Sometimes we get so caught up in the stresses of everyday life, we tend to forget that we are not the "center of the world." In fact, it took astronomers like Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei to bring an end to geocentrism, "put us in our place," and prove the fact that the Sun was the center of our Solar System, not the Earth. We have also discovered within the past several centuries that our planet is not alone; that there are other planets that orbit the Sun and that there are other galaxies adjacent to our's. Then, with the help of Orbiters, Rovers, Landers, and even manned explorations during the late 20th and early 21st century, we have discovered more and more about those other planets and their moons, in addition to the hundreds of billions of other galaxies that are in our Universe. As far WE know for now, our Earth is the only habitable planet, since all of the other planets seem to be too big, too cold, too gaseous, or have gravity problems that scorch their oceans and, thus, cannot support life. Still, our finite yet curious human minds thirst for the knowledge of just how big our Universe is. We hunger for an understanding of what our place, meaning, and purpose in our Universe is. To even come close to these realizations, we would have to look at everything through God's eyes. To even begin to help you understand the vastness of our cosmos, we're going to start with something elementary. And I mean REALLY elementary. Okay, let's start with some arithmetic, since it is the most elementary branch of mathematics. We all learned it in Elementary School. It deals with numbers and their addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
- Say you were driving a car at 30 miles per hour (mph), since we general think in terms of miles per hour (mps). And say that you intend to drive that car 30 miles from where you start. How long will it take you to reach that destination?... An HOUR, right? Makes sense, doesn't it? You drive for 30 miles at 30 mph, it will take you an hour to get there, right?
- Okay, now let's say that you were driving that same car on the highway at 60 mph, but still driving the same distance (30 miles) from where you start. How long will it take you to reach THAT destination?... A HALF AN HOUR, right? So, you traveled the same distance at twice the speed and reached your destination in half the time... With me so far?
- Okay, let's go further. Say you get a little — stupid, high, drunk, suicidal, or whatever — and you were driving that same car on the highway at 150 mph, but still going the same distance (30 miles). At the risk of being pulled over by a State Trooper, killing other people on the highway, or even killing yourself, how long would it take for you to reach THAT destination (assuming you make it there alive and in tact)?... FIVE MINUTES, right? So, you traveled the same distance at five times the speed and reached your destination in one fifth of the time. Do you see a pattern emerging here?
So, we are able to say conclusively that if we were to travel at a FASTER SPEED at a destination that is the same distance, we can arrive there in LESS TIME. That's not too difficult to understand, is it? Now, let's go a step further.
For centuries, we human beings have been trying to get from Point A to Point B faster by inventing travel devices that can get them there in less time. And with the evolution of technology, we've been quite successful. In Mesopotamia, the first wheeled vehicles in history (e.g. the chariot & river boat) were invented in 3,500 BC. Horses are domesticated and used for transportation by 2,000 BC. By 1492, Leonardo da Vinci was the first to seriously theorize about flying machines. In 1620, Cornelis Drebbel invented the first submarine. Forty-two years later, the first public bus - horse-drawn, regular route, schedule, and fare system was invented by none other then the famous Blaise Pascal. The first Steamboat was invented in 1787. Three years later, the modern bicycle was invented. In 1814, George Stephenson invented the first practical steam powered railroad locomotive "Blutcher" at Killingworth Colliery. By 1871, the first Cable Car was invented. A dozen years later, Karl Benz invents the first car powered by an internal combustion engine. Eleven years after that, the first motorcycle was available to the public for purchase by Hildebrand & Wolfmüller. By 1903, The Wright Brothers invent and fly the first engined airplane. Five years later, Henry Ford improves the assembly line for automobile manufacturing with the introduction of the Ford Model T. By 1964, Bullet Train transportation had been invented. On July 20, 1969, we had our first manned mission (Apollo 12) to the Moon. By 1981, our flight of the first Space Shuttle launched. The Channel Tunnel opened in 1994. Then, the first privately funded human spaceflight (a.k.a. the first space of Space) happened on June 21, 2004.
Yeah, technology evolves quite quickly in our world. Inventions like the VCR were once high tech. Now, with the invention of DVD's and DVR's, they have become as obsolete as records and cassette tapes. Heck, the VCR became obsolete before many of us learned how to program one. Remember how exciting it was when home video first came out? Back in the 80's, a video camera (containing a beta tape) would have cost you $1,000 or more. Then, after the invention of the DVD in 1997 and Blu-ray Disc in 2006, sales of video cameras and other recording equipment plummeted. Nowadays, advances in computer technology allowed computers to capture, store, edit, and even transmit video clips. And yet, technology continues to evolve more and more as time thrust forward. For lot's of people, future technology is the most exciting. A very popular one is Quantum Teleportation (a.k.a.The Transporter). Quantum Teleportation is the name given by science fiction writers to the feat of making an object or person disintegrate in one place while a perfect replica appears somewhere else. Pretty cool, isn't it? What kind of technology is required to scramble a person's atoms and send them for regrouping in foreign lands all in the blink of an eye? Imagine: I could work in Tokyo, relax after work in Maui, sleep in Paris, spend my weekends in Key West, and spend most of my retirement years in the relaxed community and black-and-white-sanded beach town of Coronado, Panama. Beam me up, Scottie!
