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[Seth C]

This point was made by the guy who hosts Cosmos on Nat Geo in an interview with, I believe, Stephen Colbert. It's a great point, that once a theory is backed over and over by experimental proof it should no longer be considered speculation. To do so is invalid and therfore a waste of time.

That, in my opinion, is an incredibly flawed way to look at science and is at the root of what has been the issue for ages. Science should at ALL times be focused on the idea that what we currently know is wrong and always be searching for evidence as such. In many cases, what appears to evidence of science fact is in reality just a fundamental incapability of our tools to accurately observe our world.

As example, science could once "prove" based on observation that the earth was the center of our solar system. Based on the ability to observe our world at the time, the measurement fit. As our tools and ability to observe at a greater detail improved, suddenly our measurements no longer matched. The solution was to add additional orbits so that the old theory was "right" again based on observable measurements. That was wrong, yet we kept layering complexities on our previously theories rather than actually fixing them.

Now, look at this discovery. Yes, our previous theories suggested these waves would exist. However, now that we have improved our ability to observe, it appears that the theories were also very wrong about the size of the waves. Do you really think the solution is to add an orbit or is it far more likely our previous theories, while capable of accurately predicting an event based on inferior observations, are in fact based on a flawed understanding of the underlying cause?

None of this is a discredit to science. Quite the opposite, really. Science is at its best when we assume we are wrong and never stop trying to prove it. The moment we accept something as universally true based on current observation is the moment we stop making progress.

 

[M3d10n]

the big bang is cool and all, I can somehow wrap my head around it but what was BEFORE the Big Bang? was there 100% Dark Matter???

and what caused the creation of the energetic materials that then exploded and created the Big Bang? where do they come from?

what if what we call "the observable universe" is some kind of a microscopic experiment of some scientists in another layer of the universe and we are just a result of some scientists that produced this big bang inside a massive container that holds the universe as we now it?

the picture shows that we are like in some kind of deliberated process that evolves constantly.

The idea (so far) is that there isn't "before" the big bang, because time itself didn't exist before the big bang, as neither did gravity and mass, which only showed up a short moments later.

 

[Rebel Leader]

I love science. Shit confuses me and I won't pretend to understand half of this stuff, but it's amazing nonetheless.

 

[Partial Gamification]

That, in my opinion, is an incredibly flawed way to look at science and is at the root of what has been the issue for ages. Science should at ALL times be focused on the idea that what we currently know is wrong and always be searching for evidence as such. In many cases, what appears to evidence of science fact is in reality just a fundamental incapability of our tools to accurately observe our world.

As example, science could once "prove" based on observation that the earth was the center of our solar system. Based on the ability to observe our world at the time, the measurement fit. As our tools and ability to observe at a greater detail improved, suddenly our measurements no longer matched. The solution was to add additional orbits so that the old theory was "right" again based on observable measurements. That was wrong, yet we kept layering complexities on our previously theories rather than actually fixing them.

Now, look at this discovery. Yes, our previous theories suggested these waves would exist. However, now that we have improved our ability to observe, it appears that the theories were also very wrong about the size of the waves. Do you really think the solution is to add an orbit or is it far more likely our previous theories, while capable of accurately predicting an event based on inferior observations, are in fact based on a flawed understanding of the underlying cause?

None of this is a discredit to science. Quite the opposite, really. Science is at its best when we assume we are wrong and never stop trying to prove it. The moment we accept something as universally true based on current observation is the moment we stop making progress.

I think I know of the interview in question, Neil repeats himself with all the exposure he gets so maybe its another event. The scientific method enables a process of repeating experiments to verify results in a controlled manner. This is to say that once a result is scientifically verified, it can be said that given a certain set of conditions, a specific result can be expected -every time. It is limited and not universal so i think I understand where you are coming from; but I'd contest your whole arguement with the (unscientific) evidence that the more that is known, the more unknown presents itself. Science is a growing collection, not the final edition of a set of volumes; if that makes any sense.

I think there are inaccuracies in the history of cosmology and astronomy presented too but its really just this sentence more than anything:

As example, science could once "prove" based on observation that the earth was the center of our solar system.

I don't know... pre-Heliocentric models were incomplete but the observations since Copernicus and Galileo have progressively developed our understanding of the solar system.

 

[mantidor]

As example, science could once "prove" based on observation that the earth was the center of our solar system.

