tar

MD65536, Where? In all the literature. I posted a link to a site that describes the entire universe as a web of strings of galaxies, all being 13.7 billion years old. NO ONE SEES the universe this way. NO ONE. And yet we are content to describe it as "the way it is". To who? Or what? It cannot actually be seen like that. The universe is seen the way we see it. We "figure" it would look that way if you "could" see it all at once, which you can't. Only from the "Godlike" veiw, unencumbered by the speed of light, can one take this view. If one is to be constrained by the speed of light...then we would see it, as we see it. To consider that we are only seeing "an image" of past events is somewhat inappropriate, under the circumstances...as if there is "another" way to observe the universe. If this "other way" is the proper way, and the real way, AND we are part of the universe, and can know this, then we are both in and of something that is greater than ourselves, AND capable of containing such knowledge. There is nothing supernatural about it. Regards,TAR2

MD and Iggy, Exactly. What we see from here and now is real. AND what we won't see or know about till later is real as well. AND what we will never see, is real as well. But to hold an image of something real, that is beyond our observational abilities, is exactly what God is described to be. Life after death, something greater than here and now. But that we can know such a thing exists is proof of it. Regards, TAR2

Iggy, Poetry is perhaps timeless. It speaks for all who understand the words, anytime. I am taken by the fact that this thread seems to have validated Krauss' view, in which case he is looking at it right. And at the same time suggests that he cannot both be looking at it right, AND dismiss the reality of a God's eye view. So that in dismissing the belief in a greater reality on the part of a "believer", he treads on the same "understanding" that he himself holds. And in that, he is not looking at this right. Regards, TAR2

Iggy, But we are talking about figuring out what the universe used to be doing, and is currently doing, and will be doing, based on old information. And no galaxy appears to be now "alone" in the snow. There are other galaxies around, losing heat in this direction. I am wondering about the dynamics of voids and strings of galaxies. If voids are truely voids, there is little material to absorb a photon. That is, the heat lost by a galaxy on one side of a void is destined to be gained by a galaxy on the other side of the void. It will not get lost in the void. The void will not heat up, but merely transmit a photon through. The teacup will lose its heat to the snow and air till the entire area reaches the same temperature. But the void has no mechanism through which it can heat up. Not unless the stuff of the surrounding galaxies gets equally distributed like gas molecules released into a vacuum. This does not appear to be what happens. Stuff seems to clump in stars and black holes and galaxiies and strings of galaxies. Spins around, too. Consider the similarity between our galaxy and a hurricane, in their spiral arms and concentrated energy. From a god's eye view, where long periods of time can be considered a moment, and huge distances can be considered at once, as "local", it is not out of the question to imagine that space itself could be host to "weather events." Just happening on a scope and scale that escapes our notice. Other 13.7 billion year old portions of the universe, could be experiencing different weather conditions, at the moment. Whatever combination of forces and energy and materials created inflation, and then expansion might indeed conspire to create something else, next. If indeed the universe is to be thought of as one thing, that is up to something different than it was before, I have no personal reason to suspect it would ever have a way of no longer being up to something. Besides, a trillion years is quite out of our reach. Absolutely no reason to worry about being right or wrong about the state of the entire universe in a trillion years. I am quite sure it will be able to take care of itself, quite well, with or without us. And my guess is that "demise" is not in the universe's vocabulary. I don't think it could possibly pull that off. Regards, TAR2

