Salmanhabib1
Hi Salmanhabib1--
I wonder if you might entertain a naive question about the horizon problem that in my ignorance has long puzzled me:
I understand the concept of light, or information, not having had time to cross the universe from as far as we can see to the "east" to as far as we can see to the "west", and thus the "east" and "west" "edges" of the universe being beyond each other's horizon. (Or perhaps I am badly misstating the problem here.)
What I do not understand is how we can have any confidence in the Big Bang having occurred within our own Earth-bound horizon in any direction. As I understand it, with the continuing and accelerating expansion of the universe, the Big Bang that we think we see remnants of will eventually disappear beyond our own horizon. Again, this may be my misconception. But if this is correct, is it simply sheer coincidence and luck that we happen to be looking at a time when the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang remains within our own horizon? It seems as if the Big Bang were already beyond our horizon of sight, we could have no idea how long ago it might have occurred - no idea of the age of the universe. The postulated age of ~13.8 billion years assumes that we do in fact see the immediate aftermath (~300,000 years, once the initial plasma became transparent to photons).
I'm sure there must be a convincing answer to this question, but I've never seen it addressed, at least in these terms. I hope you don't mind getting what may be a very silly question. Milkunderwood (talk) 08:21, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
- Thank you, and for the helpful link. Trillions more years hadn't occurred to me. Milkunderwood (talk) 02:53, 4 June 2013 (UTC)