Friday, April 15, 2011

Friday Science: Expansion

Question:  If you travel at the speed of light and you are trying to get to a place a million light years away, how long will it take you to get there? 
The answer is not 1 million years.  it is closer to 1,007,000 years. There must be a fork in the road.  I love this stuff.

As far as the traveler is concerned he is traveling at the steady rate of  the speed of light.  6.02 x 10-23 power.  No wait, that is Avogadro's number.  It is 671 million miles per hour.
But the universe is expanding at a constant rate of .007 percent of the speed of light. It is some relativity thing.

I could be and most likely am wrong on the exact figures but I am right that my starting point is no longer where it was and my ending point, wherever it may be is also not where it was one million years ago. 

It reminds me of the Who song, I can see for miles and miles

And so it goes

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