I don't think we could call that "science". Even very basic observation would leave us with more questions, you look up, everything moves around, fine, we are the center! except that there are these weird stars that move different, and the moon has phases. Stopping at that would be so very uncientific, you would keep trying to figure out the rest.

This was addressed in Cosmos with the story about Johannes Kepler, I hope the new series does that story justice.

 

[SkyOdin]

All this subjects sound important and interesting but my brain is too primitive to really get what the hell it all means, what i find really mind blowing is how people like Einstein or other brilliant minds basically "guessed" or deducted so much shit from nothing, i can't wrap my head around that.

Scientists don't create knowledge from nothing. They just build on the works of previous thinkers and scientists.

As someone else mentioned above, Einstein's work didn't come out of nowhere. The starting point of his work came out of trying to solve a dilemma that arose from scientific developments in the area of electrodynamics. In short, the electrodynamic equations had one big point that made no sense to scientists: if you plug in the equations for the propagation of electromagnetic waves, it simplifies down to the speed of light being a constant, defined directly by the fundamental constants of electricity and magnetism. This implied that the speed of light was a fundamental constant of the universe.

This made absolutely no sense, since it completely defied how Newtonian mechanics understood speed and velocity. How could the same ray of light be traveling the same speed in two different frames of reference? It made no sense.

So, Einstein tried to solve that problem. The result was the Theory of Special Relativity, which stated that light maintained its speed because the space and time of different frames of reference were different. From there, he created the Theory of General Relativity. And that led to the Newtonian model of the universe being completely replaced.

So scientists like Einstein didn't really come up with this stuff out of thin air. It is all based on the work done by previous scientists and trying to solve the questions that they were unable to yet solve. Not to downplay the enormous contributions of people such as Albert Einstein of course.

 

[that1dude24]

I love science. Shit confuses me and I won't pretend to understand half of this stuff, but it's amazing nonetheless.

you don't love science, you love the universe and understanding it

 

[Ghost23]

This is truly a huge discovery for the future of quantum mechanics. My friend's response to this news - "we've known this for like 30 years"....

 

[cdkee]

This stuff makes my brain hurt.

 

[Alcoremortis]

If that were the case would we not expect to see galaxies flying in all directions, not uniformly away from us?

It would depend on how far away it was happening. If it was happening far enough away that the closest galaxies flying towards us would be out of the range of our biggest telescopes, how would we even know?

 

[Mengy]

the big bang is cool and all, I can somehow wrap my head around it but what was BEFORE the Big Bang? was there 100% Dark Matter???

and what caused the creation of the energetic materials that then exploded and created the Big Bang? where do they come from?

One theory, the one that I like to believe may be true, is that the universe came from nothing. What makes this possible is the theory that if you add up all of the energy in the universe, all of the forces in all directions, if the total net sum of that energy is equal to zero, then essentially the total sum of the universe equals nothing. In this respect, mathematically the universe could indeed "pop" or burst into existence from...nothingness.

 

[sphinx]

It would make sense to me that the Universe would be round, but that's just because that would my first guess as to the most entropically favorable shape, but that there would be no edges. It would be a bit Heisenbergian, but on a larger scale. You would never be able to reach the "end" of the Universe, because as soon as you get there, it will have moved. And honestly, the idea of alternate universes is more terrifying than the idea of one infinite one. Because I can only imagine that you wouldn't be able to have a finite number of alternate universes.

Bah! This universe stuff is crazy-making. It's turtles all the way down, I say!

one Universe theory I have is that, because space is relative, there can be a whole complete universe anywhere.... I mean, aren't we, earth and humans, like a very small minuscule, microscopic specimen in the bigger scheme oif things? if we take the observable universe around us as size reference, one human is the size of a cell or an atom. If we can exist and create all this nice things on this earth, why can't something similar like the universe exist in a small version anywhere?

maybe for some living thing that we can't posible perceive because is extremely small, you lighting a match constitutes a Canis Majoris for them.

Size/space is another thing that melts my brain. just trying to put 13.7 billion light years in miles or kilometers, should tell us that we are really incredibly fucking small.

No. As you approach the speed of light time slows down, ensuring that you would never *quite* get there.

I don't quite understand the correlation

why/when/how does time become a factor when reaching certain speeds?

The idea (so far) is that there isn't "before" the big bang, because time itself didn't exist before the big bang, as neither did gravity and mass, which only showed up a short moments later.

but SOMETHING must have been there in order for a big bang to take place and something must have caused the explosion.

