James Webb telescope early galaxies?

[heymike3]

It would make for an interesting find to determine whether the expansion of the universe is relative to the observer or the Earth… that’d be something now wouldn’t it

[Mervin_Bitikofer]

@heymike3

The idea that ‘we’ would appear at the center of the universe whether ‘we’ were on Earth or Mars is what seems too remarkable to be true

Then you’re not grasping the triviality of what I just noted … This wasn’t some hard-to-comprehend notion; just an observation that of course when I look out, I am the center of my own perceptual experience. The “universe” such as I can see it whether looking around my neighborhood, or through a telescope at any nearby cosmos - will all be “outward from me” in all directions. That isn’t any fantastic claim, and I probably should have just left it unsaid for as much hay as you two are making out of it. Speaking of which …

Here’s a thought. Did you know that you can just use the pencil icons to bundle additional thoughts together into many fewer posts? Instead of littering so many threads with hundred’s of one-liners and quick quotes of yourselves (not a good look by the way!) … maybe try to cut down on all the postings and put more substance (but not too much) into fewer posts. And even better yet … take a break from the internet every once in a while! It’ll still all be here when you get back!

[taking my own advice … check this out! Adding more to my post yet here…]

@heymike3

If everything was moving away from you in your room, it is difficult to suppose this was happening to your friend on the opposite end of the room.

Absolutely! Especially if your “friend at the other end of the room” is another galaxy that is bajillions of light years away! That’s why we need special telescopes up in space to be able to take in stuff that dim (and in different wavelengths than the visible ones). And it’s also why, if I understand correctly, we still presumably haven’t discovered the “far end” of the room yet. Stuff just keeps going. So that alone makes it a bit of nonsense for us to imagine we could know where any “center” is.

[heymike3]

@heymike3

And, even if it’s reasonable to suppose the observation would be the same from another point in the universe, would the problem in determining that be similar to the problem in determining whether the speed of light is the same in both directions?

I would reframe the question as how do we know the universe is expanding from every point and not a single point… a single point that we are at the center of.

While I understand this is “unlikely” as one science stack exchange puts it… as “unlikely” as the speed of light being different between observer and object than it is from object to observer, it is a legitimate question given that we appear to be at the center of the universe.

[St.Roymond]

@heymike3

The idea that ‘we’ would appear at the center of the universe whether ‘we’ were on Earth or Mars is what seems too remarkable to be true

In terms of the universe, Earth and Mars may as well be the same place. The remarkable thing is that if there were an observer on a planet somewhere in every galaxy we can see with the JWST, every single observer would appear to themselves to be at the center of the universe.

Yet it’s not really remarkable, it’s just geometry that can be illustrated on a far simpler level by putting dots on the surface of a balloon and then slowly inflating it from minimum outwards: every dot is geometrically equally the center of the expansion of the balloon’s surface.

Indeed assuming the Bing Bang actually began from a singularity, every point within the universe actually is the center – not merely appears to be the center, but really is!

@heymike3

Let’s say we multiply the effect or appearance of this so that it can be appreciated for 3 observers in a large room so that physical objects are moving away from each observer relative to each position.

That can’t actually be what’s happening

Quite to the contrary, as I noted just above, if the universe began as a singularity then it has to be what is happening – it’s the only geometry that works.

@heymike3

What makes it weird is that each observer isn’t on the surface of the balloon, but would be at the center of it.

The surface of the balloon is all there is, though – the analogy is of the two-dimensional surface.

[St.Roymond]

@Dale

That’s something YECs have tried to use to question the antiquity of the universe, by making it differ dependent on direction – was it Lisle?

Yeah, Jason Lisle. I’ve listened to two presentations by him and in both cases found myself thinking, “Doc, you know better!”

In the discussion under one of those presentations someone proposed an experiment that ought to demonstrate that the speed of light in a vacuum is not variable: The idea was to set up a number of paths for photons from a single source to travel, with all the paths being of the same length but differing in the number of reflection points from the simplest single mirror to multiple mirrors so that the photons would travel on a line, following a triangle or square or pentagon, etc.
It seemed a valid approach though someone said that if you broke down each path into vector components it still wouldn’t work.

But the whole issue fails because the speed of light isn’t just a speed, it’s an attribute of space and matter and energy: if light travels faster in one direction than in another, then the mass-energy equivalence formula will provide a different result for how much energy a given mass would be equivalent to depending on the direction – and if Lisle’s instantaneous speed in one direction is correct then a microgram of matter would be the equivalent of all the energy in the universe, which is just silly.

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

Yeah that, and you’d have to have smart photons that knew what direction they were traveling.

[St.Roymond]

@heymike3

Would it be wrong to say space is expanding relative to each observer?

It gets tricky: the expansion of spacetime doesn’t stretch the size of stars, or solar systems, or even galaxies, which is why above I said that Earth and Mars may as well be the same place in terms of the expanding universe; for that matter every location within the Milky Way may as well be the same place, since two observers on opposite ends of the galaxy won’t see the distance between them increasing, though both would agree that the distance between them and a galaxy ten billion light years away is increasing.

[St.Roymond]

@Dale

Yeah that, and you’d have to have smart photons that knew what direction they were traveling.

Especially given that – assuming he hasn’t modified his silliness – Lisle’s proposition is that light travels at a different speed when moving away from an observer than when moving toward that observer. There’s a simple thought experiment that makes hash of that: all we would have to do is send a manned spacecraft to one of Earth’s Lagrange points and have them aim a laser at Earth while someone on Earth aims a laser at the spacecraft – both laser beams would be traveling both towards and away from an observer at the same time.