But I digress... We see that driving a car will get us to our destination faster than "The Heal-Toe Express." We see that taking a bus, a boat, or a train may get us somewhere even faster than a car (depending on where you're going). And, of course, we see that the fastest of all of these is flying in an airplane. After all, we are trying to evolve our transportation system due to the knowledge that: if we were to travel at a FASTER SPEED at a destination that is the same distance, we can arrive there in LESS TIME. And, therefore, we are trying to find ways of arriving at our destinations in LESS TIME by traveling at a FASTER SPEED. So, the next question is: what is the fastest speed known in the world of physics?... Well, if you know you're Science very well, you would know that it is: THE SPEED OF LIGHT. In 1905, Albert Einstein postulated that the SPEED OF LIGHT with respect to any inertial frame is independent of the motion of the light source, and explored the consequences of that postulate by deriving the Special Theory of Relativity. There is no known motion (or speed) beyond THE SPEED OF LIGHT. But keep something in mind... That is only in theory.
Only a century ago, traveling at THE SPEED OF SOUND was also a part of theoretical physics and aerodynamics. Humans wanted to see if the could travel at the SPEED OF SOUND and still survive to tell the story. THE SPEED OF SOUND, at that point, was a barrier. Like the SPEED OF LIGHT, it was only "in theory" that we could travel at the SPEED OF SOUND. A Sound Barrier (at that time) was: a hypothetical barrier to fly beyond the speed of sound. Now, I'm no pilot and I'm not going to talk about ALL four of the fundamental forces in aerodynamics (i.e. Weight, Lift, Drag, and Thrust). However, it was the "drag force" that was the main barrier to flying faster the SPEED OF SOUND. This was postulated because aircrafts undergo an abruptly increasing drag force induced by compression of the surrounding air when traveling near the SPEED OF SOUND. Remember Newton's Third Law of Motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. And what IS "drag," exactly? Well, drag is: the aerodynamic force that opposes an aircraft's motion through the air or fluid. So, drag is that "equal and opposite reaction" to the aircraft flying forward (i.e. the opposing aerodynamic force of "Thrust"). Think of yourself riding along in a car. If you stick your hand out of a car window while moving, you'll experience a very simple demonstration of drag at work. The amount of drag that your hand creates depends on a few factors (e.g. the size of your hand, the speed of the car, and the density of the air). If you were to slow down, you would notice that the drag on your hand would decrease. So, in terms of physics, drag is a mechanical force and is, therefore, a Vector Quantity having both a magnitude and a direction. So, for drag to be generated, the solid body must be in contact with the air or fluid. If there is no air or fluid, there is no drag. Nevertheless, the consequences of traveling at the SPEED OF SOUND and faster was purely speculation; conjectures of great scientists of their time. It took some time. But then, while flying the experimental Bell X-1 at an altitude of 45,000 feet on October 14, 1947, an Air Force Captain test pilot at Muroc Army Air Field (now Edwards Air Force Base) named: Chuck Yeager became the first person break the Sound Barrier. He was the first person to not only fight at THE SPEED OF SOUND but actually flew a smidgen faster (i.e. Mach 1.07). Therefore, they had to make up a name for THE SPEED OF SOUND. They called it: a Mach or Mach 1. The Mach number is named after an Austrian physicist and philosopher named: Ernst Mach, proposed by an aeronautical engineer named: Jakob Ackeret. Kind of coincidental, since the word: "mach" is German for the transitive second-person singular imperative form of "machen," meaning "to do" or "to make." So, Mach 1 is THE SPEED OF SOUND. Mach 2 is twice the SPEED OF SOUND. Mach 3 is three times the SPEED OF SOUND, and so on and so forth. So, how fast is THE SPEED OF SOUND? Well, as I've mentioned, since we general think in terms of miles per hour, that is how we will measure the SPEED OF SOUND.
The answer to how fast Mach 1 is in miles per hour is not an exact science, due to the variables involved in calculation. The figures can vary depending on altitude, humidity, and whether we are measuring in the air or in water. A good basic number -- Mach 1 = 761.207051 miles per hour, which is 12.6867842 miles per minute. So, THE SPEED OF SOUND is over 761 mph or about 13 miles per minute. Pretty fast, isn't it? Well, as the old cliché goes: "You ain't seen nothin' yet." But for now, we'll stick with the SPEED OF SOUND. Let's first give you a good idea about how fast the SPEED OF SOUND (i.e. Mach 1) really is.
- So, say you wanted to fly at Mach 1 FROM Estcourt Station, Maine, 04741 TO San Iysidro, California, 92143. The distance between those two cities in the United States is: 3,215.36 miles. If you were to travel at Mach 1, you would arrive at San Iysido in 3.5280939 hours (roughly 3 hours and 32 minutes).
- Now, say you wanted to fly at Mach 1 FROM Cape Chelyuskin, Russia TO Pedra Branca, Australia. The distance between these two points in the world is: 8,579.98 miles. If you were to travel at Mach 1, you would arrive at Pedra Branca in 11.271545 hours (roughly 11 hours and 16 minutes).
- Now, say you wanted to fly at Mach 1 FROM the North Pole TO the South Pole. The distance between the two poles is: 12,450.73 miles. If you were to travel at Mach 1 from one point of the word the the other, you would arrive at the South Pole in 16.356561 hours (roughly 16 hours and 21 minutes).