I just can't accept, "there was nothing and then BAM, big bang, there, history begins there".

 

[Ether_Snake]

Particles collide with one another and when under so much pressure that eventually they would cancel one another out as spin would slow too much so instead at least half is teleported elsewhere in the universe randomly (if not both in two different places), resulting in an outward push equal to the momentum they had before being teleported, but no longer impaired, hence nothing in the universe gets canceled out of existence.

It's a like a referee splitting a fight to avoid a deadlock. The universe does not allow equality and agreements, only winners and losers are allowed, and everyone must keep fighting forever!

/guess

 

[Simon Belmont]

I don't quite understand the correlation

why/when/how does time become a factor when reaching certain speeds?

There are much better places to get informed about it than from me, but as I understand it your speed through space and time are linked such that your speed through space + your speed through time = the speed of light. The faster you move through space the slower you move through time and vice versa.

 

[Chichikov]

This is pretty damn huge, yeah, we suspected it to be true for quite a while, but actually observing it might lead to big things

Spoiler

let's go multiverse!

.

And if people are interested in General Relativity I would recommend The Perfect Theory, it's a great book.

 

[Elfforkusu]

5 sigma! Awesome.

General relativity is awesome, btw. Even more awesome when you consider that adjusting for it is essential to make the GPS in your phone to work right.

 

[CoolOff]

This is neat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlfIVEy_YOA&feature=youtu.be

Andrei Linde (the guy behind the idea) is told his hypothesis is correct

This is beautiful. :3

 

[RoadHazard]

Size/space is another thing that melts my brain. just trying to put 13.7 billion light years in miles or kilometers, should tell us that we are really incredibly fucking small.

Yeah. Our entire solar system (which is preeeeetty freaking huge) is mere lighthours across. Meanwhile, the observable universe has a radius of around 46 billion lightyears, i.e. it's around 92 billion lightyears across (13.8 billion years is just how long it has taken light from the most distant galaxies we can see to reach us, they've moved much farther away in that time due to space itself expanding). That's pretty big.

 

[SpoonyBard]

There are much better places to get informed about it than from me, but as I understand it your speed through space and time are linked such that your speed through space + your speed through time = the speed of light. The faster you move through space the slower you move through time and vice versa.

But this is all relative, so to an outside observer it would look like your time would grind to a halt, but to you everything would be normal. Of course, since you have mass, you'd have to spend infinite amount of time to reach the speed of light. If you could somehow skip the acceleration part, and just jump to the speed of light, I think you should still experience time in your frame of reference as usual...

 

[smokeandmirrors]

Ahh, great video.

This is beautiful. :3

It really is. I can't imagine what was going on through his mind when he heard "5 sigma"

His wife took to it right away:

"5 sigma"

"Discovery"

*hugs*

 

[Mayyhem]

Absolutely fascinating

 

[SkyOdin]

I don't quite understand the correlation

why/when/how does time become a factor when reaching certain speeds?

This is pretty much what the theory of special relativity is about. There isn't really a good short-hand way of describing the phenomona, but I will try to summarize. When an object moves quickly, time will dilate and space will contract along the path of its movement. This space compression and time dilation technically happens at all speeds, but is so minuscule that it can be complete disregarded for most purposes until you start to move at a speed close to the speed of light.

Time dilation means that travelers moving close to the speed of light will perceive much less time passing compared to outside observers watching them pass by. For example, a space journey that to the outside observes would appear to take 200 years can only take 20 years according the perception of the travelers. This ties into the other aspect of special relativity: spacial contraction. The distance the spaceship is traveling is shorter for the travelers than the observers. This isn't a matter of perception either, and it isn't an illusion. The physical distance is actually less for one party, even though both parties are observing the same thing.

One of the core consequences of special relativity then is that time is not a universal quantity. There is no "present" that is shared by all frames of reference. Even the concept of two events happening simultaneously is gone, since different parties traveling in different directions will see events happen in different orders. Time is influenced by the direction you are traveling in.

 

[Phoenix]

That, in my opinion, is an incredibly flawed way to look at science and is at the root of what has been the issue for ages. Science should at ALL times be focused on the idea that what we currently know is wrong and always be searching for evidence as such. In many cases, what appears to evidence of science fact is in reality just a fundamental incapability of our tools to accurately observe our world.