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

I’m not sure, but I think gravitational lensing may refute it, and it seems that an experiment measuring the speed of light in both directions on a path perpendicular to our line of sight could be devised.

[heymike3]

@St.Roymond

the expansion of spacetime doesn’t stretch the size of stars, or solar systems, or even galaxies

The expansion of spacetime means that as the object is moving away from you it is being stretched otherwise it would be getting smaller and I don’t think that is what is happening.

I asked someone who is knowledgeable in science if the universe can be confirmed to be expanding from other points, and they said it would require the ability to travel faster than the speed of light.

[jpm (Phil McCurdy)]

Interesting thought, though the distances in space are so huge, expansion of the size of a galaxy would be imperceptible to a distant observer.

Regarding the speed of light experiment, if you pointed a laser from each side towards each other, and put an observer in the middle, perhaps you could see if the light knew which way to go faster. Not that you would, as it is a ridiculous idea.

[heymike3]

The direction of light travel is obviously relative to the light source and the observer. An observer between 2 light sources is not measuring different directions of light travel.

[heymike3]

@jpm

Interesting thought, though the distances in space are so huge, expansion of the size of a galaxy would be imperceptible to a distant observer.

If I am not mistaken, it’s super interesting that if the phenomenon were multiplied such that it could be easily measured in a room, the effect would still be imperceptible if not for the redshift.

[St.Roymond]

@heymike3

The expansion of spacetime means that as the object is moving away from you it is being stretched otherwise it would be getting smaller and I don’t think that is what is happening.

Moving away doesn’t require getting smaller, unless you’re referring to perspective and not actuality.

But if stars themselves were stretching the reactions in the core would change. The question then is whether the space they occupy is stretching but gravity balances that, or whether space itself doesn’t stretch in the vicinity of strong gravitation – or perhaps if those reduce to the same thing!

@heymike3

I asked someone who is knowledgeable in science if the universe can be confirmed to be expanding from other points, and they said it would require the ability to travel faster than the speed of light.

That depends on what you mean by “confirmed”. If you mean gather data from sufficiently disparate points, then that’s correct. If on the other hand you mean to establish it mathematically, then no; if the universe began as a singularity (and if there are no strange undiscovered basic principles involved) then expansion must be happening the same everywhere (I forget the proper term . . . which means it’s time to get horizontal with my head on a pillow).

[St.Roymond]

@jpm

expansion of the size of a galaxy would be imperceptible to a distant observer.

Not so much due to the distance but because looking far, far away is looking far back in time, and we are thus looking at the universe before it had expanded nearly so much as today.

@jpm

Regarding the speed of light experiment, if you pointed a laser from each side towards each other, and put an observer in the middle, perhaps you could see if the light knew which way to go faster. Not that you would, as it is a ridiculous idea.

That falls to the clock issue: the mere act of transporting identical clocks to the distant points makes it impossible to know they are synchronous.

Now if you were at point B and saw a supernova at point A and could later observe the light from that supernova arrive at a distant point C, it would be possible to measure the time from A to C – where this probably fails would be the ability to know the distance from A to C.

[St.Roymond]

@heymike3

The direction of light travel is obviously relative to the light source and the observer. An observer between 2 light sources is not measuring different directions of light travel.

If the observer initiates two light beams in opposite directions he would be.

@heymike3

If I am not mistaken, it’s super interesting that if the phenomenon were multiplied such that it could be easily measured in a room

Hmm – what’s the shortest distance we can measure? This might actually bump up against the smallest quanta of length and other such details.

[heymike3]

@St.Roymond

If the observer initiates two light beams in opposite directions he would be.

And the observer would only be able to measure the round trip speed of each light beam

[heymike3]

@St.Roymond

Hmm – what’s the shortest distance we can measure?

My eyesight isn’t what it used to be… my electronics teacher from when I was in tech school once commented on how bad his eyesight was when he saw me read the color codes on a resistor. Funny how I felt his words were so far removed from my experience. I was literally light years away from him. And yet… what a dear saint he was. One time telling me, I could trust God, and I thought I probably should. But I can’t recall if that was before or after an experience I had with my father coming home.

I think I wrote about that story or co-instant as @Dale likes to call them. Let me see if I can find it.

[heymike3]

I’m not sure if I went into greater detail about this story elsewhere, but this is where I can remember writing about the experience.

Unobservability of an Uncaused Cause

Thank you for the kind welcome, and those are wonderful stories you linked. It boggles my mind how God causes events like that to happen with so many people acting in their own way. I’m reminded of an early prayer for my father, and how at the moment of trusting God and not making a deal, my father pulled into the driveway. “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.” Psalm 139 And this bit about the unobservability of an uncaused cause, or a singularity that can affect change without changing. H…

Edit:

@St.Roymond

if the universe began as a singularity

There are singularities and then there are singularities.

Something which I think is kind of a big deal is how the immediate effect (or change) of a singularity that can affect change without changing will appear as if the change came from nothing.

Oh… and there also technological singularities and philosophical singularities

Edit 2.0:

I was talking with a friend at work about how we appear at the center of the universe, and in the same breath, he said it would appear that way in another galaxy.

Given what has been said about how probabilities are unable to determine whether naturalism is false, all bets are on the table, and it very well could be that we are at the center of the universe.