Charles, that last paragraph is really something to think about. I think my mind is just a little bit blown right now.

And yet, as unimaginable as that space/time is, we are connected in so many ways.

"No amount of science could prove the truth of your statement...You would be right, the science would be wrong, but there would be no way of knowing or showing this fact."

...Except for the science of time travel, which, in this scenario, apparently exists. Just take them back in time and show them.

That said, I love thinking about this concept because it demonstrates that what we think we know about anything is based on just a sliver of the available data. We know nothing. Who knows, maybe dark matter is really composed the tears shed by a weepy father-god...Anything's possible.

That assumes, Charles, that our means of understanding the universe, don't evolve. That's a very big assumption.

The "known" universe... Why do we think the entire universe is expanding all at once, rather than some areas contracting, like the most massive black holes - down to the type of singularity that we see as the starting point of the big bang. We can't see those, because they're probably further away than 8 billion light years.

I'm not sure their science would be wrong. In a universe with no possible communication between our galaxy and another, that other galaxy no longer exists to us. It would be correct to say that those galaxies used to exist, but don't any more.

There's an excellent episode of Northern Exposure ("The Body of Evidence") where Joel argues that facts are constant and the truth changes, where Chris argues that truth is constant but the facts change. I think you're arguing Chris's side.

And at one point in the future, light wont be unable to cross the ever-expanding emptiness between the galaxies.

Why not? I'm not even a novice stargazer, but wouldn't light always be crossing that gulf, regardless of how far away its source is?

Maybe those right-wingers wishing to secede could move there.

@7, the speed of expansion (dark energy) would overwhelm the light. i should have made that more clear.

@9: Just googled it, and I see it's an exponential force. Now I'm caught up.

I was just reading about this the other day: "As galaxies approach the point of crossing this cosmological event horizon, the light from them will become more and more redshifted, to the point where the wavelength becomes too large to detect in practice and the galaxies appear to disappear completely"

What really blows my mind is that what else are we *missing* from our understanding of the universe simply because the evidence no longer exists. Currently the Cosmic Microwave Background is as far as we can see into the past, it's a wall. But who's to say 4, 5, or 10 Billion years ago there wasn't **MORE** to see? Alas, those possible observations are lost for all time.

In fact, neither theory nor experiment offers any evidence at all that extra dimensions exist.

The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next

https://kindle.amazon.com/work/the-troub…

Mr. Mudede you are a treasure.

@13 Supreme Ruler Of The Universe:

You need a nice long hug.

Why do you have to be so damn contrarian?

"It's called MACS0647-JD. Its light took 8 billion years to reach us."

Actually, it's light took 13.3 billion years to reach us. Since it's been about 13.7 bln years since the big bang, that means this "protogalaxy" is seen as it was only about 500 million years after the universe came into existence.

Is this something like entropy? Or maybe it's that thing you hear on the freeway when a car approaches and then passes you. One of those.

Ah Charles, I am becoming a fan of your art. Art = that which expands the enclosed universe of our mind.

@17 I think it's called fossil light.

@17: I believe the term you're looking for is the Doppler effect.