md65536, Well OK, Krauss is looking at it right. If he is indeed looking at it both ways. That is, what state the universe should be in, if it is all 13.7 billion years old viewed conceptually from a Godlike no speed limit, model, AND what state each of its locations actually IS in, with the rest of the universe annoucing itself in the actual speed of light way it does. Iggy, Heat death? Black holes evaporating? I am not so sure this has to be the case. There is something else that the universe does, contrary to moving toward entropy. There appears to be some "organizing" factors in play. Stars die, some blow up, but new stars collect themselves from the debris. Black holes may evaporate, but they must do so by emitting some sort of powerful organized energy/matter beam, which would have to be directed at something. And there is life on Earth, pattern and organization grabbed from a universe tending toward entropy. And consider our current situation. Photons from the entire observable universe coming into our here and now, all the time. Had a thought, years ago, when I was reading some books on quantum mechanics and relativity and the like, that it seems atoms try to get rid of their energy, electrons falling to a lower energy level, and giving off a photon, at every opportunity, but can't ever seem to complete the job and come to any kind of rest state, because every other atom in the universe is attempting the same feat. And every atom is extremely out numbered, by all the other ones there are. Hard to hide, from the universe. And I suppose its this thought that makes it quite more important in my mind, that photons are currently coming in, that they are the "real" universe we are created by, affected by, and need to predict the arrival of, and somewhat less important to consider a state of the universe, as a hypothetical whole, a trillion years in the future. The later sort of misses the point, in my estimation. Regards, TAR2

md65536, So lets take an equation, that is supposed to account for our galaxy and the distant one, just now reaching C recessional speed. Is the same equation ALSO applicable to our galaxy and the image we currently have, of said distant galaxy? If it is to have predictive power, it would be to predict what that distant galaxy is going to look like, to us, tomorrow, and would really have nothing what-so-ever to do with what is actually currently going on with that galaxy. Those things, are rather out of reach, and are not going to matter, here, ever, according to Krauss. If a thing either is or is not true, which is true? That the galaxy is outside our event horizon... or that we are currently receiving photons from it, informing us of its position, speed, shape and elemental constituentcy? Regards, TAR2

md65536, But, the problem is, that the universe has this speed of light, limit, that it actually has no way of exceeding. Conceptually, we break this law, when we freeze two distant ends into the same "moment". Not wrong, per se, to do this, but it requires a clear understanding of what is being conceived of as actual and what is being conceived of as conceptual. Take the understanding that "in reality" the universe is currently a honeycomb like structure of strings of galaxies, demarking immense voids between, the whole structure expanding, and being 13.7billion years old. This is not what we "see". It's what we figure it to be, based on what we actually see. In actuality, the further we look, the further away, the further back into the history of the universe, we peer, the further away from the actual condition or state of the "current" universe, we witness. If the voids were expanding and compressing the stars and galaxies into the strings between, similar to a handful of suds, with the voids being air and the galaxies being the soap and water, locally, at the position of a particular soap molecule, any number of apparent observations could exist that would lead one to believe the universe must be in this or that state of expansion or contraction, or flow this way or that. These generalizations however, would not have to hold for every other current molecule of soap. There could be big bubbles and little, surface tension merging and splitting bubbles, stretching and compressions of many varied sorts, occurring, simultaneously, when viewed from a god like view, not bound by the speed of light, and able to conceive of the whole handful of suds at once. As it stands though, we do not actually see what Alpha Centurie is doing currently. We see what it was doing last year, and we will see what it is doing now, next year. For something on the other side of the Milky Way, we see what it was doing 400,000 years ago, and we will see what it is currently doing in 400,000 years. How much of a pretense is it, to claim to know what the universe is doing now, and what it will be doing in 100,000,000,000 years, or what indeed, information a sentient being, existing in the future, might have to work with? Regards, TAR2

101=5 anyway

md65536, I do not think we are fundamentally wrong. Just that we have to be careful about taking a conceptual logical certainty about what has "to be" the case, here and now...later...as something that IS the case from some, one, overall perspective, now. The problem with the ant analogy, is we can freeze the whole line of ants in time, at some "moment", where we can envision the ant about to step off the band, "at the same time", as the ant just climbing aboard, on the pulled end. In what actual way is it possible or instructive to freeze both ends of the rubberband that we have mentally stretched from here to the distant galaxy, and consider both ends and all points between as being viewable, or comprehensible, as existing NOW? It has to be a god's eye view we take. It has to be a "mental" construction, an image, of the thing, that we know has to be true, because it adds back correctly, in retrospect, later, so we know it really had to have been the case in the first place. But you cannot have your cake, and eat it to. If a godlike perspective is an actual thing, then god exists. It is not fair for Krauss to laugh at believers in a greater reality, at the same time as he claims ownership of knowledge of a greater reality. An understanding of "the way it is" from a perspective so great, that it does not require you and me, or even our civilization, or any record of our civilization, to conceptualize. So in comes the "point" particle, that has to now exist, has to be "stretched" to exist all at once, simultaneously, at both ends of our galaxy, if it is to have a wavelength of 400,000lys. This is not like an ant. Regards, TAR2