- Now, let's think in terms of around the world. Traveling at THE SPEED OF SOUND, how long will it take us to fly around the Earth? Well, if you wanted to fly around the Earth the quickest way, it's faster to fly past the poles than to go around the equator. So, if you were to measure around the Earth, passing through the poles, it's 24,859.82 miles around. So, if you were to fly around the Earth (past the poles) at Mach 1 FROM the North Pole, go around the South Pole and back to the North Pole again, it would take you 32.65842 hours (roughly 1 day, 8 hours, and 40 minutes) (Revolutions = speed / circumference).
Not bad, huh? Around the world in less than a day and a half! But true scientists and test pilots do not stop at tying to find new discoveries. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, on November 16, 2004, NASA's X-43A, using an experimental engine called: scramjet, hit Mach 9.6 (or 7,307.586733824 mph) (nearly 10 times the SPEED OF SOUND) (roughly 2 miles per second) at an altitude of nearly 109,000 feet (almost 21 miles) over the Pacific Ocean. Of course, this was an unmanned aircraft, but it was a world record just the same.
- At that speed, a trip FROM New York TO Los Angeles would take about 20 minutes. So, there would be no need for a flight attendant to give you anything to drink while you flying "United NASA," so to speak.
- And it would only take you 3.40191925262 hours to fly around the Earth (roughly 3 hours and 24 minutes). Wow! A complete 360° around the Earth and you wouldn't even have to take any luggage. No checking of bags or even bringing a carry-on would be necessary. Not bad. Not bad at all.
- In fact, we've gone faster than THAT; however, in order to do it, we had to leave the Earth. But that is a GOOD thing. Because even without the drag force (since there is not air in outer space), at the SPEED OF SOUND, it would take you 13.0823 days (13 days, 1 hour, 58 minutes, and 30.72 seconds) to get to the Moon and 7.1935993214295 years (7 years, 2 months, 1 week, 12 days, 8 hours, 2 minutes, and 56 seconds) to get to Mars. Don't worry, though. We have space vehicles that can go much faster than that. On January 19, 2006, the robotic spacecraft: New Horizons (which is part of the New Frontiers program) was launched with an Earth-relative velocity of about 36,373 mph (or Mach 47.7833198631) (nearly 48 times THE SPEED OF SOUND). Thus, it left Earth at the fastest speed ever recorded. It will arrive at Pluto on July 14, 2015, then continue into the Kuiper Belt.
Ever since the Sound Barrier was broken, people have been asking: "Why can’t we break the Light Barrier, too? What’s the big difference?" It is too soon to tell if the Light Barrier can be broken, but one thing is certain — it’s an entirely different problem than breaking the Sound Barrier. You see, the Sound Barrier was broken by an object that was made of matter, not sound. The atoms and molecules that make up matter are connected by electromagnetic fields, the same stuff that light is made of. In the case of the Light Barrier, the thing that’s trying to break the barrier is made up of the same stuff as the barrier itself. How can an object travel faster than that which links its atoms? Like I said, it’s an entirely different problem than breaking the Sound Barrier. The bad news is that the bulk of scientific knowledge that we have accumulated as of now concludes that faster than light travel is impossible. This is an artifact of Albert Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity. Most people think it's a difficult theory to understand, but it's really not. There are only two rules to it, one of which we already talked about.
- Rule #1 is simple. The distance you’ll travel (d) depends on how fast you move (v), for how long you’re moving (t). Remember the first example I gave with driving a car at 30 miles per hour (mph)? If you were driving 30 mph for one hour, you will have covered 30 miles, right? You drive for 30 miles at 30 mph, it will take you an hour to get there, right? Rule #1 is just that simple.
- It's Rule #2 that is mind-boggling to people. The Rule is: No matter how fast you’re moving, you’ll always see the speed of light as being the same.
When you combine these together and compare what one traveler "sees" relative to another traveler at a different speed - that’s when the problems come into play. Imagine that the only sense that you had was the sense of "hearing." All that you know are sounds. You identify things by how they sound. So, when a train goes by, did its horn really change? We know that the horn was always tooting the same tone, but it was the train’s motion that made it appear to change because of something called the Doppler Shift. It's a similar situation with light. Everything we know around us we know by light, or more generally, Electromagnetism. What we see, what we feel (the air molecules bouncing off our skin), what we hear (air molecules bouncing off each other in waves of pressure), even the propagation of time, are all governed by electromagnetic forces. So, when we start moving at speeds approaching the speed by which we are getting all our information, our information gets distorted. In principle, it’s that simple. Understanding it well enough to do something about it — well, that’s a different matter.
In modern physics, light is regarded as the fastest thing in the Universe, and its velocity in empty space as a fundamental constant of nature. Now, there are some differences between SOUND and LIGHT. Remember the First Law of Thermodynamics: Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. Well, LIGHT and SOUND are two shapes and kinds of energy. When energy changes its form from one type to another, its characteristics also change. There are two main differences between sound and light waves. First, in speed, sound waves travels at over 1,116 feet per second, whereas light waves travel at around 186,282.397 miles per second. And second, sound requires a solid, liquid or gaseous medium to travel, but light can travel through empty space (i.e. a vacuum). The denser the medium, the greater the speed of sound, whereas the opposite is true of light. Light travels around a third slower in water than in air, sound travels through all substances but light will not pass through anything that is opaque. Sound is the disturbance of mechanical energy traveling through an elastic medium (transmitted through various materials and responsible for the sense of hearing), and moves through matter as a wave. Without matter, sound cannot exist. It is the properties of a sound wave that characterize sound namely frequency, wavelength, period, amplitude, and speed. Sound is basically changing of pressures and light is electromagnetic energy. You can't hear anything in space because there is no air or mass for the impulse to move through. Light is electromagnetic radiation (visible to the human eye which protrudes the sense of sight). This wave travels the fastest when there is no matter present. Sound cannot travel through vacuum, whereas light can. Properties of light include: intensity, propagation direction, frequency or wavelength spectrum, speed and polarization. Light has dual properties of wave as well as particle. Light does not require a specific medium to travel and, hence, light can be seen even in space.
