24 May '05 14:49>
Originally posted by lucifershammerIt's an interesting issue. Einstein's Theory also messes things up because we can not take time for granted. There does seem to be a fixed speed of light, but we have trouble explaining how time dilation. I was wondering about the age of the photons that travel through space. Take a sun that is 10 million light years away. If you were to travel near the speed of light, it would take you less than 10 million years, because time slows down at your destination relative to you origin. If you could travel at the speed of light, the time dilation would be greater.
What is the 10,000 light year problem?
It seems to me that chinking is asking the question, "If the Universe is only 3000-odd years old, how do we have light from stars that are 10,000 light-years away," whereas no1 seems to be asking the question, "How can the Universe be only 10,000 light years in diameter?". Who is correct (in the context of this discussion)?
And all this is very interesting, but what it tells us is you can not assume anything regarding distance and time considering are normal empirical observations do no work at great speeds - and light is traveling at a very great speed. Though in the effects of relativity of objects that are moving aways and towards each other, and things get very complicated.
I don't think scientist know the answer. There are theories, but they fall short of describing reality on the scale of the universe, or the subatomic scale.