OK, I suppose the paper and the theory are right. And the laymen audience is an excuse. But still I am not clear on the WHEN aspect of these occurences. I am not sure that a presentist and eternalist viewpoint can be held similtaneously. It seems to me, that one must see the one, and imagine the other, and know how the two are linked. The one ant arriving with the next one due in a little longer period of time than the interval between the previous and the one, raises an interesting question in my mind, considering the wave/particle duality of light, which puts another crimp in the ant analogy. The ants are only particle, arriving all at once. Where with light, the question of WHEN it is arriving, might be a significant one, especially when considering a photon with a wavelength of 300,000 km. Does the photon arrive at the beginning of the second, the midpoint, the end, or what? A photon with a wavelength 400,000lys long, arrives WHEN? Is it potentially receivable at any time within that 400,000 years, at which point the entire wavefunction would collapse? Would the electric and magnetic fields along the whole length of the wave collapse instantly and similtaneously? In the eternalist, godlike sense of at the same time? As in our penpal across the galaxy whose reply always comes 800,000 years after our query...sorry, just overran my brains ability to shift between the eternal view and the present view. Can't complete my question. Hard enough to comprehend light as a particle, if you also have to concieve of it, as having a "length"...geez...I've lost my bearings. OK, forget the ants. They don't have enough of the required properties. But consider this. When we "view" a distant galaxy, we do it over time anyway. I read once that a telescope might collect one photon every few hours from a very dim and distant galaxy, and we record and accumulate these photons, and build an image, that is then presented as a color coded image we "just" took a picture of. As if that is the way we see it, all at once. In that regard, an image of a distant galaxy in a magizine, is NOT how we really see it, anyway. It is already dim enough, to be considered "invisible", if you don't allow for any interpolation, imagination, and compiling of information. Considering that scientists 100,000,000,000 years in the future will be quite capable of noticing things that we have not even imagined yet, and considering they will undoubtably have the ability to record things and pass the information on, and "build" images as we do, I do not think they could possibly be less informed about the universe, including its beginnings, than Krauss is now. In fact, it seems more reasonable to expect the opposite of what Krauss proposes, and imagine a future scientist looking with pity upon the poor early 21st century physicist on Earth who was struggling to explain third stage latent effermosity as "dark matter". Regards, TAR2 Any 4 growth zorknoid would see how silly those early galaxy scientists were. Krauss knows how the universe ends? I don't think so, its only just begun.

JMJones0424, I watched again a few times, did not read the paper again. Krauss' point, that I object to, on basic principle is that he said that at some point a distant galaxy would be receeding from us, at greater than C, and then said "it would disappear". At the point at which a distant galaxy reaches a recessional speed from the Milky Way that is greater than C, it is also true that that galaxy is many billions of light years away, which means there is at least as many billions of lightyears supply of photons, that will continue to reach us, from the long existence that Galaxy had, while it was NOT receding from us faster than C. So whatever is the case, it is not the case that the Galaxy will disappear WHEN it exceeds a C recessional speed. And I am still unsure as to why we don't consider the photons on their way, as existing in and of themselves. That is, that as a photon propagates its way toward Earth, it is no longer subject to the recessional speed of its source, but is only hampered in its journey, by the rather mild (in relationship to its own speed) expansion of the space through which it propagates. With this thought in mind, the photon is continually entering, existing in, and emerging again into an area of space, that is receding from us, due to expansion, at a lesser rate, than the area of space it was traveling through the moment before. For an ant to get "stuck", the rubberband would have to be expanding locally, faster than ant speed. This is not the case with our observed situation. We can see stuff very far away with relatively minimal reddening. The space between is expanding at no where near © ant speed. No ant, will ever be stuck. We are not pulling the distant end fast enough for that. Which leads me to believe, that not only is it the case that a Galaxy does not disappear at the moment it exceeds C recessional speed, but that there may be a case for its photons to continue to enter areas of space that have not yet exceeded C recessional speed. An thusly leaves a possibility that they will eventually arrive here. Regards, TAR2