Now, as we mentioned, the SPEED OF SOUND is over 761 mph or about 13 miles per minute. However, the SPEED OF LIGHT in a perfect vacuum is about 670,616,629 mph or almost 11,176,943.82 miles per minute. That's over 880,991 times the SPEED OF SOUND. To put it morel simply, LIGHT travels immensely faster than SOUND. With that being that case, because we are now going to talk about momentum involving the SPEED OF LIGHT, we will have to change our perspective from miles per hour to miles per second. That would keep the numbers smaller and easier to comprehend. Generally, we measure this by units of parsecs (i.e. about 3.26 light years) and gigaparsecs (i.e. a billion parsecs), which is the largest measurement of distance there is. Also, when you work with calculations dealing with the SPEED OF LIGHT, we need to use "nature's yard stick," since light is measured in distance, rather than time (although time is in the equation). For example, we will look at distance in terms of "light years." What is a light year? Well, it's basically what it sounds like. A light year is: the distance light travels through the vacuum of space in one year. How long does it take? One year (i.e. the time). And what about the distance? The distance of a light year is 5 trillion 900 billion miles. It is often rounded up to 6 trillion miles in a year or that a "light year" equals a distance of 6 trillion miles. Hey, what’s a hundred billion when you’re talking about almost 6 trillion? Now, let's give you a good idea about how fast the SPEED OF LIGHT really is.
The SPEED OF LIGHT in a perfect vacuum is = 186,282.397 miles per second. 1 Light speed (or c) is equal to 881,742.52352941 Ma (Machs). That is, if you wanted to travel at the SPEED OF LIGHT through the perspective of THE SPEED OF SOUND, you would have to travel at Mach 881,742 and then some (over 881,742 times the SPEED OF SOUND).
- In one second, light will make 60 trips between New York and Los Angeles.
- In one second, light will make roughly 15 trips between the North Pole and the South Pole.
- What about around the Earth? To know this, you would need to know the circumference of the Earth at the equator, since the Earth is a tad wider than it is tall. The circumference of the earth at the equator is: 24,901.55 miles. If you were to travel around the Earth’s equator (the longer way around) at the SPEED OF LIGHT, you will travel around the entire planet Earth 7.48 times in approximately one second (Revolutions = speed / circumference).
- The distance from the Earth to the Moon is about 239,000 miles. If you were to travel that distance at the SPEED OF LIGHT, you would arrive at the Moon in 1.3 seconds (a.k.a. light seconds).
- What about Interplanetary Travel (i.e. travel between the planets of the Solar System)? At the SPEED OF LIGHT, you would arrive at Mars in around 4 minutes (a.k.a. light minutes). Once you pass Mars, be careful! Roughly 45 million to 231 million miles from Mars, there are a congregation of asteroids between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter called: The Asteroid Belt. You should get there within 4 to 21 minutes after passing Mars. Wouldn't want anything to happen to your spaceship. At the SPEED OF LIGHT, you would arrive at Pluto in a little over 5 hours (a.k.a. light hours). At this point, we are nearing the Kuiper Belt, the Scattered Disc, and Oort cloud, and the end of our Solar System. The Solar System is: the collection of planets and their moons in orbit around the Sun, together with smaller bodies in the form of asteroids, meteoroids, and comets. So, it basically consists of the Sun together with all the planets and other bodies that revolve around it. Our Solar System is located within one of the outer spiral "arms" of the Milky Way (i.e. The Orion–Cygnus Arm or Local Spur). At the SPEED OF LIGHT, you would leave the Kuiper Belt and off toward the Oort Cloud in around 2 1/2 weeks (i.e. light weeks) (give or take). At the SPEED OF LIGHT, you would reach the edge of the Oort Cloud and, thus, the end of our Solar System in roughly 9 1/2 months (a.k.a light months) (give or take). When we leave the Solar System, we find our star and its planets are just one small part of the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way is a huge city of stars. All the stars in the night sky, including our Sun, are just some of the residents of this galaxy, along with millions of other stars too faint to be seen.
- What about Interstellar Travel (i.e. manned or unmanned travel between stars)? At the SPEED OF LIGHT, you would arrive at the nearest star (Alpha Centauri, a triple-star system visible from the southern hemisphere) in about 4.3 years (a.k.a. light years).
- What about Intragalactic Travel (i.e. travel within a single galaxy)? At the SPEED OF LIGHT, you could travel across our Milky Way Galaxy in 100,000 years.
- Beyond our own galaxy lies a vast expanse of galaxies. A galaxy is: a huge group of stars, dust, gas, and other celestial bodies bound together by gravitational forces. We are part of a "Local Group" of galaxies. A Local Group is: the cluster of galaxies to which we belong. It is a group of about 30 galaxies that is about 5 million light years across. The Local Group we belong to is the Milky Way (of course), Andromeda M31, Triangulum, Fornax, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, M32, M33, M101, and 9 dwarf spheroidal galaxies. The deeper we see into space, the more galaxies we discover.
