Did the expansion rate of the universe exceed lightspeed?

First, note Cavediver's correction to my description. While the net effect on an actually particle would be nil, space/time was still curved to essentially the same high degree everywhere.Second, just as there's no center to the universe today, there was no center to the universe at the Big Bang, either. No matter which point within the Big Bang you choose, there were equal amounts of space stretching off in all directions.If you're having trouble imagining a tiny pea-sized and rapidly expanding Big Bang that actually has no edges, you're not alone. Maybe someone can suggest a useful visualization.--Percy

My understanding is that mass is a property of energy. The faster an object goes, the more energy it has which corresponds to a loss of mass.So massless particles such as photons travel at the speed of light. Anything traveling faster than the speed of light has a negative mass, which is, for me, a bit hard to grasp.Edited by LucyTheApe, : Misquote

Puzzling! The way is see it is different. If you've got curvature you've got gravity. If you've got gravity you've got mass. If you've got mass you've got a center of gravity.My simple consideration of symmetry produces a different result. If I consider a pea sized universe in two ways. The first is a pea sized universe where the particles of mass sit on surface of the pea. The particles will be accelerated towards the center of the pea as that is where the center of gravity is (irrespective of whether there is any particles within the pea). The second is a pea that is composed of particles throughout. In this case the center of gravity is in the same place and the particles will be accelerated towards it. Where is my logic wrong?Edited by LucyTheApe, : I can't handle unmatched parenthesis

Your logic is wrong in that (if this is meant to be analogous to the universe according to GR) there is no "center of the the pea." The surface of the pea is all that exists. There is no "inside the pea." There is no "outside the pea." All that exists is the surface of the pea.Edited by Chiroptera, : Oops. Typo.

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LucyTheApe writes

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My simple consideration of symmetry produces a different result. If I consider a pea sized universe in two ways. The first is a pea sized universe where the particles of mass sit on surface of the pea. The particles will be accelerated towards the center of the pea as that is where the center of gravity is (irrespective of whether there is any particles within the pea). The second is a pea that is composed of particles throughout. In this case the center of gravity is in the same place and the particles will be accelerated towards it. Where is my logic wrong?

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Your logic is wrong at the most basic level, that you are still thinking in 3 dimensional terms.Remember that the pea is just an analogy. It helps for you to have read the book Flatland by Edwin Abbott. He describes a 2-dimensional world where inhabitants have problem understanding a 3-dimensional universe. He also describes a 1-dimensional world where inhabitants of that world have trouble understanding a 2-dimensional universe.It helps to realize your own limitation in dealing with extra-dimensional perceptions.When physicists refer to a pea size universe, they are only referring to the surface of the pea. As far as the surface of the pea is concern, there is no center. Apply this to our 3 spatial dimensional universe. There is no center. There was no center. There will never be a center. Just like the surface of an expanding sphere. There was no center. There is no center. There will never be a center.

You don't mean loss, do you? Actually, the facts are harder to grasp then that.A particle travelling faster than light needs to have the square of its mass negative. This means that its mass is ... imaginary. (The imaginary numbers are the square roots of negative real numbers. If you've not come across them, you might want to look them up.)Now, the way to cope with this is to adopt a positivist attitude. What does it mean, you ask, to have an imaginary mass? Well, it means that if you plug an imaginary number into the equations of physics where it says m, then they will describe how a faster-than-light particle behaves and what we'd observe if we looked at one. Hence, it is a perfectly meaningful concept: "What does it mean for a particle to have imaginary mass?" --- "It means that it'll behave like this, unlike particles with real mass, which behave like that."After all, how do we ascertain that a particle has real non-zero mass? Because it behaves like the laws of physics predict that it would if it did. It's easier to turn the predictions back into your everyday experience only because you hang out with stuff with real mass.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

LucyTheApe writes

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My understanding is that mass is a property of energy. The faster an object goes, the more energy it has which corresponds to a loss of mass.

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In classical mechanics, the energy an object has based on its speed is its kinetic energy given by the following equation.KE = (1/2)*m*v^2Where KE = kinetic energy, m is mass, and v is velocity.In Einsteinian physics, the equation is given as...E = (m*c^2)/{(1-v^2/c^2)^(1/2)}In other words, the denominator will be an imaginary number if the velocity of the mass is greater than the speed of light.It really helps if you try to understand the mathematical models rather than stumbling in the dark with layman's terms.

My favorite equivalent unit: 11m/year/AU. It allows one to see how minor the expansion is in local space.

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In other words, the universe expands 6 billionths of a percent per year. Did I do the math right, because that actually sounds like quite a bit. It means a fifth of a mile per year is added per distance to Pluto, though of course the distance itself doesn't change since Pluto is gravitationally bound to the sun.--Percy

It is enough to drag the Earth out of its orbit by the diameter of a hydrogen atom.

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i assume that there is then a relationship between time and space then.so if you were going at .999 the speed of light would your time be .001 of normal? if so, from your frame of reference you sure would be MOVING.that would be a vector almost completely in the direction of space.now,if from your frame of reference you were going .500 the speed of light, and .500 in the time direction(your frame of reference would be the speed of light, also what you describes as 45 degrees.)would the world see you as moving near the speed of light, or are they only going to see the .5 speed of light.basically what i am asking is, is there any way to find an almost equilibrium that you can travel at, and when you come back, you aged around as much as the people on earth.i believe that what you say is true, but for a complete civilization this very greatly effects what we can learn. in the future there could be "time jumpers" that do what they can to learn as much as possible while the world ages behind them. crazy!

Might I suggest you learn algebra and calculus first before discussing this issue? It's clear from your post that you don't even understand basic algebra and calculus, let alone time dilation.

You're making a simple geometric error. In a simple x/y coordinate system where the length of a line is 1 with one end at the origin and pointing in any direction into the positive quadrant, when the x and y coordinates are equal they are not .5 but .707.--Percy

Yes, there most certainly is a relationship between time and space - this is the heart of Special Relativity. However, the relationship is based upon hyperbolic geometry, so at .999c, your time would be the square root of (1 - .999^2) as a fraction of normal, so about .045At .5c, your 4-velocity would be projected .86 into time and .86 into space. But an observer would simply see you travelling at .5c - if he looked closely, he would see your time having slowed, by watching your watch tick, or your heart beat. He would also see your length contracted in the direction of travel. Both of these are the result of the above space and time projections.There is no way to travel such that you age the same as the person who stays behind. The longest path through space-time is that that experiences no acceleration. Any acceleration will always shorten the path, and hence reduce your age between two events. Yes, it is very tempting to jump through time to see what happens - I'd certainly be tempted, though given the current state of our space-faring technology, I don't hold much hope for a near-c spacecraft in my lifetime! Alternatively, you can get the same effect by hanging around a black hole. Sadly, to 'hang' around a black hole requires propulsion systems that could easily take you to near-c.