You did just fine PK-boomer. I understood what you were saying. I do not get a lot of the science aspect either as I have never been good with that.
My view: Unknown. When I was a child (in the 70s) I got my first taste of this type of question. From what I remember the scientific community had said that our universe was (roughly, and as I recall from childhood) 5.4 billion years old. They based this on their observations. Now, I know you asked for size, but they usually add something like 500 million years to the previous number to take in account the "Big Bang" theory (Please, don't get me started on THAT drivel), so at that point I'm guessing they believed it was something like 5.9 Billion years old. As I grew older, so did their estimates. I'm not entirely sure what they say now, but as I recall it was somewhere around (thinks) 14.5 Billion years old? I know I'm fuzzy, or total incorrect on these numbers, but my point is that the scientific community is confusing what they CAN observe and the unknown.
The current consensus that that the big bang happened 13.75 by ago. This figure has been refined over the past few decades as more and better data comes in. Many different lines of evidence have converged on or very near this figure in recent years, so the error bars are much smaller than they were even 10 or 20 years ago. But you have to keep in mind that before the discovery of the microwave cosmic background radiation, astronomers were using stellar models to estimate the age of the universe, and this generally gives only a theoretical minimum age for the universe rather than a specific number. The microwave background radiation measurements done just in the last decade refined the known age of the universe immensely. The figure will undoubtedly change in the future, but we can be fairly certain that the actual age of the universe is fairly close to this number. That's the beauty of the scientific method - it is a self-correcting process, that is based on the best current evidence and adjusts its conclusions when new evidence comes in. This is its strength, not a weakness. Science never claims to have the answers - it only gives us the best answers we have based on what we know.
Thank you pk. Yeah, I'm more of a philosophy-type person than scientific, but I have some insights occasionally. What do you think about decay over time... in relation to distance and time? (Trying to put it in a better way) I know the age is guessed as 13.75 by ago or so, but I have a theory about energy decay, that in such long time-frames and distances the energy may become less observable, even with high energy gamma, x-ray, etc. particles. My theory is we don't know enough about such things to say one way or another and that this may be one possible reason we can only observe so far ...until new technologies or ideas come forth. Sorry if I'm hard to understand right now, headache making it hard to think str8. I guess I'm asking do we know the decay rate of high energy particles? If any?
Is this what you believe also? Do you mind discussing it with me? I have some theories that may be wrong.
I believe it's the best answer we have so far. I also believe our best answer will change over time, but not by much.
I do have something to add, or question on this. I understand the theory well, but I've never seen this addressed, maybe you have an insight? In general, the big bang is believed to have happened a minimum of 13.75 billion years ago. If I remember correctly, the furthest we've been able to observe is half a million less, or 13.25 by... in one direction. So I'm wondering if the est. age of the Universe is based on a str8 line observation, Earth to furthest distance (fd), or does it include the 180 degrees in both directions, fd to Earth to fd, doubling the size. I'm just wondering if anyone has read more on this.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by decay... Are you referring to decay of electromagnetic radiation (visible light, x-rays, gamma rays etc.)? I'm not aware of any such phenomenon, decay usually refers to decay of radioactive isotopes. Are you referring to the loss of intensity of light when it travels long distances through space?
I'm in strictly theoretical-mode (laughs) I'm posing a theory, that all observable energy (light, microwave, gamma, etc. - ones we know to exist and can measure) has a finite life and that by (approximately) 14 by, traveling through space, it has diminished (or decayed or been degraded) to the point we can no longer observe, or measure, it. In essence, I'm proposing that all energy may have a finite life that we are unable to verify, primarily due to the extreme distance and time involved. I'm wondering if you are aware of any theory that may contradict or prove this theory incorrect.
The concept is new to me. Nothing I know about electromagnetic radiation suggests any reason to think that it has an "expiry date". EM radiation is composed of finite massless particles - photons - that can only be destroyed or degraded by being absorbed and converted into other forms of energy. So as long as they are passing through empty space, they can go on forever.
I think the reason we can't "see" all the way back to the big bang is because until a few hundred million years the universe was not transparent. This is because the universe was still too hot for protons to bind into atoms, and they interacted with the photons so that they were not free to travel through the universe. The universe was essentially "opaque".
Fair enough. My theory is just a counter to the Big Bang theory, something that I have researched into but find to be unreasonable. My hope is that someday, another theory will replace the Big Bang, or at least be a counter to it, as it appears to be the prevailing theory in science.
I'm not so sure. From what I understand they are considered to have no mass, but with an asterisk. For most purposes and theories I'd agree, their virtual lack of mass doesn't affect them. I'm postulating that, though extremely minor in mass (essentially considered to have no mass) and after an extreme amount of time traveling through space, colliding with all forms of matter and energy along the way, they "degrade" or are so significantly changed as to be unobservable after a certain amount of distance/time, in this example ...14 by or so. This is just a theory however, and it's based on my limited knowledge. I began to form this theory after finding the Big Bang theory to be ...insane lol
Anyone else find it ...obscene... to be discussing hard science in a religious thread? (laughs) Sorry, saw an opportunity to learn something.