- What about Intergalactic Travel (i.e. travel from one galaxy to another)? At the SPEED OF LIGHT, you'd be able to travel to the closest Galaxy to us, The Andromeda M31 Galaxy, in 2.5 million years (2 million 500 thousand years). Intergalatic Travel poses all the difficulties of Interstellar Travel multiplied a million fold. As go further out into space, we would see what is called a "cluster of galaxies." A Galaxy Cluster is: a system of galaxies that contains up to thousands of galaxies bound together by gravitational forces. These huge systems of galaxies are filled with enormous clouds of extremely hot gas (as high as a hundred million degrees) held together by gravitational forces. The largest galaxies in a cluster are pulled to the center of the cluster and large clusters capture nearby galaxies with their enormous gravitational forces, continuing to grow over time. As you group these Galaxy Clusters, you form what is called: a Galaxy Cloud. A Galaxy Cloud is: a group of galaxy clusters and a substructure of a supercluster. We are part of the Local Supercuster. You put all these Galaxy Clouds together and they form what is called: "Superclusters." Superclusters are: a group of Galaxy Clusters, and Galaxy Clouds, typically consisting of 3 to 10 clusters spanning as many as 2 hundred million light years. They are the largest structures in the Universe. We are part of what is called: the Virgo Supercluster, thought to contain over 47,000 galaxies. Astronomers believe that there are some 10 million Superclusters in the observable Universe. These Superclusters form large structures of galaxies called: "filaments," "supercluster complexes," "walls," or "sheets" that may span between several hundred million light years to 10 billion light years, covering more than 5% of the observable Universe.
Now, the big one! The entire Universe! How long would it take us to go from one end of the Universe to the other when traveling at the SPEED OF LIGHT? Well, latest studies indicate that the Universe is about 13.7 billion years old (give or take). However, there's an issue here... The "visible universe" has a radius of 46 billion light years. And, on average, the "other end" of the Universe has been receding 4 light years further away every year. So, if we were to calculate how long it would take to traverse the current diameter of the "visible Universe," (which is 92 billion light years) at the SPEED OF LIGHT, this works out to be about 45.7 billion years experienced in a spaceship! That's roughly 14 gigaparsecs (14,000,001,814.82 parsecs). And that's just the "visible Universe" alone! There are still other parts of the Universe that we can't even see, let alone observe! For all WE know, there may be additional "Universes" adjacent to our own! WOW! So, if you were immortal (and none of us are), you'd be hearing the question: "Are we there yet?" quite often!
So, as you see, everything in the Universe seems to be part of something bigger. All of us occupy an abode we call a Residence (i.e. an apartment or a house). Those residences are situated on a land we call an Address (e.g. a road, a lane, a boulevard, a drive, an avenue, or a street). Most of these addresses are located in vicinities called: Neighborhoods. These neighborhoods are a part of a city, town, or megalopolis. All of these places are part of a Sate. Each state is a part of an organized political territory under one government known as a nation or country. Not counting Taiwan and Kosovo, there are 195 countries in the world (i.e. 193 U.N. Members and 2 Observer States). All of these countries (and the seven seas that surround them), from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, are all part of the planet called Earth. Our Earth is part of the Solar System. The Solar System is part of the Milky Way Galaxy. Our Milky Way is part a Galaxy Cluster. Our Galaxy Cluster is part of a Local Group of clusters. All Local Groups are part of the Galaxy Cloud. Each Galaxy Cloud is part of a Supercluster. The largest structures in the Universe are the Superclusters, measuring hundreds of millions of light years across and containing millions of galaxies.
This, of course, would probably raise the next question, which is: "If everything in the Universe seems to be part of something bigger, then is there anything BIGGER than our Universe?" Well, that's hard to say. There are theories out there, but no one really knows for sure yet. Some say that there is NOTHING bigger than our Universe, because nothing can exist in a complete empty vacuum (such as outer space). Zero-point energy fills the empty vacuum and nothing exist outside energy. As we have just discussed, something must exist in something else. What does the Universe exist in? It exist within itself, nothing exist outside of it. However, some speculative theories have proposed that this Universe is but one of a set of disconnected Universes, collectively denoted as the "Omniverse." This theory is not a new as it sounds. Bishop Étienne Tempier of Paris (a.k.a. Stephanus of Orleans) ruled in 1277 that God could create as many Universes as he saw fit. The Omniverse term is used to refer to the total collective existence of universes. This not be confused with the "Multiverse," which is a hypothetical set of infinite or finite possible Universes (including the historical universe we consistently experience) that together comprise everything that exists and can exist. In these contexts, they are also called: "parallel universes," "alternative universes," "quantum universes," "interpenetrating dimensions," "parallel dimensions", "parallel worlds," "alternative realities," "alternative timelines," and "dimensional planes." The Omniverse, however, is composed of countless independent, and defined Universes which exist in their own isolated state, operating under their own Spatial-Temporal Laws and Nature, each having its own distinct context of space and time, as well as other fundamental forces. God Himself is an inhabitant of the Omniverse. While the Omniverse itself cannot be defined as having a "shape" or "form," it does have a center, which is the extra-dimensional construct known as: the Nexus of Creation. When God fashioned that Creation and then detonated it with the Power Divine, it sent forth a massive shock wave which would form the energy matrix of the Omniversal Chain, which embodies all of known existence on its level of reality, and it seeded the Void with elements of primal matter, which then began the slow evolutionary process leading to all existence and, ultimately, life itself. 2 Peter 1:3 say that: "His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness."