Alan McDougall, So is it incorrect to assume the C theory. That each of us is a focal point, an entity that senses, and remembers the past, and builds an analog model of our surroundings, in which we can practice and predict outcomes, and take the actions that will work out the best for us, at least in theory. To have this ability is not a thing only humans do. Animals and plants as well hold strategies for doing what is in their best interests to do. They too are tied to the temporal, in terms of what they are going to do, next. C theory would suggest that ALL of the entities in the universe are in this state, of "about to do" what they are going to do next. And they all are tied together by the speed of light, in terms of when and how what they do next, affects the rest of the universe later. In C theory, B theory is incorrect in assuming that the future is the same as the past. It is not the same. It has not happened yet. Not here and now, where and when the actual business of the universe happens. And the same goes for the rest of the universe. Regards, TAR2

StringJunky, Perfect sense. What we have in our heads, is a model of what actually exists. The model itself, actually exists, and the thing itself actually exists. Not everything that is true about the thing in itself can fit into the model and much of it can not be known till later, but there is a portion of it that can be witnessed and incorporated into the model, now. It is that portion, that in my estimation, creates our actual now. That portion that exsists at the time and place of our consciousness. Our individual consciousness is in this way, directly connected, at the speed of light, to the entire universe. That this implies a "slice" of the universe, must also be witnessing a similar "same" moment, is not something false. The rest of the universe MUST be doing something now, for us to see it later. And it also MUST have done before, what we see it doing now. My only point in this is that since both nows MUST exist, we can neither choose one over the other, nor merge them together inappropriately. We have to accept both facts into our models. Our common sense model of the universe is on close inspection, pretty darn good. And I think its only when we interchange the universal now, and the present now, inappropriately, that we get into logical trouble. In my estimation, it is possible to hold an "idea" of a universe, that is currently in the state of being 13.7 billion years old. That this MUST be the case for everything to appear as it does. And everything appears as it does because this IS the case. But the actual now that we witness is BECAUSE of the way the universe is and one can either and both explain and model the universe based on the way it is. And have your judgment be correct. Regards, TAR Matching up our model with the thing we are modeling is what we do. Common people, and exceptional people alike.

md65536, Well, I am almost with you on the photon leaving that object now, in its theorectical inability to ever make up an ever increasing gap...except I have tried the ole ant on the rubberband thing often in my mind, and it seems to me, that still the ant will make progress enough to finally get to the other end, because the faster than ant recession speed of the pulled end of the band where it started, is not the same recession speed of the point on the rubberband where it is currently walking. Though the pulled end will continue to accelerate way past ant speed, if you fill the rubberband with ants walking toward the stationary end and allow a new ant to start the trip on the pulled end, right behind the previous ant, there is continually an increasing number of ants in transit, as the gap between the ants falling off the stationary arrival point increases. That is, there is always the next ant to arrive, who does not care about the faster than ant recession speed of the distant end, but cares only about the recession speed of the point in the band where its walking. There is an ample supply of next ants that can complete the trip, regardless of whether the one that just stepped on the band, ever gets here. Maybe. And scientifically, I would expect that since by this time, the expansion of the universe is causing an object somewhere to be receeding from us at a faster than C speed, we should still expect in the future to receive all the photons inbetween in increasing intervals. What is the longest wavelength radio wave we currently recieve? What is the longest radiowave it is theoretically possible to receive? Does not seem to me, that there is a possible way for anything that ever was in sight, to get out of sight. And of course, we can't see what the object is doing now. We never could. We have always seen what it did before. Regards, TAR2

