RE: Thoughts on the scale of the universe?
September 20, 2012 at 9:21 pm
(This post was last modified: September 20, 2012 at 9:23 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(September 20, 2012 at 8:31 pm)Darkstar Wrote:(September 20, 2012 at 8:14 pm)Chuck Wrote: Wrong. Expansion rate does not set an upper limit on the size of the universe.
Any sized universe larger than the currently observed part of universe, up to and including infinitely large, can be accommodated within the currently observed expansion rate.
But unless the expansion rate is infinite, wouldn't it take an infinite amount of time for the universe to become infinitely large, assuming it was even capable of doing so?
No. The universe could have been infinite to start with, before it even expanded. Think of a progenitor universe that consist of infinite number of little units of space. This progenitor universe is infinitely large. Then something happened to it, a phase transition, say. So all of a sudden every one of the infinite number of little unit of space expanded greatly. The universe is still infinite, and consist of infinite number of space units. But each unit has now expanded enormously at its own rate of expansion.
The universe was infinite, still is infinite, but the unit of space we are in expanded greatly at its own finite rate of expansion.