You know, when I was a college student, one of my favorite pastimes was stargazing. I was fascinated by the stars of the night sky for two reasons. First, just like the humans, animals, and plants of the Earth, they are some of God's greatest masterpieces. And second, I knew that looking at the stars and of the constellations, I was not only seeing how small we really are by the Universe's standards, but I was looking into the past with each speck of light that I would behold. Even seeing the rays of the Sun is looking into a recent past. It takes the light emitted from the Sun 8.3 minutes (i.e. light minutes) to reach the Earth. So, the next time you spend some time you're outside in the sunlight, you will know that those ultraviolet lights that are beaming on your skin were emitted from the Sun 8 minutes and 18 seconds before it even got to you. But the stars? They are a totally different matter. They represent a past that is far more distant. Look at our nearest star (Alpha Centauri). The light of that particular star takes about 4.3 years (4 years, 3 months, 2 weeks, 4 days, 15 hours, 1 minute, and 44.4576 seconds) to reach the Earth. And that's our NEAREST star. Other stars take millions, even billions of years to reach the Earth. And why? Because those stars are millions and billions of light years away from us. Like a ship in the empty ocean, astronomers on Earth can turn their telescopes to peer 13.7 billion light years in every direction, which puts Earth inside of an observable sphere with a radius of 13.7 billion light years. The word: "observable" is key. The sphere limits what scientists can see but not what is there. Just because we cannot see land does not mean we are in the center of the ocean, right? Well, it's the same with our Universe. Just because we cannot see the edge of the Universe does not mean we lie in the center of the Universe.
Now, there are many theories as to what would happen if we were to go past the SPEED OF LIGHT (i.e. break the "Light Barrier"). Some say that since time seems to slow down as you approach the SPEED OF LIGHT, it is hypothesized that "time" itself will stop. Why? Because to your perception, time outside your spaceship goes on at the rate of infinity. Yes, infinity! So what happens when you break the SPEED OF LIGHT? You would perceive time outside the spaceship at going "more than" infinity. Obviously, it's impossible for us to comprehend time progressing at "more than" infinity. This may be part of the reason scientist plan to call the velocity that would be the hypothetical Faster-than-Speed-of-Light "Warp Drive." A spacecraft equipped with a Warp Drive may travel at apparent speeds by many orders of magnitude, while circumventing the relativistic problem of time dilation. In other words, "time" itself would become distorted or "warped." The answer could lie in higher dimensions, or it could simply be that you would be around after the Universe itself ended. Unfortunately, it's just as impossible to add anything to infinity as it is to divide by zero, so we may never know what would happen in theory. There is one thing to keep in mind about THIS theory. Although this is conjectural, calculating Warp Speed (a.k.a. the Warp Factor) equals the cubic root of the ship's achieved speed ratio V/C (i.e. Cubic Root of Velocity divided by the Speed of Light). Traveling at Warp Speed is not the same as traveling at Mach Speed. Remember how I told you that Mach 1 is the SPEED OF SOUND, Mach 2 was twice the SPEED OF SOUND, Mach 3 was three times the SPEED OF SOUND, and so on and so forth? Well, when you travel at Warp Speed, something begins to happen. When the speed of a car, bus, or train accelerates, they go up additively. When a plane goes faster than the SPEED OF SOUND, it goes up multiplicatively. Once we hit THE SPEED OF LIGHT (i.e. Warp Speed) or faster, it goes up exponentially. So, for example, Warp 1 would equal the SPEED OF LIGHT. However, Warp 2 would be 8 times the SPEED OF LIGHT. Why? Because 2^3 (i.e. 2 cubed or 3 to the third power) is equal to 8. Warp 3 would be 27 times the SPEED OF LIGHT. Why? Because 3^3 (i.e. 3 cubed or 3 to the third power) is equal to 27. So, what would Warp 14 be? It would be 2,744 times the SPEED OF LIGHT. A theoretical solution for faster-than-light travel which models the Warp Drive concept is called the "Alcubierre Drive." Such calculations involve Negative Mass, which has never been supported by any evidence. And why are the calculations different at Warp Speed than at Mach Speed? Because it is postulated that the SPEED OF LIGHT is not a constant. The SPEED OF LIGHT is a dimensional quantity and it cannot be measured. So, there is no limit on the value of a proper velocity (a.k.a. a celerity) as a proper speed does not represent a speed measured in a single inertial frame. Other theoretical physicists say that you would become what is known as: a Tachyon. That is, you would live as a hypothetical substance whose velocity always exceeds the Speed of Light. The word comes from the Greek: ταχύς or "tachýs," meaning "swift, quick, fast, rapid", and was coined in 1967 by Gerald Feinberg. So, just as an ordinary particle (such as bradyons) can exist only at speeds less than the speed of light,, so a tachyon could exist only at speeds above the speed of light. Therefore, just as bradyons are forbidden to break the Light Barrier, so too are tachyons forbidden from slowing down to below the Speed of Light, because infinite energy is required to reach the barrier from either above or below. Other scientist believe that a Photonic Boom (or Photonic Flash) would occur. As we've discovered, Sonic Booms arise when the speed of the generator of sound (a plane) exceeds the SPEED OF SOUND in the medium. The wave fronts of the light add constructively (just as the wave fronts of sound add in a Sonic Boom) to produce a light flash (a Photonic Boom or Photonic Flash) called: "Cerenkov Radiation" The characteristic blue glow of an underwater nuclear reactor is due to Cerenkov Radiation, for example. But like Chuck Yeager breaking the Sound Barrier, until we become capable of moving at the SPEED OF LIGHT, any occurrence we say that would happen as a result, at this point, is purely speculation.