Well perhaps you just defined my universal now. Because they both said "now" at the same time. That now, in which they both said "now" IS the universal now I am imagining. I explain it to myself as all hydrogen atoms in the universe that have existed for exactly the same amount of some standand cycle present in a hydrogen atom, as a hydrogen atom present in my brain. The syncronized clock you sent to the moon had experienced the same amount more of these cycles, as the Earthbound clock, when both parties said now. the 1 1/2 second delay proves the "nows" were indeed said at the same time, universal time, that is. Each hydrogen atom in the universe should be as old as the universe is, right now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&v=4kmpE5LN3cY&NR=1

Ben Bowen, I will try to be more careful in not assigning truth or falsness to nonstatements. And maybe learn something about conciseness in the process. But I will take issue with you, (and me), on speaking about the image of the thing as not the thing. As if it was somehow less than real. The photons that have traveled from the supernova to Earth are real. They actually hit our instruments and our eyes. They ARE the supernova event, and that supernova event, that happened 10,000 years ago, is effecting Earth, and Earthbound observers, and every surface on Earth, facing the supernova, in a measurable way. One could measure the energy, reaching an eye, from the supernova. And the measurement of the amount of light and wavelength and intensity hitting a square meter of the surface of the Earth NOW, can be actually made. All the frequencies, radio, to infrared, to visible to ultraviolet to gamma and x-ray are hitting us now. We are affected by its radiation in the same manner we are affected by the sun...only to a much lesser degree. I would say, as I sit out on the grass on a sunny day, that the grass and I consider the sun more than an image. Its shining on us now. Not 7 minutes from now. Regards, TAR2

Alan, I am the one that refers, for argument and expression to a universal now. Let me try to explain my thinking. When we look in the sky we see what is up there now. In logic a thing either is or is not. Is a star that we see 10,000 ly away true or false? Does it exist NOW? Or does it not exist? If we see it go super nova, we know two things, 1. It is going super nova now, and 2. it went super nova 10,000 years ago. Which statement is true? 1. or 2.? Did that star exist yesterday? Did it exist 10 years ago? 1,000 years ago? 9,999.99 years ago? Similarly, we have the same situation with Curiosity. When we saw it touch down safely, we know it had already been on the surface for 14 minutes. We see only the image of an event that occured on Mars, 14 minutes in the past. Like when we see the super nova, we know there is an implied existence of that event actually having been the case, actually having had occurred 10,000 years ago. 10,001 years ago, here on Earth an observer looking at that star, saying "that star exists now" would have been correct. Two years later, that same observer saying "that star exists now" would have been incorrect. It is THAT now, that I used in the above paragraph, that I am considering the "universal now". That which is, in truth, currently the case. (even though it does not enter our regular now, til later). Both nows are actual and true. But they are not interchangeable and cannot be used at the same time to refer to the same, distant event in an interchangable fashion. There are events actually happening now, that will not appear here, 'til later. Currently happening in the "universal" now. Regards, TAR2 Our regular now, happening at the speed of light. The universal now happening similtaneously, everywhere, at the speed of thought. All points in the universe are currently about to do the next thing, that has not yet happened. This we KNOW as the universal now. But we SEE the whole universe as it occurs, here and now. And it is not an "image", it is real and true, and happening now.

Bill Angel, Human beings feel quite strongly about protecting and helping other humans in need. Even humans that do not believe in the God of the Bible, believe this. Why could you not have simply said "I would prefer living in a society that protected human life than a society that relied on euthanasia to rid itself of the burden of the physically and mentally disabled." It seems to me you are trying to equate the belief in evolution with belief in euthanasia. I personally do not see the equivalence and since I am an atheist and also would prefer to live in a society that protected its weak, I am proof that a believer in evolution can be a disbeliever in God, and still be a protector of the weak. The only difference between an atheist and a religious person, in this particular argument is that the atheist does the right thing, because its the right thing to do, and the religious person does the right thing because God told him it was the right thing to do. It might be said that the atheist just cuts out the middle man, and goes right to doing the right thing. And considering the lack of evidence for the existence of the God of the Bible, and the great deal of evidence for personality cults, and other humans (priests, mulahs, wise men, sages, prophets and the like), playing the role of "middle man" in "causing" a human to do a thing, that others might judge to be right or be wrong, I would think it more sensible to think that human judgment is something a human can exercise by him or herself, and overrule the judgement of ANY middleman. Regards, TAR

