Regards, TAR2 Its photons are currently on their way here, and do not have a way to disappear. Longer wavelengths tomorrow, fewer photons, sure. But disappear? How could a galaxy disappear. We have reached farther and farther out into our universe, increased our reach, faster than even the expansion can carry it away from us. I would grant future scientists abilities far beyond our own. Especially if we were to leave them a record of what we have noticed.

zapatos, I suppose where I understand there is no personal vendetta at work, is that I am criticizing myself, or warning myself, against considering my own personal model in any way special or superior to the model of the universe others hold. Anything I attempt to put together about the universe is based exactly on the measurements and observations and mathematical models that others, smarter and more hardworking than myself, have discovered, or noticed, or deduced about our universe. That, based together with my own obsevations, and my own deductions about what has to be the case. There is no super huge white bearded magical pixie moving stuff about, and answering prayers. That is not what I am arguing for the existence of. I am merely raising the point that ANY concern we might have of the view scientists will have of the universe, from the station of the Milky Way, in half a trillion years, is rather indicative, of the belief in life after death...WAY after death. And it is assuming that such scientists will be operatiing in similar fashion to how humans operate, with the same constraints, the same abilities, the same time and size scale, and the same basic way of looking at the universe, that human's have. If one is to take an objective view, such as this, and one that does not even require human Earthlings to even be involved, one is taking a Godlike stance, that would indicate belief in the existence of, and the importance of, things that will never even come close to having anything to do with an Earthling. That Krauss can care about such a view, which has no way to be verified, or observed, by anybody, but the hypothetical scientist, of his own construction, is as completely removed from anything real, as can possibly be. And to consider he is RIGHT about it, has just about as much validity or purpose, or value, as considering that the Earth is balanced on the back of a Turtle. Suppose he is right? Should we be scared of the dark? I say no. There is plently of universe to see, for us, as long as we live. He is concerned over absolutely nothing real. If we are to go on flights of fancy, given half a trillion years, there could also be the possibiliy that consciousness the size of star systems could develop, and they could have memories that last a billion years, and they may have the patience of an Ent, or more, and be able to wait for a signal the wavelength of a galaxy to arrive. They might truely consider the Galaxy next door as being currently existant and be able to interact with it, over their vast lifetime, and a distance of 400,000 ly might be considered to these "scientists", just a heartbeat away. We do not know their size and scale and memory ability, and what they will consider a moment. It is sure to be different than a human's size and scale and three second moment. Why make any assumptions at all, about what they will be able to know about, constraining them to the models held in the minds of human Earthlings, when the universe was just a babe, only 13.7 billion years old? Regards, TAR2

zapatos, I suppose where I understand there is no personal vendetta at work, is that I am criticizing myself, or warning myself, against considering my own personal model in any way special or superior to the model of the universe others hold. Anything I attempt to put together about the universe is based exactly on the measurements and observations and mathematical models that others, smarter and more hardworking than myself, have discovered, or noticed, or deduced about our universe. That, based together with my own obsevations, and my own deductions about what has to be the case. There is no super huge white bearded magical pixie moving stuff about, and answering prayers. That is not what I am arguing for the existence of. I am merely raising the point that ANY concern we might have of the view scientists will have of the universe, from the station of the Milky Way, in half a trillion years, is rather indicative, of the belief in life after death...WAY after death. And it is assuming that such scientists will be operatiing in similar fashion to how humans operate, with the same constraints, the same abilities, the same time and size scale, and the same basic way of looking at the universe, that human's have. If one is to take an objective view, such as this, and one that does not even require human Earthlings to even be involved, one is taking a Godlike stance, that would indicate belief in the existence of, and the importance of, things that will never even come close to having anything to do with an Earthling. That Krauss can care about such a view, which has no way to be verified, or observed, by anybody, but the hypothetical scientist, of his own construction, is as completely removed from anything real, as can possibly be. And to consider he is RIGHT about it, has just about as much validity or purpose, or value, as considering that the Earth is balanced on the back of a Turtle. Suppose he is right? Should we be scared of the dark? I say no. There is plently of universe to see, for us, as long as we live. He is concerned over absolutely nothing real. If we are to go on flights of fancy, given half a trillion years, there could also be the possibiliy that consciousness the size of star systems could develop, and they could have memories that last a billion years, and they may have the patience of an Ent, or more, and be able to wait for a signal the wavelength of a universe to arrive. They might truely consider the Galaxy next door as being currently existant and be able to interact with it, over their vast lifetime, and a distance of 400,000 ly might be considered to these "scientists", just a heartbeat away. We do not know their size and scale and memory ability, and what they will consider a moment. It is sure to be different than a human's size and scale and three second moment. Why make any assumptions at all, about what they will be able to know about, constraining them to the models held in the minds of human Earthlings, when the universe was just a babe, only 13.7 billion years old? Regards, TAR2

