“If the universe is expanding uniformly in all directions, why would objects farther away appear to recede faster?

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Read this phrase from Hubblesite and was confused, “In 1929, Edwin Hubble provided the first observational evidence for the universe having a finite age. Using the largest telescope of the time, he discovered that the more distant a galaxy is from us, the faster it appears to be receding into space. This means that the universe is expanding uniformly in all directions.”

If the speed of expansion is uniform, shouldn’t distance not even be a variable?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

You’re confusing *rate* and *amount*.

Think of it like, say the distance between two points doubles in 1 hour, that’s a constant and uniform rate, right?

If the distance starts at 1, in 1 hour it’s now 2. If the distance starts at 1,000, in 1 hour it’s now 2,000. See what happened there?

If the first example were a ‘close galaxy” it would appear to be moving at 1 unit per hour away from us, the latter is a ‘far galaxy’ that appears to be moving 1,000 units per hour, all because of a uniform rate of expansion.

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