As example, science could once "prove" based on observation that the earth was the center of our solar system. Based on the ability to observe our world at the time, the measurement fit. As our tools and ability to observe at a greater detail improved, suddenly our measurements no longer matched. The solution was to add additional orbits so that the old theory was "right" again based on observable measurements. That was wrong, yet we kept layering complexities on our previously theories rather than actually fixing them.

Now, look at this discovery. Yes, our previous theories suggested these waves would exist. However, now that we have improved our ability to observe, it appears that the theories were also very wrong about the size of the waves. Do you really think the solution is to add an orbit or is it far more likely our previous theories, while capable of accurately predicting an event based on inferior observations, are in fact based on a flawed understanding of the underlying cause?

None of this is a discredit to science. Quite the opposite, really. Science is at its best when we assume we are wrong and never stop trying to prove it. The moment we accept something as universally true based on current observation is the moment we stop making progress.

The perfect post...

 

[Rentahamster]

This is neat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlfIVEy_YOA&feature=youtu.be

Andrei Linde (the guy behind the idea) is told his hypothesis is correct

Beautiful.

 

[hukasmokincaterpillar]

As example, science could once "prove" based on observation that the earth was the center of our solar system. Based on the ability to observe our world at the time, the measurement fit. As our tools and ability to observe at a greater detail improved, suddenly our measurements no longer matched. The solution was to add additional orbits so that the old theory was "right" again based on observable measurements. That was wrong, yet we kept layering complexities on our previously theories rather than actually fixing them.

Case in point, the "dark stuff".
Michael J. Disney paints a pretty grim picture for modern cosmology as a whole...

The currently fashionable concordance model of cosmology (also known to the cognoscenti as "Lambda-Cold Dark Matter," or lambda-CDM) has 18 parameters, 17 of which are independent. Thirteen of these parameters are well fitted to the observational data; the other four remain floating. This situation is very far from healthy. Any theory with more free parameters than relevant observations has little to recommend it. Cosmology has always had such a negative significance, in the sense that it has always had fewer observations than free parameters (as is illustrated at left), though cosmologists are strangely reluctant to admit it. While it is true that we presently have no alternative to the Big Bang in sight, that is no reason to accept it. Thus it was that witchcraft took hold.

The three successful predictions of the concordance model (the apparent flatness of space, the abundances of the light elements and the maximum ages of the oldest star clusters) are overwhelmed by at least half a dozen unpredicted surprises, including dark matter and dark energy. Worse still, there is no sign of a systematic improvement in the net significance of cosmological theories over time...

In its original form, an expanding Einstein model had an attractive, economic elegance. Alas, it has since run into serious difficulties, which have been cured only by sticking on some ugly bandages: inflation to cover horizon and flatness problems; overwhelming amounts of dark matter to provide internal structure; and dark energy, whatever that might be, to explain the seemingly recent acceleration. A skeptic is entitled to feel that a negative significance, after so much time, effort and trimming, is nothing more than one would expect of a folktale constantly re-edited to fit inconvenient new observations.

Link

 

[GaimeGuy]

I don't quite understand the correlation

why/when/how does time become a factor when reaching certain speeds?

It may help you better understand it this way:
The speed of light is actually a limit on your combined velocity through space and through time.

 

[And_Gignac]

Big Bang, the theory, has always seems to me as a conformist, dogmatic explanation of the beginning of all. How come causality is so important for physics *except* when it comes to the Big Bang?.

 

[Gr1mLock]

Im stupid. However I am excited. You go sensual smart folk. I will be available if you need someone to smash a vcr with a large bone.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

None of this is a discredit to science. Quite the opposite, really. Science is at its best when we assume we are wrong and never stop trying to prove it. The moment we accept something as universally true based on current observation is the moment we stop making progress.

He didn't say you had to accept it as set in stone. He said you should stop considering it "speculation", which I think you'll agree with. It's not merely speculative, it's backed up by evidence. It's considerably more solid than just speculation.

 

[peakish]

I read about them some time ago, I remember being fascinating. I wonder, can anyone explain EPR Paradox / Bell's Theorem and modern QM experiments, and the implications?

I remember a Youtube video that went over them, but hell if I can find it again.

It's been a while since I read up on this in detail for a presentation, but (and please correct me if I'm wrong, anyone) the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paper presented an argument in which two entangled particles were separated and some quantity of one measured. In "normal" life something is created with this quantity already determined, so if you buy a box of unlabeled ice cream and open it to find that it's vanilla you know for certain that it was always filled with vanilla; it was a hidden but determined variable. According to quantum mechanics this isn't the case, the state of a particle is actually determined upon measurement, it didn't exist prior to this except as a probability distribution (mind you this doesn't really travel up to macroscopic phenomena, see Schrödinger's Cat).

