Universe 250+ Times Bigger Than What Is Observable

eldavojohn writes "The universe is only fourteen billion years old so we are unable to observe anything more than fourteen billion light years away. This makes it a bit difficult for us to measure how large the universe actually is. A number of methodologies have been devised to estimate the size of the universe including the universe's curvature, baryonic acoustic oscillations and the luminosity of distant type 1A supernovas. Now a team has combined all known methods into Bayesian model averaging to constrain the universe's size and their research is saying with confidence that the universe is at least 250 times larger than the observable universe."

Re:I'm confused.

[mcmonkey]

Supposedly matter cannot move faster than light. But the expansion of the universe following the Big Bang involves the dimensions of space-time. It's not the movement of matter, but the movement of existence itself in which that matter exists which can produce FTL expansion.

Re:What does that even mean?

[sznupi]

Or what is deeper than the center of the Earth. Or what lies to the north of North Pole.

Re:Speed of Light?

[Alef]

Some physicist is very welcome to fill in here, but I'm not sure it's correct to say that the universe "expands faster" than the speed of light. Locally, the expansion is slow, and objects aren't really "moving away" from each other -- rather more space is added in between them.

Think of it like blowing up a balloon with ants walking around on the surface. The distance between ants could increase faster than they can move, but none of the ants are moving relative to the space they occupy.

As a side note: One theory of the ultimate fate of the universe is that the expansion rate will increase past the point where the observable universe becomes smaller than atoms and other particles (a higher expansion rate means objects must be closer to each other for light travelling between them to overcome the expansion of the distance between them), essentially ripping all matter apart.

Re:What does that even mean?

[Reteo Varala]

There are no beginnings or ends to a circle. However, there are circumference and area. The idea behind the "size of the universe" theory is that the Universe size exists in a similar manner, three dimensions bent in such a way that they are circular in nature. In such a state, one can't determine where is specifically ends, but one can get a clearer idea of the scope of what's there based on a similar model.

FTL Expansion == Inflationary Epoch

[RulerOf]

It is, but oddly enough that does not bind the expansion. Space can be expanding faster than c and I believe the inflationary theory says just that.

It did so for a VERY short while following the big bang: a period of superluminal expansion known as the Inflationary Epoch. [wikipedia.org]

Physicists like to separate notable periods in time on a logarithmic scale, referring to each as the "Whatever" Epoch. As novel as the system itself is, what's most novel is how tiny of a portion of it our planet will be around for.

Recommended reading for the curious. [amazon.com]

Shape of the universe in a nutshell - Infinite

[WilliamTheBat]

For those of you who did not bother to read the whole article, there's a really important nugget that's lost in the 250+ times headline. The results show that the most likely curvature of the universe = 0. This means the universe, as near as our best minds can tell, is infinite. All the same dusting of galaxies in every direction, infinitely. Infinity is not a concept most people grasp easily. People ask things like "what's outside the universe?" but there is no outside, as "directionality" or "position" have no meaning outside the context of the universe. Likewise, there's no "before" the universe, as time has no meaning outside the context of the universe. My instinct says that we'll eventually come up with a nifty model of reality that includes a non-intuitive description of "position" that causes everything to make mathematical sense and has both quantum physics and relativity as predictable consequences.. but that is pure speculation. And it's a sure bet it'll be even harder to wrap our heads around than what we have now.