if the universe is 93bn light years wide and 13bn years old does that mean faster than light travel exists?

Question

how did the bits of the universe 93 billion light years apart get so far apart so fast are we talking bent space or is the big bang many billions of light years wide. or did the universe already potentially exist and the big bang simply turned on a latent form of existence instantaneously across several billion light years of space. 

i know you're not god but you're closest to him so please tell this stupidy what happened.

RickB · Accepted Answer

> "... does that mean faster than light travel exists?"

In a word, yes.  Er, sort of.

Objects cannot move _through_ space at faster than lightspeed.  But space itself can "stretch," and there is no limit to how fast that can happen--it can happen at faster than lightspeed.  Any objects that are "carried along" within this stretching space can therefore recede from each other at speeds exceeding "c".

The expansion of the universe, which started 13 B years ago, is a stretching of space.  The space that is 13 B lightyears from us is receding at lightspeed; but there is definitely more space beyond that; and it is receding even faster.  We have, in fact, observed some 1,000 or so galaxies which are receding from us at speeds faster than light.

There is a very good, easy-to-read article from Scientific American which talks about a lot of these ideas (see the "source" below).

James · Answer

reading the answers...

So if "space" can expand faster then light and the things in space are simply stationary, what is space (which those above have said is expanding) expanding through? Something other then the vacuum of space must exist for this to be true. Like the surface of a balloon being blown up, particles on the surface are getting further and further apart from each other but have no motion relative to the balloon's surface or medium they are on. Then I believe you are correct faster then light travel is most definitely possible. Just like I can mentally connect in time and space with anyone in the universe, what is that medium? The universal mind? Is that what space is expanding faster then light into? Too many questions ha? It is truly hard to imagine a mind that big but it is :-)

Anonymous · Answer

No. The expansion of the Universe is an expansion of space itself, which is not bound by the same laws of special relativity that govern motion through space. It's kind of like how, even though you're limited in how fast you can run, there's nothing stopping you from running inside a moving airliner.

Anonymous · Answer

Good question. 

I want to know too.

if the universe is 93bn light years wide and 13bn years old does that mean faster than light travel exists?

4 Answers