Spyman, I don't know Krauss. Just saw the video, and know he has a book to sell. I am viewing him as a proxy for people who believe their model of the universe is as good as, or superior to, the universe itself. I think this to be a delusion of sorts. Not unlike one taking an image of God, an imaginary friend, whose modeled characteristics, are thought to actually exist in reality, as they exist in ones head. What has struck me, often in my attempts to understand space time diagrams, and various cosmic concepts of proper time and such, is that what works in my mind, in terms of analogies and transforms and shifts of scale and positions and grain size, do not have to work in reality. And in most all cases, can not take all the real aspects of reality, into consideration. Like the ants on the rubberband, the model does not do the real thing any justice, and one is likely to not consider the problem correctly, attempting to simplify something that is just not simplifyable. The major drawback in considering the universe as one thing, containable in ones mathematical model of it, is that the model must be considered as something that exists at once, where the universe does not operate in this fashion. Consider the photons of light emitted from Alpha Centurie, last year, that are hitting our eyes today, when we look up at her (assuming we are in a position on Earth that would see her shine at night). When were those photons emitted? Do the other photons, emitted at that moment still exist? Currently? Of course, they have to exist, expanding in the spherical shell, in the same fashion as the light of my match. Each moment of Alpha's shining. Every moment of Alpha's shining, currently exists somewhere in the universe. From the very first time Alpha shined, til now. We do not have the facilities in our heads, even with all the billions of cells and synapses and arrangements of signals to model that properly. Because it is not all happening at once. There is not a viewpoint available that can see everywhere where Alpha's photons currently are. And every location in space, within a billion light years, (or however many billion years Alpha has been shining) has to be, currently experiencing photons, from Alpha Centuri. This condition, is not approachable by considering one event at a time. Because each event exists for an eternity, afterward, at increasing distances and later times. It is not a once and done situation. Only here and now, is once and done. The whole universe operates on a different principle. Regards, TAR2 Iggy, There are consciousnesses other than me. I don't know all of them, but I imagine they are true. And there are organizations, where people have gotten together to form greater entities, by mutual plan, purpose and effort. These are real things, that exist, that are greater than any particular single consciousness. And each particular single consciousness, brings to the table a long history of evolution and capabilities. Each of us is all of that which came before. Not a one of us, sprang into existence of our own volition. We are beholding to nature and we are beholding to the efforts of other conscious humans, for our existance. And the universe that we are in and of is vastly superior to anything we can manage, even when we are a million strong, working on the same plan. So there is a real "being" that we are in and of. It has all the strengths and weaknesses, capabilities and drawbacks, that we possess. We have no other source to consider, no other venue within to operate, and no other place to go. Any power and source that does not make sense, that is not evident, that is magical and impossible in nature is not true. That still leaves everything which is evident, does make sense, and is known by all of us, to be true. Which is a substantially huge and intricate, wonderfully incomprehensible body of stuff. This body of stuff is the real God, all the things which are true. Regards, TAR2