So these entangled particles that EPR used share a common state, say that you know that one is "up" and the other is "down" but not which of the two have either quantity. If you bring these particles apart and measure "up" on the first you know for certain that the other will have "down" and can measure that. But how does the other particle know what it's quantity is? EPR argued that this information is intrinsic but hidden variables of the particles determined when the entangled state was created. In Quantum Mechanics these hidden variables can not exist, the value is "created" when measured -- but the other particle will always measure the opposite value which would mean that this "information transfer" is instantaneous, not depending on distance or being limited by the speed of light.

Fast forwarding 20 years Bell's paper presented a case in which no hidden variable theory could reproduce the results of Quantum mechanics. "Bell's Inequality" is derived based on the assumptions of classical hidden variable theories and puts a limit on a measurement that could actually be performed in experiments. Later on tests (of which there have been a shit ton, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments -- for the presentation I studied the papers by Alain Aspects team and they were fantastic) have showed that measurements violate this inequality, disproving the assumptions of local hidden variable theories.

It's actually not a proof of Quantum Mechanics itself, but the formalism of Bell's Inequality sets limits on our reality which the EPR interpretation does not adhere to. Quantum Mechanics, never having had a single experiment going against is by most scientists the accepted state -- but there are some who still argue for other interpretations, or at least work on setting further limits on reality which could disprove other interpretations (or perhaps even QM itself come time).

 

[keuja]

Another point for Einstein and Monseigneur Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître

 

[synchronicity]

No matter how much we observe and how much we come to understand and "know", we're ultimately faced with the possibly uncomfortable notion that we know essentially nothing and that subjective experience trumps any "objective" reality, in the end.

I'm in no way religious, fwiw.

 

[AnathemicOne]

No matter how much we observe and how much we come to understand and "know", we're ultimately faced with the possibly uncomfortable notion that we know essentially nothing and that subjective experience trumps any "objective" reality, in the end.

I'm in no way religious, fwiw.

What? Sorry but how exactly? Objective facts carry on after your life to the succeeding generations to use/improve on. "Subjective Reality" ends when you die.

 

[Simon Belmont]

No matter how much we observe and how much we come to understand and "know", we're ultimately faced with the possibly uncomfortable notion that we know essentially nothing and that subjective experience trumps any "objective" reality, in the end.

I'm in no way religious, fwiw.

You sound like a sociologist. Poor mans scientist.

 

[AkuMifune]

These threads always make me feel like humans are the genie from Aladdin, figuring out the secrets of the universe stuck on a rock floating in the middle of nowhere .

Phenomenal cosmic powers, Itty bitty living space.

 

[The Technomancer]

No matter how much we observe and how much we come to understand and "know", we're ultimately faced with the possibly uncomfortable notion that we know essentially nothing and that subjective experience trumps any "objective" reality, in the end.

I'm in no way religious, fwiw.

This is accurate but not very useful. Akin to me acknowledging that there's a nonzero chance I'll suddenly wake up on Mars while still not going to bed every night in a spacesuit

 

[synchronicity]

This is accurate but not very useful.

What is the utility of life itself?

 

[danwarb]

Big Bang, the theory, has always seems to me as a conformist, dogmatic explanation of the beginning of all. How come causality is so important for physics *except* when it comes to the Big Bang?.

Big bang is certainly right though, one way or another. As right as right can be at least.

 

[Cetra]

Landmark discovery is understatement here. Our understanding of the Universe and how it got to this state just increased exponentially. If this has half the implications I and many think it does, we're in for some really interesting stuff in the near future.

 

[SpoonyBard]

Big bang is certainly right though, one way or another. As right as right can be at least.

Well, if by big bang you mean the original theory, that is, the universe is expanding. That is a sure thing at this point. But if big bang you mean that the universe started from a singularity, and dark matter and energy keep the expansion speed at the rate we are having now... nah, we need more proof until we can be sure.

 

[Mr Swine]

It may help you better understand it this way:
The speed of light is actually a limit on your combined velocity through space and through time.

How do we know this? What if there are objects/particles or stuff that is faster than light? Would that change things ?

