Could the Universe Be Older Than We Think? New Findings Point That Way

reply to post by predator0187


Well you have to look at the nature of the universe. It could be way older than we think. I guess it would have to be an assumption based on quantum physics because we can't really measure time when the laws of physics, space and time break down from the point of the big bang and so on. For all we know our act of observation was the thing that created time maybe even helped it... I don't know it's all loopy when I think about it.

It seems to me that the idea of a finite universe is the irrational scenario.

After all, if the universe had a beginning then what was there before the beginning that made the beginning begin?

Every effect has a cause. This is the basis for rational, scientific thought.
To have a ‘beginning of the universe’ you would need an effect that didn’t have a cause, which is absurd.

People have no trouble with the infinite when they think about the real number continuum. The universe is similar: it has no beginning and no end.

Related to this is what appears to be the fractal nature of the universe.

Galaxy Map Hints At Fractal Universe

According to their latest paper, which has been submitted to Nature Physics, Sylos Labini and Pietronero, along with physicists Nikolay Vasilyev and Yurij Baryshev of St Petersburg State University in Russia, argue that the new data shows that the galaxies exhibit an explicitly fractal pattern up to a scale of about 100 million light years.

Many cosmologists find fault with their analysis, largely because a fractal matter distribution out to such huge scales undermines the standard model of cosmology. According to the accepted story of cosmic evolution, there simply hasn't been enough time since the big bang nearly 14 billion years ago for gravity to build up such large structures.

So we can only see 13.7 billion lightyears away, which can be explained by the universe being only 13.7 billion years old so light further away hasn't had time to reach us.

But then we have distant Galaxies like in the OP post which haven't had time be as full formed as they are, and the universe has fractal patterns which simply haven't had time to form under currently known mechanisms.

reply to post by PositivelyDetermined


I agree, it is quite perplexing.

If the universe was expanding at the speed of light there would be no time at that point. therefore technically the universe is still in it's infancy.

I just always thought that they had to be wrong on the time of the universe because there could not have been a big bang because we get to the philosophy of what created the big bang, and what was there beforehand.

If there was nothing before the big bang then there would be no space for the universe to exist.

I love this subject for the amount of brain power it takes just to think about it.

Pred...

reply to post by aethron;


I like your way of thinking.

I think the universe is infinite as well. There could be no beginning as there would have to have been something there before.

It's like the idea of a creator, if there is a creator then who created him, who created the creator's creator...etc.

Great discussion everyone.

Pred...