And the universe has come up with surprises before. Look at peanut butter cups. What field theory predicts THAT? If the universe and the hubble flow created peanut butter cups, in only 13billion years, I would be surprised myself, if it just sat around for the next 100 billion just twittling it's opposable thumbs.

StringJunky, Well thankyou, that Essay certainly removed my "blinking out" concerns. However, I am left with an inablility to consider the difference between the universe, the observable universe, and the universe we witness. I am not sure which ones are to be considered as happening now. And which ones a formula or recipe is referring to. And I am having a hard time with "dropping out of the Hubble flow". What forces are so overpowering to strings of Galaxies, that are so ineffective against our local group? And if the obseverable universe is currently here, and that which is outside our horizon is likewise currently here, but unobservable, then, when (if) we are an island "universe", it would be required that other similar islands are also currently existing in the universe, having similar characteristics of island nature with very little evidence of everything else. But these other islands must still exist in the universe, and such a situation, being the case, would in no way signal the end of the universe, but merely describe how it will look, to ANY island observer, when it gets to that state. Several possible ways remain to allow for scientists in a local cluster civilization of sentient beings to determine the nature of the entire universe, even that which is out of sight and radiowave detection. The constant density of the dark energy field could turn out to provide a media upon which the rest of the universe is painted. Bearing in mind, all that we have discovered in the last hundred years, the potential knowledge of the universe attainable by a civilization or other sentient being that emerges in the meantime, in 100 billion years, is quite significant. Such a being, could easily have devised a method to detect photons with wavelengths in the billions of ly long range, and therefore NOT consider the source of such radiation "outside" the observable universe. But consider it the natural state of the universe. Much like we do now. Krauss' description of the fate of the universe, even if true, does not take it, all the way, to the end. Regards, TAR2 Nor force a situation where the beginning of space and time is unreachable in thought and experiment.

Is that a yes or a no? dimreepr, By relativistic speed I mean close enough to C for relativistic effects to be significant. But I think you are wrong in your determination of when the galaxy will "blink out". When the galaxy reaches a recessional velocity greater than C, it is, at that moment many of billions of light years distant. We will not witness that moment until the light eminated from the galaxy reaches Earth many billions of years later. It certainly can't "blink out" here, at the same moment it's recessional velocity exceeds C. If there is a blink out witnessed here, it would have to be an event that occurred billions of years ago. And billions of years ago, the observable universe was a whole lot smaller than it is now, and not expanding as fast as it is now. And not so likely to have galaxies receeding at C plus velocities from each other. Remember, we are just imagining what the universe must be doing now. What we see, is what it did before, and the deeper we look, the longer ago the event was. We can't actually see those way distant events 'til they get here, way later. Regards, TAR2

Delta1212, I like your way of looking at it. I think in general there are things that people keep secret from some people and not from others. I think in general there are those capable of fooling me all the time, if they wished. If I would be told something in confidence, so that I knew something someone else did not know, and there was a benefit, a reason to not spill the beans, I would not spill them. Even though I believe honesty to be the best policy. There are always intrigues going on. Sometimes in fun, sometime with small stakes, sometimes with huge ones. In the case of the Death of Bin Laden, I am of the opinion that it may not have gone down EXACTLY like it was reported, and for specific reasons the reports may have varied from what actually occured, but my president (who is my president, even though I voted against him) ordered the raid and was in a room with other high ranking U.S. officials monitoring the raid, as it occurred. THEY know exactly what happened, and what ever they said happened either occurred, or they are saying for a reason that is ok for them to have, as far as I am concerned. Because any "fooling" that they may be engaged in, is not to fool me, but to fool my enemies. Regards, TAR2 In other words, it matters not if you are and agent, a double agent, a triple agent or a quadrupal agent. It matters what side you are on.