 

[Armaros]

How do we know this? What if there are objects/particles or stuff that is faster than light? Would that change things ?

You mean rewrite almost all of Physics as we currently understand it?

 

[yankeehater]

How do we know this? What if there are objects/particles or stuff that is faster than light? Would that change things ?

Scientists have been searching for particles that move faster then the speed of light for a long time. They are called tachyons, but I think most scientists feel they do not exist.

 

[Mengy]

What is the utility of life itself?

Who said life has to have a utility?

How do we know this? What if there are objects/particles or stuff that is faster than light? Would that change things ?

Yes, that would change a lot of things. What if the Flying Spaghetti Monster was real too. Would that change things? Simply because it would change things doesn't make it any more realistic nor likely. Science is about data and observation, not "what if's".

 

[fredrancour]

How do we know this? What if there are objects/particles or stuff that is faster than light? Would that change things ?

The theory of special relativity basically says, "what if things worked out such that all this stuff about the speed of light is true? How would stuff behave?" Every one of those consequences that we've ever been able to observe has lined up with those predictions. There might be a way around it but if there is, we haven't found it yet, and any proposals as to how to do so are so far removed from our knowledge as to basically be science fiction right now.

If something moving faster than light flew by earth, we'd have to find some new theories to explain it, but we still don't have any reason to expect it to happen.

 

[nicanica]

SInce they're able to observe the waves over time, are they able to determine the origin / 'center of the universe' ?

 

[sphinx]

One of the core consequences of special relativity then is that time is not a universal quantity. There is no "present" that is shared by all frames of reference. Even the concept of two events happening simultaneously is gone, since different parties traveling in different directions will see events happen in different orders. Time is influenced by the direction you are traveling in.

I was also wondering, and sorry if these questions are all stupid.but here it goes, (I guess you have already answered but I don't quite grasp it)

, in this relative "present", (let's say this minute it has taken me to post this message). Is whatever there is 50 billions light years away from here happening at the same time?

I mean, Is the concept of time the same in other places of the Universe relative to earth?

is time slower or faster or intermitent in other places? time is ever-present, right?

is all in the observable universe in "our" present a a real thing or are there portions that is just the light/image/energy of a distant past reaching us and there's nothing really there? and if yes, then what's there now? dark matter?

 

[The Technomancer]

I was also wondering, and sorry if these questions are all stupid.but here it goes, (I guess you have already answered but I don't quite grasp it)

, in this relative "present", (let's say this minute it has taken me to post this message). Is whatever there is 50 billions light years away from here happening at the same time?

I mean, Is the concept of time the same in other places of the Universe relative to earth?

is time slower or faster or intermitent in other places? time is ever-present, right?

Time is not a global ether through which things move, time is relative to individual movers through spacetime. Its not a question of "is time the same elsewhere?", its a question of "is time the same for everyone and everything?", and the answer is no, time varies for things based on how fast they're moving. Its not really intuitive at all. it gets a bit more intuitive once you grasp how space and time interact and are really basically the same (oh man, ask me about merry-go-rounds), but its still never completely intuitive.

is all in the observable universe in "our" present a a real thing or are there portions that is just the light/image/energy of a distant past reaching us and there's nothing really there? and if yes, then what's there now? dark matter?

All of the observable universe right now is in fact light from the past reaching us. The computer screen you see is actually light from nanoseconds ago, the sun that you see is actually light from like eight minutes ago, the light from a star two hundred light years away is actually from 200 years ago, etc. What's there now? We don't know. Maybe the star is still burning. Maybe it went supernova. There's literally no way to know what things are like 200 lightyears away in any time more recent then 200 years.

These aren't dumb questions at all, by the way. keep asking if you want to know more

 

[TheOMan]

I was also wondering, and sorry if these questions are all stupid.but here it goes, (I guess you have already answered but I don't quite grasp it)

, in this relative "present", (let's say this minute it has taken me to post this message). Is whatever there is 50 billions light years away from here happening at the same time?

I mean, Is the concept of time the same in other places of the Universe relative to earth?

is time slower or faster or intermitent in other places? time is ever-present, right?

is all in the observable universe in "our" present a a real thing or are there portions that is just the light/image/energy of a distant past reaching us and there's nothing really there? and if yes, then what's there now? dark matter?

Time is relative, usually to you.

This might help: http://www.askamathematician.com/20...oesnt-experience-time-then-how-can-it-travel/

 

[Tesseract]

all smiles