On Sep 4, 2008, at 10:08 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> Dumb question for you cosmologists to chew over:
>
> How can they be so far away and yet so young?
They are young because they are processes using old mater (from the
big bang ultimately) and reforming. The bang had a baryon limit of 5,
as I recall, making the early universe a sea of simple material.
It later, via gravity, clumped into galaxies and stars. These
processes were able to go beyond the baryon limit to create matter as
we know it, including the matter of yourself, via stellar explosions/
novae.
> Or, to put it even dumber,
> are there parts of the Universe that are so far away that they havent
> happened yet?
Well, what's "happen yet" mean within the realm of relativity and the
finite speed of light?
But we can see the cosmic background radiation which is remnant of the
big bang.
There certainly are constant creation of new things, many of which
which emit light which has not yet reached us.
> I guess this is a question about scales of distance vis a vis scales
> of
> time.
Not exactly. Its really about The Whole Shebang.
> Nick
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
-- Owen
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