Iggy, You may know that I am an Atheist. I am not arguing for the God of the Bible. Not as such a God has been characterized. I am trying to point out the similarity between the notion that such a person as Krauss has about the reality of the big scope picture, and the notion that ALL of humanity has, that such a big scope picture is true. A religious person might talk about life after death, and a scientist would say, that is foolish, there is no mechanism for your consciousness to continue after the organism that houses it, ceases to function. Yet Krauss can put himself in the shoes of a scientist in an unknown but concievable civilization in 850 billion years, and be concerned about whether or not tthey will have the ability to know what we know. That they will be clueless to some grand knowledge that we possess and they will not know the truth of the situation. What is required in this evaluation is that there IS life and consciousness that did exist, does exist, and will exist OUTSIDE ones individual consciousnness. A situation that interestingly points out, that we know and care about this greater scope thing, that dwarfs our individual lives, our nation's life, our species life, our planet's life, and perhaps our Sun's life. And that we are in possession of this association with the greater scope, have a responsibility to it, and are completely in and of it. All the talking points of every major religion that I can think of. And as Michel12345 points out, we may well not be in possession of ALL the information required for US to not be wrong about the complete truth the universe knows. Regards, TAR2 And by all accounts, the universe has not yet done what it is going to do next. And there is a lot of time for the universe to do many things, between now and 840billion years from now. 100 years ago, the Earth did not have the internet. There was not such a global consciousness as we currently possess. Instant sharing of thoughts and facts. I could die tomorrow, and life will go on. There IS life after death. Consciousness greater than a single human consciousness. It is not a pretend God I am arguing for. Its the real thing. That Krauss holds the only key, is as silly and as true as the notion that Jesus holds it. And what the scientists in that civilization 850billion years from now will know about, is all the stuff that has not happened yet. They will have certain access to 840billion years worth of stuff that for us, and any currently existing organism, has not yet occurred. In essence, they will know much much more than us. And my guess is, that if all they will have to work with is wavelengths of light the length of a galaxy, they would have evolved to sense such.

Iggy, You taught me the spacetime diagram in another thread. I get it. (sort of) I am trying to look at this, from a philosophical and scientific and spiritual viewpoint. Let's say Spyman is right, that I need to drop the Godlike perspective thing. Where would that get me. The conclusion would be that I, as a human, have the power to model the universe, so percisely, that I can contain it, and as Krauss claims, know how it ends. That I should accept that all the powers and judgements that 100s of thousands of extremely bright and hard working, perceptive mathematical and scientific minds have the whole shooting match figured out already, and my lonely, layman attempts at grasping the reality of reality, are futile. And I should just fall in with what WE already know, and then will believe, like the rest of the gang, that we are smarter than the universe itself, and there is nothing greater than our intellects. I don't buy it. There is no humility in it. There is no recognition of the overwhelming vastness and superiority that the universe commands over an individual, or 10 billion individuals who have never ventured out of the Sun's system. And we, as a group, have only been looking at this universe and recording our findings for the last 10 thousand years or so. It is somewhat huberis filled, to suggest that the findings and models of the last 100 years, have brought us to the point where we feel we can claim superiority over the universe. That we know everything important there is to know about it, and can dismiss it, as a venture doomed to darkness, and believe we live in the only time that scientists would be able to know all there is to know about it. Seems exactly wrong, to me. We, in reality, have little knowledge, and short sight, on our own, as single humans. We need each other, other humans, to know as much as we know. And together we become another organism, a team, a club, a society, a nation, a global community, that has a memory, much longer than 100 years, and vision way past the end of our nose. Spyman seems to think that we should not talk of God. Yet he believes there is a reality, a universe that currently exists beyond our vision, that we should be concerned about, instead. My question is, "what is the difference between believing in a reality you can not see, and believing in a consciousness you can not see?" It seems to me that both involve an understanding of, and an association with, that which is beyond our individual lives. And without this ability, we could neither consider God, nor consider a universe that exists, beyond our abilty to see it. Both are models in our heads, of that which exists outside our heads. At no point is it reasonable to consider that the model in your head is more complete than the thing which you are modeling. That would be a completely inappropriate use of our heads. Regards, TAR2

