Reply #1: Hmm...I've been trying to understand something about this [View All]

[htuttle]

We're getting signals from the Big Bang now, which of course means that the radiation from it has been heading our way for a LONG time at the speed of light.

Yet, here we are, quite a distance from 'where' (and 'when') the Big Bang occurred. How did we beat the radiation to get here?

It seems to be that at first glance, the expansion of space/time that brought us to our current location must have been faster than the speed of light (since we beat the radiation from the Big Bang to this point by billions of years, apparently).

However, since there would be nothing that expanding space/time was traveling in relation TO (at least not in the same 3d universe that was expanding), nothing actually was travelling faster than the speed of light in relation to anyting else -- just in relation to the 'void' that existed before space/time expanded to this point, and it doesn't 'exist' as we would think of it. I did not phrase this paragraph very well...

?

So, would it be best to understand the speed of light limit as "nothing can travel THROUGH our 3d space/time faster than the speed of light", while if it were possible to observe the 3d universe from 'outside', the 'edge' of it might well be considered to be going FTL? (assuming one could exist outside the universe, assuming the universe is actually finite but bounded?, and assuming one had a way of measuring a meaningful velocity without space/time coordinates -- which is probably impossible..?).

My head hurts. I shouldn't have thought about this while still on my first cup of coffee...