As I have mentioned, the SPEED OF LIGHT is the fastest speed we know of in Physics. However, if you were to ask the question: "Is there anything that can outdo the SPEED OF LIGHT?", technically, the answer would be: "yes." Why? Because there is something in our Universe that can overcome the SPEED OF LIGHT. But it wouldn't be by velocity or electromagnetism but another of our fundamental forces in Quantum Mechanics — Gravitation. And the massive objects I'm speaking of are: Black Holes. Black Holes are: regions of space-time from which gravity is so strong that it prevents anything (including LIGHT) from escaping it. So, if you were in a spaceship and a Black Hole was about to force you into it, your escape velocity would have to exceed the SPEED OF LIGHT. But it is unknown as to what extent it has to exceed it. It could be Warp 1.5. It could be Warp 15. Nobody knows the escape velocity, nor do we know what happens once an object enters a Black Hole. Theories range FROM being torn apart by the growing tidal forces in a process sometimes referred to as "spaghettification" and crushed to infinite density TO exiting the Black Hole to another spacetime (i.e. as a 'gateway' or 'wormhole') and traveling to another Universe. Nobody really knows for sure. All we DO know is that anything that enters a Black Hole disappears from the Universe forever. There is general consensus that supermassive Black Holes exist in the centers of most galaxies (e.g. our Milky Way galaxy). Once a Black Hole has formed, it can continue to grow by absorbing additional matter. Any Black Hole will continually absorb gas and interstellar dust from its direct surroundings and omnipresent cosmic background radiation. This is the primary process through which supermassive Black Holes seem to have grown. Did you know that the biggest Black Hole known in the Universe (located in the NGC 1277 galaxy, 10% the size of the Milky Way, situated around 220 million light years from Earth, and in the constellation Perseus) weighs 17 billion times more than our Sun? It's also 11 times bigger than the diameter of Neptune's orbit around the Sun. Think about it. It takes light 17 minutes to travel the diameter of Earth's orbit around the Sun. However, it takes light 4 days to travel the diameter of this supermassive Black Hole. It takes light almost 339 times longer to travel the diameter of this supermassive Black Hole than it would to travel the diameter of our own Sun. That's 3 thousanths of a percent (i.e. 0.003%) to travel the diameter of Earth compared to the diameter of this supermassive Black Hole. To put it another way, Black Holes at the center of a typical galaxy only take up around 0.1% of the total galactic mass. However, the newly-discovered Black Hole takes up 14% of the NC 1277 galaxy. By comparison, the Black Hole at the heart of the Milky Way is around four million Solar Masses. Think about in comparison to our Sun. Our Sun's diameter is about 864,938 miles. So, you could line up 109 Earths across the face of our Sun. Then, we have its circumference. Our Sun's circumference is about 2,713,406 miles around. The entire mass of our Sun is approximately 333,420 times of Earth and the volume of our Sun could hold more than one million Earths. Our Sun weighs 2,192,607,428,559,700,100,774,887,424 (2 octillion, 192 septillion, 607 sextillion, 428 quintillion, 559 quadrillion, 700 trillion, 100 billion, 774 million, 887 thousand, 424) tons. This supermassive Black Hole weighs 17 billion times more than that. That would equal out to be an estimated 37.274326 undecillion (37 undecillion, 274 decillion, 326 nonillion) tons. WOW! Put simply, it's off the scale (to say the least). Hard to imagine, isn't it? The question is: why are we not able find out certain things about the Universe (e.g. what's beyond a Black Hole)? Well, even scientist have come up with what is known as: The Principle of Cosmic Censorship. What is that? Well, the Principle of Cosmic Censorship basically postulates that: singularities in space and time are always surrounded by event horizons that prevent them from being observed and from influencing the outside world. In other words, something or "someone" (whether a 'force' or 'supernatural Being') does not want you to know certain things about the Universe and, thus, will not allow intelligent creatures of any planet (e.g. human beings) to discover those cosmic truths. Could God Himself be behind that Cosmic Censorship? Could it be that there are mysteries about our Universe that God does not want man to know, no matter how hard we try? Isaiah 55:8-9 does say: "'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Hey, when dealing with God or quanta, anything's possible.