Iggy, OK, I will try and drop the rhetoric. However the image of a universe that is currently current, and the image of a universe that is currently viewed are not similtaneously possible, because no object can retain its current status in both views. One is happening to us now. And the others are happening now, but not to us. It is the ones that are happening now, but not to us, that I maintain are only existant from a series of Godlike perspectives, that are not bound by the speed of light. It has to be happening now, from those godlike perspectives, for us to see it, as we do, later. And it had to have happened before, from those godlike perspectives, for us to see it now. And unfortunately it had to have been continually happening from a mindbending multitude of different godlike perspectives, for it all to wind up right here right now, at every successive moment. The whole universe winds up right here, right now, all the time. And its been doing that from the beginning. When you talk of modeling the universe, past, present and future, you can not be seriously considering that you are not taking several godlike perspectives, that are not bound by the speed of light. That is, that the entire universe was in one visible and holdable state 10billion years ago, another visible and holdable state currently, and to be in yet another visible and holdable state in 100billion years. Three godlike views, that have dropped the requirement, for light to get from one place in the universe to another in the manner that it actually does, and supposes that you could somehow "see" the entire universe at once, from a minds eye, godlike perspective. When I was thirteen, I had heard that the light of a match (given oxygen) on the moon could be seen from Earth. So I lit a match and held it to the sky (at night). That signal went out, in a half shell at the speed of light, and is "currently", from a godlike perspective, a half shell with a radius of 45 light years. Places in space 44 light years from here saw the light (so to speak) last year, and all places in that direction, 46 lightyears away will see it next year. That thin expanding half shell of photons, currently exists in reality. It can't not exist. From a Godlike perspective. We however can never see it again. We can not get to the places it will reach, before it reaches them. We can not signal the places to await its arrival, because any signal now, would be "behind" it and be recieved after the light of the match. So now, that half shell of photons has a radius of 45ly. In a hundred billion years, it will have a radius of 100billion lightyears plus, and every place it would have passed in that time, would have been emitting photons back in this direction, at the time it passed, so that we are likely to always be able to see other places emitting photons. Some very many "shells" are intersecting here, now. And will always...in my estimation. Regards, TAR2

Iggy, Makes sense, but I can't help but notice that the things that are moving away from us the fastest, are the youngest things we see. That would indicate to me, that that is what those objects were doing a very long time ago, and I am not sure how you use these observations to determine what the universe is currently doing. Could one not also make the deduction that since the objects relatively close to us, are behaving in a certain fashion, that that behavior would be more representative of what the whole universe has been doing recently, than going by the behavior of objects doing what objects did in much earlier epochs of our universe's history? Why could these facts not point to a universe whose expansion is slowing? If you had an evenly spaced string of galaxies, and neighbors were moving toward a local center, then half the bodies we viewed, would be coming toward us, if they were on the other side of their local center, and those on our side of the local center would be moving away from us. There would be no particular reason for the centers to be moving away from each other. In fact, it seems they might tend to orbit each other, or perhaps a less local center. Now, forgive me, I know this stuff has already been figured out. And I appreciate your patience with me, explaining what it is we have figured out, and why, but it always bothers me, that we can be so sure of what the universe is currently doing, when we can't see even what is happening on the other side of our own galaxy for several hundred thousand years. In fact we NEVER get to see what is happening on the other side of our own Galaxy because of the central dust and possible black hole blocking our view. I still maintain, that there is a certain "godlike" perspective, that one must take to claim to know what the universe is currently like, and what it will be like in 100million years. And this perspective is a different one, than the perspective we have when we look up into the sky. And if you have to decide to take one perspective over the other, to determine what is real, the choice is impossible, because both HAVE to be the case. So we are informed of what the universe is doing in the here and now, and we remember it, and model it, and deduce its history and predict its future, and figure it to both be the case that we see, and the case that we know has to be the case for us to see what we see. I do not think it incorrect to see both, to know both. But I do think it incorrect to consider ones self in sole possession of the Godlike view, when such a view is so plainly impossible. And I do think it incorrect for Krauss to laugh at believers in God, when the universe is so plainly superior to our here and now view of it. And this perhaps is my major contention with Krauss. That he claims to be the first to know how the universe ends, and he doesn't even suggest why what happens at the end of the universe, would matter. Regards, TAR2 And if all the forces in the universe are of and in the universe and the universe CAN be understood to have first inflated, then expanded, is not the "flow" generally from faster to slower? And would this not "predict" a slowing to a stop, and possibly an eventual reversal of the flow?

