Hoof Hearted responds to me:
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If a photon started its journey 13.7 billion years ago, how can it travel across 78 billion light years of space in that time?
I'm sorry. I was a bit unclear. Again, the universe is expanding. Not only is your destination receding from you, your point of origin is, too. Thus, assuming a static universe, the light traveled nearly 14 billion light years. But because the universe expanded while the light was traveling, that point of origin is now 78 billion light years away. The photon covered every point in between, but the points weren't always so close.
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Yes the Universe is expanding, but it is expanding at sub-light speeds
That doesn't matter. It is still expanding. Light is fast, but the universe is huge. It still takes a long time to get across it.
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My logic tells me that less 13.7 billion light years of expansion would have occured in the 13.7 billion years since the end of the inflation period.
Then you need to put that logic aside. The expansion is occurring everywhere at once. You can't think of it in three-dimensional terms. Space doesn't work like that. You're assuming a fixed frame of reference and as we have long since learned from relativity, there is no such thing.
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So at the end of the inflation period, the universe must have been at least 128 billion light years across.
Incorrect. As the article pointed out, a million years after the Big Bang, the universe was 1000 times smaller than it is now, which if the calculations are correct, would put it at 150 million light years across.
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So photons from the edge of the observable universe must have travelled across more than 64 billion light years of space to reach us. How can light travel this distance in less than 13.7 billion years?
Because when they started, the universe wasn't that big. During the journey, the universe expanded. There's a thought experiment that can help you visualize it, but not completely because it, too, assumes a fixed frame of reference:
Assume you're on one end of a rubber sheet, trying to get to the other side. You start walking at a constant rate toward it. As you walk, the sheet stretches, pulling the two ends further and further apart. It is going to take you much longer to reach the other end.
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Obviously there is an error in my logic somewhere.
It's because you are assuming a static frame of reference to measure against. There is no such thing. And with space itself expanding everywhere at once, distance and time cannot be measured linearly.
Rrhain
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