So, what does any of this have to do with understanding God? Well, when we determine the distances to the stars within our galaxy or even further to the 500 billion other galaxies in the Universe, we are talking about distances that are very, very hard to visualize and comprehend. Even trying to picture the distance to the closest star to us (Alpha Centuari), which is 4.3 light years distance from us, it's hard to visualize when you think that 4.3 light years is almost 26 trillion miles away from us and we kind of go: "Huh? What?" Saying 26 trillion miles is not something that is easily visualized. And if we can’t visualize 26 trillion miles, how can we possibly visualize a galaxy that is 13.7 billion light years away? How can anyone understand these distances when you remember that one light year equals a distance of almost 6 trillion miles and you want to understand what 13.7 billion individual light years distance is? If you’d like to figure out the mileage, that would be 13.7 billion multiplied by 6 trillion. That would equal out to be 82.2 sextillion (82 sextillion, 200 quintillion) miles! If we can take the product of that and multiply it by the mileage that we would calculate in the "unobservable" part of our Universe, we would probably end up with a number called a "Googol" (a 1 followed by a 100 zeros, or 10^100). So, for all WE know, if we were to multiply mileage of the entire Omniverse (assuming that other independent Universes exist), we may end up with a product in the hundreds of "Ducentillions" (a number with 603 zeros after it, 1,000 centillions, or 1 million to the 100.5 power) miles or even a "Googolplex" (a 1 followed by a googol of zeros, 10 billion to the 100th power, or 10^10^100) miles. Again, WOW! That's really hard to imagine! All we can ever accept or understand of a number this large is that it’s a number with a lot of zeroes. So, as you see, if we have difficult wrapping our minds around the enormity of our cosmos, how are we to fully comprehend the concept of God? How are we able to mentally grasp the notion of an Invisible, Inaudible, Intangible, Incorporeal, Immutable, omnificent, omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omnibenevolent, Transcendent, Divine, Supernatural Being who possess Veracity and Aseity? I've been studying the Holy Bible since I was 10 years of age, not to mention various Science books for most of my adult life, and I don't even come close to understanding it. It is quite difficult to define "infinity" with our finite minds. Our Solar System is enormous for us (the inhabitants of the planet Earth), but extremely minuscule as a part of the whole Universe. Looking at it astronomically, our entire Solar System is akin to a "single atom" hidden in the peripheral side of Mount Everest; our Earth is an electron and we are riding on this electron with the "Sun" as the nucleus. Our Milky Way galaxy is but one of millions of molecules. These groups of atoms bonded together will attach themselves to other units of chemical compounds creating cellular-like structures known as Galaxy Clusters. These "cells" of Galaxy Clusters attach to one another to form the "mulitcelluar organisms" known as Superclusters. The 10 million Superclusters in the observable Universe which form large structures of galaxies called: "filaments," "supercluster complexes," "walls," or "sheets" that span 10 billion light years are like the six Kingdoms of the taxonomic rank. Not only the Universe itself but other possible Universes (i.e. the Omniverse) can represent the three Domains of Life within the biological classification. As you see, in Biology, each rank subsumes under it a number of less general categories. The rank of Kingdom are divided into smaller groups called Phyla, which divides into a Class, which divides into an Order, which divides into a Family, which divides into a Genus, which divides into a Species. The specification of the Genus to which the Species belongs is basic. Similarly, the Omniverse divides into Universes, which divides into Superclusters, which divides into Galaxy Clusters, which divides into Galaxies, which divide into Solar Systems, and so on and so forth. This "small single atom" of a Solar System and its sole sentient planetary inhabitants ("we"), at one time, centuries ago, had the audacity to claim "ourselves" at the center of the Universe. Within these infinite tininess and immensity, we are insignificant small players within a humongous jigsaw puzzle. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines infinity as: the abstract concept describing something limitless or endless in space, extent, or size that is impossible to measure or calculate. The English word "infinity" derives from the Latin word: "infinitas," meaning "being without finish," which can be translated as "unboundedness," itself calqued from the Greek word: "apeiros," meaning "endless." When taken a trip through the Universe, it is still difficult to grasp the concept of infinity, let alone God. Think of our "Imaginations" as a room (such as in a house). Some people have bigger rooms (or imaginations) than others, right? But even in those rooms, we are confined to a place that has three measurable dimensions (height, length, and width). Because of this, our imaginations with our finite minds can only take us so far. The walls in our "rooms" keep us from going further out. As I guided you through a journey of the Universe; hearing all those calculations; comparing all those measurements of speed, distance, and time, how far were you able to stretch you imagination? Most likely further than you thought, right? That's only a fraction of what you would experience if you looked at our Universe (or even the Omniverse) through God's eyes. Through God's eyes, our planet Earth, let alone our Solar System, is but an infinitesimally small blip in the cosmic superhighway we call: "our Universe."
My friends, I, like many, have my curiosities about what is beyond what we see and know. But I also have my curiosities as whether we SHOULD know certain about our Universe. In comparison to Biology, look at the deepest inner workings of the brain. We may never find all of those things out. The brain is the control center for the entire body. It controls absolutely everything, from the physical to the mental activity. It controls life itself (biologically). Perhaps we human beings were never meant to completely know and understand what controls life. Perhaps it's the same with Astronomy. Perhaps we human beings were never meant to completely know and understand EVERYTHING about our Universe (e.g. what's within a Black Hole), let alone life's meaning and purpose. In addition to the scientific Principle of Cosmic Censorship, we have the Holy Bible. We are told by the Prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 64:4 that: "Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him." The Apostle Paul reiterates this in 1 Corinthians 2:9 when he said: "However, as it is written: 'What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived'— the things God has prepared for those who love him—" These words have been applied to the state of glory in a future world, but they certainly belong to the present state. No one can imagine the beauty and love in Heaven. It is far more than we can even conceive. Whether it be through a telescope or the Holy Spirit, we are given little GLIMPSES of the perceptual experiences of the pleasures of such sublimity and grandeur which inspires great admiration and awe of Heaven, bu the Apostle Paul was stating the impossibility of people understanding God's wisdom through their own mental abilities. Compared to anything any person could ever come up with, the wisdom from God and description of the Universe is something ineffable. In the Realm of the Living, perhaps it should remain an enigma.
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