Iggy, OK, I think I am understanding the assumptions and the nescessary deductions and conclusions a little better. But still this. What mechanism causes everything else to be caught in the hubble flow, so that it will be dragged out beyond our event horizon, eventually, but gives a pass, to our "local" group of galaxies, and will leave them to interact for the same "eventual" term? Why would not the familiarity we share with the galaxy on our right and its with ours, not likewise be shared between it, and the galaxy on its right. And in this way bind together strings of galaxies, against the force of the hubble flow? Could there not be a "tension" that exists between galaxies that would allow for strings of galaxies to hold together, while the voids between grow in size? Again, with the visual of the voids being the air and the galaxies being the soap and water, in a handful of suds. This would allow for the observations of universal expansion, but not demand the "unhooking" of the rest of the universe, from our "island" group. There may be a larger dynamic going on, that would not require that Krauss is right. Regards, TAR2

Iggy, Would it also be appropriate to, using that principle, and the knowledge of the expansion of the universe, suggest that no body which we presently see could be in an earlier stage of development, if we were to view that body later? And correlarily suggest that any body that we presently see, will be sensable later at an appropriately redshifted collection of wavelengths? And that as one body is viewed over very long periods of time (on the scale of millions and billions of years) visible wavelengths will become microwave, and microwave radio waves, gamma waves x-rays, x-rays ultraviolet, then visible, infrared, then microwave, then radio waves? If these things are obvious and true, and viewing a single body is in real time, if it is close, but longer wavelengths as the expansion of the universe carries it away from us (and us from it), then there seems to be only the possibility that the viewed developement of a distant body must be in slowed motion, as the redshift increases. And since we now can see the extremely hot locations in space that are in the stage of development of having just become transparent to photons, at z=1000, and coming to us at radio wave lengths, there should be areas of the universe between here and there at the stages of development, that have not yet formed galaxies? Would these areas of space, between Z=10 and Z=1000, not develop into galaxies, before our eyes, as billions of years pass? And would not the distance of the cosmic background radiation increase porportionately to our own age, as the billions of years pass, here? Until we see to the outer edge of the universe, at which point the hot soup itself would begin to age, slowly, developing into darkness and then, much later, early quasars and such? Regards, TAR2

Iggy, You have me convinced that many people smarter than me have thought this through, and have a pretty good idea of what is going on, and the math to back it up. I will yield, and not try to confuse the issue with idle muses. But, and its a big but, I think it would be prudent to consider that as smart as we are today, there is bound to be smarter people in a hundred years, that have built their world and their models on the shoulders of those who toil today. And it seems a bit premature to call the final score, from where we stand. If I may shift the goal posts a bit, I do not think the final pronouncement of scientists 100 years ago, worked out to be the final word in science, and it seems sort of short sighted from an objective viewpoint, considering the size and age of the universe, that any one of us, would be unquestionably right about ANY prediction of an "endgame" that the universe is bound for. We truely do not know what that will look like. Nor have we a way to verify any such prediction. AND we do not know the nature of the eyes that will be looking, when that time comes. Regards, TAR2 After all, we are children of the universe. We evolved in its presence, and we are capable, without instruments, of seeing and remembering the stars. Perhaps with instruments and the ability to reach above the scattering atmosphere, and given a longer lifespan, much longer than a hundred years, an organism might just be able to sense a wavelength the length of the galaxy, and NOT consider space empty at all. Perhaps.

Iggy, OK, I'll be quiet. We will just have to wait a hundred billion years to see how it turns out. Regards, TAR2