morgsboi, It went down the way it went down. We found him, we killed him and we buried him at sea, so his body could not be a focal point for anything dangerous to us. Case closed. Justice done. And one less viper in the pit. We already conspired to get him. And we did. What more are you looking for? Regards, TAR2

dimreepr, I have seen this before, but do not know what it means. If by "updated' light, you mean the next pulse eminating from the distant atom, that is in a star in Galaxy X that has just now sent out the previous pulse, I can imagine what you mean, that this pulse's chances, do not look very good, of ever reaching the Earth. But the previous pulse that happened just now, DOES have a chance of reaching Earth in whatever amount of Billions of years it will take to make the transit, and it will arrive at the Earth in whatever stretched and weakened state it arrives and that "next" pulse is lined up immediately behind and will be arriving here at the speed of light. The pulse we saw just now, from Galaxy X, had a follower, and I see no reason to believe that there should come a time when we see a pulse from Galaxy X that does NOT have a follower. And we can make the 50Billion 500Billion, I still have the same concern. I don't know how we are going suggest the blinkage out occurs on "this end". Regards, TAR2

dimreepr, Well that is certainly understandable. But you are basically talking about "new" light being emitted from galaxy Z, right now. I am talking about the light that is already on its way from galaxy Z. This light, that is in transit, does not have a way to stop being on its way. It seems to me we should not be expecting galaxies to blink out of existence, but to become slower and slower, and dimmer and dimmer, at announcing their presence. After all if we "see" a galaxy today, we are seeing it at a huge distance, as it "looked" local to it, a long time ago. The actual galaxy does not look like that now, local to it, it has evolved in the mean time. Stars have formed, stars have gone super nova, civilizations perhaps have emerged, and the distance between our galaxy and galaxy Z has grown in the mean time. I am not sure that I understand the basis on which we consider galaxy Z currently existing within the observable universe, and what process we would see it go through as it "left" the observable universe...given the next trillion years to watch it. How could it EVER become invisible to us? Where and how we see galaxy Z is not where and how it currently is. And we are not in possession of any actual way to ever know, at the same time, what is happening in Galaxy Z and what is happening in the Milky Way. But I have a philosophical/conceptual problem in understanding what someone means by "the universe is currently expanding at rate Q". And I don't follow how one could determine the total number of particles in the observable universe without being able to judge as well, how many particles are leaving the observable universe every year. It seems particles would have to be leaving, for there to be a Krauss time, when the only particles left, are in the milky way. And I know of no observation that would best be described as "seeing" a particle leave. What is outside our observable universe, must have "already" left. Everything else must still be visible, and we can look back, in all directions, to the time when the universe became transparent, and we can see every single particle, there is to see. Even if we see them as background microwave radiation. They never "blink out". Regards, TAR2 Thought experiment: A cesium clock with its digital readout facing us is launched away from the center of the MilkyWay at relativistic speeds. It is given a power source and guidance system that will keep it moving away from the center of the Galaxy at this constant speed. We have devised a way for the readout to be powerful enough to be seen from the distance the clock will obtain from the center of the Milky Way in 50 billion years of said travel. At some point the expansion of the universe will be a significant addition to its distance from us, so that it is receding from us, faster than the speed of light. What time is it, at the clock in 50 billion years? What time do we read on the clock? (here on Earth, in 50 billion years). Will the clock ever blink out of view? When and why? It occurred to me that ALL radiation we witness is "leftover" radiation from an "earlier" universe. And quite close to "none" of the radiation we witness now is being emitted now. Even the stuff we see happening a foot away happened picoseconds earlier. That puts any observer quite unable to observe anything that is happening now, till later. And puts a rather high significance on the manner in which the whole universe announces its presence to us, all at once, now. Seems inappropriate to think that there could be a different kind of "all at once", than this one here and now that we have.