How old is the Universe?

[idav]

What's important to note here is that the expansion of the universe is not objects moving away from each other near the speed of light, it is the creation of new space in between objects, and the rate at which that happens appears to be exponential and capable of making it appear as if things were moving away from us at or above the speed of life. If this is the case, I don't see why the apparent age of the universe would change. Time itself doesn't speed up or slow down, matter does.

Hmm, you just said it. With what your saying about space expanding between objects it only appears to be further away then it actually had to travel which would make the universe younger if the universe had been expanding twice the speed of light.

Edit: This also make sense with what people are saying about no center of the universe. Yet we use a point of origin to do the calculation?

 

[Penumbra]

Hmm, you just said it. With what your saying about space expanding between objects it only appears to be further away then it actually had to travel which would make the universe younger if the universe had been expanding twice the speed of light.

The universe expands much slower than the speed of light. Only the cumulative effects between large distances result in objects increasing in distance from each other faster than the speed of light. The rate of expansion over a smaller portion of space, is itself smaller.

When the universe itself was younger and smaller, the furthest objects would have been receding from each other more slowly because there was less cumulative spatial expansion between them.

Scientists don't just point out that something is moving away, and that space is expanding, then forget to take into account expansion when calculating the time it would have taken.

Edit: This also make sense with what people are saying about no center of the universe. Yet we use a point of origin to do the calculation?

No, they don't use a point of origin to do the calculation.

In my first post, I explained that the reference frame for time is one in which the cosmic background radiation is isotropic. That's their original frame, but it's not a "point of origin".

 

[BSM1]

First we have to understand what time is. Time isn't really linear therefore the age of the universe isn't linear either. Now what about something that is moving at the speed of light, does it really age? If the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light is it aging? With time being non-linear does that mean that the universe is eternal or some sort of time loop where everything exists all at once. Just trying to grasp time in relation to the age of the universe while separating the science from the fiction.

I'm sure there is a physical or metaphysical answer to your question, but I like to think that if the Universe was having a birthday party all the stars would be the candles on the cake. Helps get me through the night.

 

[jasonwill2]

something like 14 billion years and lets just leave it at that, the big bang predicted that and all the observations check out thus far

 

[shawn001]

These are excellent in understanding somethings about this discussion.

Nova: Hunting the edge of space

Part one

Video: Hunting the Edge of Space: Part 1 | Watch NOVA Online | PBS Video

Part two

Video: Hunting the Edge of Space: Part 2 | Watch NOVA Online | PBS Video

 

[shawn001]

1. WMAP definitively determined the age of the universe to be 13.75 billion years old to within 1% (0.11 billion years) -as recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records!

First Year Results on the Oldest Light in the Universe

NASA RELEASES STUNNING IMAGES OF OUR INFANT UNIVERSE

NASA today released the best "baby picture" of the Universe ever taken; the image contains such stunning detail that it may be one of the most important scientific results of recent years.

Scientists using NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), during a sweeping 12-month observation of the entire sky, captured the new cosmic portrait, capturing the afterglow of the big bang, called the cosmic microwave background.

"We've captured the infant universe in sharp focus, and from this portrait we can now describe the universe with unprecedented accuracy," said Dr. Charles L. Bennett of the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt Md., and the WMAP Principal Investigator. "The data are solid, a real gold mine," he said.

One of the biggest surprises revealed in the data is the first generation of stars to shine in the universe first ignited only 200 million years after the big bang, much earlier than many scientists had expected.

In addition, the new portrait precisely pegs the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years old, with a remarkably small one percent margin of error.

WMAP 1 Year Mission Results Press Release



The expansion of the universe is not slowing down it is accelerating.

BBC News - Nobel physics prize honours accelerating Universe find

 

[shawn001]

 

[idav]

I found some links that helped me understand it more.

The Universe is Homogeneous and Isotropic

To say the Universe is homogeneous means that any measurable property of the Universe is the same everywhere. This is only approximately true, but it appears to be an excellent approximation when one averages over large regions. Since the age of the Universe is one of the measurable quantities, the homogeneity of the Universe must be defined on a surface of constant proper time since the Big Bang. Time dilation causes the proper time measured by an observer to depend on the velocity of the observer, so we specify that the time variable t in the Hubble law is the proper time since the Big Bang for comoving observers.

Cosmology Tutorial - Part 2

This link was insightful as well.

Frequently Asked Questions in Cosmology

 

[shawn001]

Idav check out the hunting for the edge of space videos above. It also explains a lot