Iggy, I suppose that is my problem. I do not know what is being intentionally ignored, and what is being looked at wrong (as in ignoring the reality of the situation). But you are right, I have a personality difficulty, in that I don't seem to be able to fully trust another's take, if it appears to me, that they have left something out of consideration. And I do not have a particular source of my information. I put together everything I have read and heard about, and viewed and try to figure out what it means. Understanding, that whatever model of the universe I arrive at, is a miniture, analog model of what actually exists, that represents but does not duplicate, the world and universe that I have been informed of. Interesting that you used the steamship analogy to depict that no one person could plan and build and consider every aspect, without trusting others to do their part correctly. Just saw a show last night on the secrets of NYC, and how the rivers and streams and tidal estuaries and such were built over and how landfill and sunken ships were used to turn river into real estate and streets, subways built and pump systems and such, ingenious and grand in design and execution. So many peices, so many parts, constantly changing, being repaired, redesigned, maintained and torn down and rebuilt. Each achievment built on the countless efforts and ideas of all who came before. And at every point, you had a city, and you still have a city, and the one is different from the other, in a zillion ways, and the same, in another zillion. I could not build and maintain a city by myself. Just visit it, and enjoy its wonders. I think the same goes for the universe. Its too big and too old and too constantly changing, to freeze in a formula. Unless of course, you know what it is, you are ignoring, and know it is just a gross simplification you are imagining, that does not actually do the universe any justice. But if one is to distrust one's own model, but trust the model reached by consensus, I am not sure, where the innovations and breakthroughs are supposed to come from. You say that the formula for a galaxy moving away from you, is no different than figuring a car receeding from you. I don't agree. The car, when its close and when its far, is those varying distances, at checkable, unified times, that can be stepped back from, and checked and seen as sequential, unified nows. In the case of the galaxy, there is not a way to see both here and there, at the same time. Thus there is a large question as to the current status of that galaxy, and what one is calling an object, and what one is calling an event, and a severe question in my mind, of when somebody is matching models and when somebody is matching their model to reality. What is lost to us, is not necessarily lost to the universe. And what is true about the universe is many things and times at once. For us to see that galaxy today, and see it tomorrow, requires that the photons from that galaxy that inform us of its size and shape and activity, are already embedded, in sequence and consistently, in the space between Earth and that Galaxy. And what that Galaxy looked like, to us, yesterday, is embedded in the space behind us (if we are facing the galaxy in question) a light day away. That "object" exists everywhere within 13.7billion light years of its actual location. In a hundred billion years, I predict that "object" will exist everywhere within 100 billion lightyears of its current location. And the universe will not be lost to our location. Regards, TAR2

Iggy, You say this and you know it's true. "No. The supernova and the observation are two separate events that happen at separate times. If a supernova at distance d is observed at time t then it happened at t-d/c." And its understood and agreed upon by everybody, including me. It makes sense. But my problem has always been, from the first, trying to figure out what it means. What is t. What is d. What is c. What are these symbols signifying in reality. They are representatives of what reality is doing, they are not reality itself. Let's take t for instance. We have the time an event happens, and we have the time the photons emitted at the event, (a separate time) reach our instruments. Already we have two different times, and only one t in the equation. Then we have d, which has changed due to the expansion of space in the t between the t of the emission event and the t of the reception event. Changed from what to what and when, is not yet set, it is a different distance at one t and the other, which means the distance had to be all the other distances between the two events, at all the separate ts between. Then we have C which is constant? Constantly traveling a changing d in a changing t? I am left with no hook to hang my hat on. I do not know what it means, that space is expanding. It seems to require that C means something different at each t between, and therefore has many different characters, not just one constant one. But you are right. These thing have all been figured out. All the dts and dds and C just being put at 1=d/t. Dimensions dropped conviently out, to get a "clear" picture of what is going on. If I were to only understand how to draw a spacetime diagram it would become clear to me. Perhaps. Perhaps not. There is here and now, which is the perspective from which we view the universe. There is the universe that we view. There is the model of the universe that is held in Krauss' head and written in the formulae and diagrams of spacetime. However smart and capable a person becomes, the model will never be more accurate than the universe itself. You cannot outthink the universe. Regards, TAR2 P.S. We get a three d slice of the universe every moment, and another in the next moment. Every body and everything gets this, and has been getting it, and storing it, for the last 13.7 billion years. In a hundred billion years, the situation will be similar, in that everybody, and everthing will have been collecting and storing these 3D slices, for 100 billion years worth of moments. And each here and now in that future universe, will be able to see a 100 billion years into the past. I doubt that Krauss can predict what this will look like. That is why I question whether he is looking at this right.

