Are we growing?

[Jackalope]

The faster you go, the slower it passes.

And this only applies to mass. Space can expand faster than lightspeed, and is doing so far, far out there.

Only relative to our reference frame. Relative to theirs, our space is.

How's that for a mindfuck?

[Mudhammam]

The faster you go, the slower it passes.

And this only applies to mass. Space can expand faster than lightspeed, and is doing so far, far out there.

But if time does not pass at the speed in which a photon is emitted to when it is absorbed by a mass--in other words, from the "perspective of a photon" the transmission is instantaneous--then when light is emitted without the possiblility of reaching a body, what happens to it, from "its perspective"? It just ceases to be? It remains "frozen" in time?

Also, how is the speed of light the cosmic speed limit and not the rate of space expansion (since it's apparently faster)?

[Minimalist]

Can someone explain to me how the expansion of space effects time with regards to the speed of light?

Maybe Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

[TaraJo]

No

Although space is expanding, nuclear forces keep the atoms together and gravity keeps the galaxies together. Eventually however, dark energy will become so strong that everything will be ripped apart.

That's one of the theories, anyway. There are a couple of others, first being that gravity will pull everything in the universe back together into a kind of super black hole that's similar to what started the big bang. I don't think this one is widly believed, but if it was, it would certainly answer the questions about what was before the big bang (answer would be, another universe). The other theory is that we keep expanding but the nuclear energy of the stars burns out into a big freeze. The only question I have about the big freeze theory comes down to the law of conservation of energy: if energy can't be destroyed, what happens to all that energy when the universe experiences the big freeze?

But the big monkey wrench to any of these theories is still dark matter and dark energy; we just know so little about either of them that it's difficult to make predictions around them.

[Darwinian]

The only question I have about the big freeze theory comes down to the law of conservation of energy: if energy can't be destroyed, what happens to all that energy when the universe experiences the big freeze?

Total entropy with the universe gradually cooling down but never reaching absolute zero.

And then, when everything, everywhere is exactly the same and time and space have no meaning the whole thing might just explode (and I use that word quite wrongly) again!

[Whateverist]

Are we growing?

If you'd turned out to be a hot babe. I'd have asked what you were wearing and then reported an answer to your question. Sorry, this isn't going to work.

[vorlon13]

The only question I have about the big freeze theory comes down to the law of conservation of energy: if energy can't be destroyed, what happens to all that energy when the universe experiences the big freeze?

Total entropy with the universe gradually cooling down but never reaching absolute zero.

And then, when everything, everywhere is exactly the same and time and space have no meaning the whole thing might just explode (and I use that word quite wrongly) again!

The expansion never stops, each particle finds itself more and more alone. Quadrillions of lightyears will separate even the closest pair of particles left, and the expansion continues relentlessly.

So too the temperature. Closer and closer to absolute zero. And it turns out, matter when cooled enough forms a Bose Einstein condensate, and due to quantum effects, the particles location becomes more and more indefinite. Essentially, get matter cold enough, and it erases itself over a larger and larger volume.