So, if the universe is 14 billion years old, how can it be 94 billion light years wide?

[TreasonousBastard]

[Aviation Pro]

1. Weird physics

….

[VMA131Marine]

2. I think you mean 94 billion light years wide

And it’s because space is expanding faster than the speed of light. This is not a violation is general relativity. Objects cannot travel through space faster than light, but two points in expanding spacetime can recede from each other faster than light. This means that as the Universe expands more there will be less of it for us to see.

More here

[TreasonousBastard]

5. Yeah-- typo, I corrected it. But, it's fascinating that you glommed on to Lincoln...

so fast. I accidentally found him a week ago when looking for something else.

So, now, what existed before the Big Bang, and why are we here?

[VMA131Marine]

7. It might not even make sense to ask what happened before the Big Bang

Our current understanding of physics breaks down at around 10^-44 seconds, also known as the Planck Time. Anything that happened before that is speculation.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. It doesn't make sense, but plenty of people are doing it anyway. It's...

not sensible at all, but it seems like fun.

[Easterncedar]

11. Thanks! Succinct and clear explanation n/t

[ymetca]

3. oh oh wait, I got this!

uh.. was it the super-expansion phase? It got very big, very fast, faster than light itself, so.. QED!

We, as a species, awoke just in time to see it all fading from view, which is even more bizarre.

Or course, we'll be stuck in this local pocket of highly condensed stuff for quite billions of years more, like an island.

[Sneederbunk]

4. The same way you can be 30 years old and wear a 48 belt.

[MLAA]

6. Good one

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

10. Because it is expanding pretty much at the speed of light,

and in 14 billion years it's been able to expand that far.

A couple of other things worth knowing: Already the Universe is so large that already more than 90% of galaxies are so far away we cannot possibly visit them. https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/universes-galaxies-unreachable/

Also, the expansion of the Universe is such that at some point every galaxy outside our local cluster will be so far away that the light from them will not reach us. Eventually, every galaxy in our local cluster will merge. At that point, far future astronomers will have no way of knowing how old the Universe is, or how large it is. At least right now we can determine both of those. Lucky us.

[taxi]

12. We can believe it to be 94 billion light years wide

If we can only see 14 billion light years in any given direction, and if expansion theories exist that allow objects to move faster than light, then obseverable objects can exist 14 billion light years in each direction along a radius from the point of origin. If the center of the universe is 14 billion light years away in the opposite direction from other observed object along that radius, then a measurable distance of 28 billion light years exists and creates a diameter of 56 billion light years for the observable universe.

If two observable objects were perpendicular to the radius from the same point of observation, and they were measured at the maximum of 28 billion light years apart, then they would be on a radius of close to 20 billion light years from the origin, which when doubled and redoubled as before makes the observable universe a minimum of 80 billion light years wide.

I can't imagine how they came up with a ridiculous number like 94!