Iggy, Well perhaps lateral superluminal speeds is another topic, maybe it is not, I don't know anything about it. My point is, the large size that the supernova obtains in several short weeks, is not possible, in the context of the immense galaxy it took place in. Its "apparent" size, must have something to do with how and when the light waves/photons make the 600 million ly trip to our instruments, and how it "looks" when it gets here. What I am trying to envision, and understand, is when and why we call something currently existing. For instance, I read that our galaxy produces 1 to 2 supernovae in a hundred years. I don't think this is accurate. If we, here on Earth, see a supernova that occurred inside our Galaxy every 100 years, and the stars in our Galaxy are an average of say, 150,000 ly from us, one could suppose that there could be 15 thousand super novas that have already occurred in our galaxy, that we have not yet experienced on Earth. The 5 week long light event of each supernova that has occurred in our Galaxy, but has not yet reached the Earth, is currently existant and "on its way" toward the Earth. We don't consider it "happening" until we witness it. Likewise with the super nova we see "happening" in the Galaxy 600million lys from us. If the close side of that Galaxy is 600million lys from us, the far side is say 600.3 million lys from us, which would mean we need to watch the darn thing for 300,000 years, to log every super nova that occurred in that Galaxy, 600million years ago. And we would have to only count ones we saw that came from deeper within the Galaxy, the appropriate distance to match with our 600million year ago focus moment. And so on. Point being, that Krauss cannot speak about what the universe will look like from here in 100 billion years, as if the condition of the universe can be seen all at once. We are currently NOT seeing what the universe is like at the moment. We are seeing what is was like, before. My feeling is, that now, we cannot see any further than 13.7billion lys, and when we look there, we see portions of the universe just becoming transparent to photons, a few hundred thousand years old and millions of degrees hot. In 100 billion years, we will probably be able to see things 100 billion light years away, that happened when those portions of the universe were a few hundred thousand years old and millions of degrees hot. Regards, TAR2 And of course, everything inbetween, at its appropriate age.

Iggy, Well I try to look at things from all perspectives, as in what does what I see "mean". For instance here is the portion of an image containing a gaxaly and a super nova in it, cut out of the image captioned below. Image Caption: The supernova PTF 11kx can be seen as the blue dot on the galaxy. The image was taken when the supernova was near maximum brightness by the Faulkes Telescope North. The system is located approximately 600 million light years away in the constellation Lynx. (BJ Fulton, Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network) redOrbit (http://s.tt/1lBZB) Now tell me how something could go from being the size of a white dwarf and its companion (which would be much less than a pixel in this picture) to something that appears to be 10s of thousands of ly across, in a couple of weeks? Even if it was exploding at the speed of light, it would take thousands of years to grow that large. Now I don't know how this image was put together, and color coded and the like, but we are not talking about a thing we can see all at once, we are talking about a galaxy that is probably 300,000 to 500,0000 ly across. Anything that happens in 3 weeks, 600 million ly away, could get no larger then about a 20th of a ly across. (which is much less than a pixel in the above view of a Galaxy) If it was not peer reviewed science that tells me this is a supernova, I would, on general principle think "how could it be something happening on that size scale, so quickly". Nothing can happen faster than the speed of light. Regards, TAR2

