If the big bang happened 13.8 billion years ago, and the universe is 93 billion light years in diameter, how did the universe expand faster than light?
In: Physics
Draw some dots on a deflated balloon, then put some ants on the balloon. The ants can move at some max speed, which we’ll call C, and they walk between the dots because they’re made of food.
Now start inflating the balloon. If you do it fast enough, the distance between an ant and the next dot will increase rather than decreasing, even though they are walking towards the dot. The space between the ant and the dot is expanding faster than C.
Now imagine the surface of the balloon is 3 dimensional, and that it is expanding along a fourth dimension. That’s how the universe expands.
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