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"George" <george@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1BdTf.833195$x96.210782@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Recently, new results were released from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave
> Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite, launched in 2001 to measure the
> temperature of radiant heat left over from the Big Bang, which is the
> theoretical beginning to the universe. The new WMAP observations,
> announced at a NASA press conference today, reveal what the universe was
> like in the first trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. From the
> microwave background, researchers teased out a new signal called the
> "polarization signal." According to the conclusions of this report,
> during this growth spurt, a tiny region, likely no larger than a marble,
> grew in a trillionth of a second to become larger than the visible
> universe. Well, I'm confused. According to Einstein nothing can travel
> faster than the speed of light. If that is true, how is it that the
> universe expanded from the size of a marble to something large than the
> visible universe in a trillionth of a second?
Releativity says an object cannot travel through
space faster than the speed of light in vacuo,
but that doesn't stop the sapce between objects
expanding at a rate such that the distance between
them increases faster than that speed.
> I'm neither an astrophysicist nor a physicist, which is why I'm asking
> this question here. And please be kind, as my calculus is a little rusty
> these days. Any thoughts?
This is probably the best introduction to the
subject around:
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmolog.htm
HTH
George (D)
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