md65536, Well I do appreciate your posts. And every once in a while, I do almost get it. But its sort of slippery. I think perhaps I am lacking the grey matter, to play with the big boys. Enough stuff to be on the same court perhaps...during practice...but not enough for game day. It seems to me, obvious that the universe is quite immense and intricate, and while an equation can be true and fit reality, it does not seem to me that there is any requirement what-so-ever that reality be bound by the equation. Events in four dimensional spacetime can be plotted and transforms made, but they are gross simplifications of what is really happening. Entities exist, made up of smaller entities, and that make up, with other entities, larger entities. They interact, they grow, they have characteristics, and they break apart or merge into new entities. Many equations deal with "systems", as in how much energy does a system have. I have a problem understanding how this is achieved with a simple equation. Take our galaxy for instance. How can you say how much energy it contains, when its doing the things its doing, at different times? You can't mean anything real unless you can measure the whole thing at once, which you can't. It's too big. And what we see of it, is what it was doing before, if we think of it as events. We have no access to what it is doing now. So already, the activity on the other side of the Milky Way, is not visible to us. Not for 400,000 years. I can not manage that immensity and the consequences. It seems plently incomprehensible enough, just to understand what is happening within our solar system, or for that matter on Earth, or even what is happening within 50 miles of where I sit. And if the universe is currently made up of entities all doing something right now, 13.7 billion years after the Big Bang occurred, I would think that that means, that the universe, as a whole, has not yet done what it is going to do next. All of spacetime has not yet happened. Only the events, up to now, in the universal sense of now. In the Godlike view, I keep referring to. And what makes up our reality, our here and now is the sum total of all the photons that have been absorbed and emitted in the order and manner in which they were, around here, and the entities that have emerged as a result. I do not believe that Krauss can take E=MCsquared and derive from it, a peanut butter cup, nor a human consciousness. He does not know what the universe will be doing in 100 or 500 billion years. And if he does not know that, how can he surmise what it will look like, from here? Regards, TAR2 And we can be conscious of time scales and size scales, greater than our lifetimes and the size of our brains. We have a rover on Mars, collectively speaking. Who is to say that given another 13.7 billion years there will not be a collective consciousness that can embrace the Galaxy as one here and now, and recognize the existence of other such consciousnesses. Or have we, in Krauss's prediction, already acheived the ability to know and care about the existence of Galaxies we will never experience? Seems to me, we would not know or care about such things, if we did not belong, already, permanently to the enterprise, in some very real and important sense. Why this does not smell of God to you, is beyond me.

Iggy, Ok. If Krauss turns out to be correct in his prediction... and what he thinks will be the case in 100billion years, actually turns out to be the case, I would be very much surprised. I think it likely he forgot to take something into consideration. Regards, TAR2

Iggy, Holding a "godlike" view, does not require that an anthropomorphic god exists. It only requires that we can hold such a view, and us, being in and of the universe, in the here and now, establishes that such a view can be held. That there is indeed a reality greater than that which we see. We can hold it in our imaginations, AND it actually exists. This greater reality thing. But that is not my main argument in this thread. My question is, "is Krauss looking at this right?" You say that a Galaxy that is 46billion ly from us now, is trapped behind an event horizon so that we will never see it. I think that is incorrect. What that galaxy is doing now, is out of our reach, ever...but that does not mean we can not see that galaxy now, as it was when the universe was young. At some point, in the early universe the hydrogen that would later become that distant galaxy, was not so distant. Maybe only200million light years away from the hydrogen that was to become the Milky Way, when the universe became transparent to photons. With the expansion of the universe, the light from that young patch of hydrogen, is just reaching us now, as cosmic background radiation, but that patch of the universe that we see now as cosmic background radiation, is exactly the same patch of the universe that is now the 46billion ly away galaxy. They are the one in the same patch. The patch will always be in view, because its been sending photons our way, for the last 13.7 billion years, and right behind the radio wave, we pick up from that patch now, is the next one. The wavelengths can only get longer,and dimmer. They have no way to stop arriving. We shouldn't be making our calculations based on when the galaxy is 13.7 billion years old. We should be basing our calculations on how we see the patch now, and how we will see it tomorrow. Regards, TAR2

Iggy, I don't think we are saying anything factualy different from each other. An understanding of a reality that must exist, from an "objective" viewpoint, not constrained by the speed of light, is a requirement, for things to look the way they do to us. My objection to Krauss' view is that he claims knowledge of the universe's demise, as if it is one thing that can be in a particular state, all at once. It seems to me, that evidence would suggest otherwise. That one region of the universe is affected by events in other areas at DIFFERENT times, depending on the distance. If the expansion of the universe, as a whole, had actually reached its max yesterday, and is now colapsing, we would not see the "turn" of a galaxy that is currently 45billion light years from here, for 45 billion years. So for the next 45 billion years, we will be seeing that galaxy forming and moving away from us, which would not be what that galaxy is actually doing. We won't even see what a star on the other side of the Milky Way is doing now, for 400000 years. And artist rendering of the Milkyway, as it "looks" now, is somewhat of a misnomer. It can not be seen, all at once. MD, The difference between the universe and the die, is that we can turn the die. Regards, TAR2