Big Bang and Universal Expansion

Now this could be wrong but I was thinking a couple of days ago. The universe supposedly began with the big bang and it is now expanding at a faster and faster rate. We know this primarily because of the red shift we see when monitering stars. Correct?

Now though, I know this sounds stupid but when you look at into space you're looking back in time, you're seeing old light. So could I be correct in assuming that jus becasue stars farther away are more redshifted that maybe their not moving faster, but that a long time ago they were. And that the universe isn't actually expanding faster and faster as is thought. Would I aslo be right to say that if the universe would begin to calopse we wouldn't notice for possibly billions of years becasue the light from the far away stars wouldn't began to shift here on earth until it had traveled billions of light years. Makes sense to me, and maybe someone has already accounted for this, but i was wondering what everyone thought or knew on this idea.

Your logic is sound in that you state the universe's starting speed had to be very high and we would still see a red shift because of the innical exceleration.
But It's safe to assume that the scientest who study this though of that and accounted for it. (Or did they) .
Great thinking i must admit . With all the tabloid stuff here its refreashing to see a thought out idea.

Well, let's see if I understand you correctly, and hopefully I can answer you in either case.

If you mean that stars were simply redder back then, then you're mistaken. Stars were likely bluer back then because, with more materials around, bigger stars existed - and the biggest are blue-white supergiants. A fascinating possibility is a star that becomes so massive that it undergoes gravitational collapse before its core turns to iron. The amount of energy that would be released would be phenomenal, and a supernova of unparralleled size would be unleashed as the core turned into a black hole. The abundance of materials likely don't exist anymore for such an occurance.

However, if you mean that the stars were simply moving away from us FASTER back then than they are now, due to the universe speeding up during the initial phases of its expansion, then it is possible you are right. We have determined an acceleration by means of looking at increments of distance and a star's redshift in accordance to that distance. The numbers seemed to indicate that the further away, the faster it was, but more so than the same distance between the next closest star.

So, perhaps you are right, and it may have been overlooked. Consult a local astronomer and astrophysicist - University Professors are, for the most part, useful... but they sometimes seem blinded by numbers and recent studies rather than accept that somebody might have made a mistake. If you're right, then many new studies would need to be done to prove your theory - but they should all be doable using most observations already recorded.

I'm not very good with astronomy and how all the calculations are done to find how far away a star is and how fast it is moving and such but how would you be able to determine speed and distance with the stars current position, the speed of light is arguably the fastest speed at which things travel so what besides this would be able to provide scientific resualts.

If objects farther away are moving faster than objects that are closer wouldn't that mean that the universes is actually decelerating. The universe started from the big bang so objects farther away move faster because we see them from a time many years ago. But as we go more towards the present and closer objects speeds slow down. Anyone want to try to explain why this is so?

Well, it depends. Objects farther away will always appear to be going faster than objects closer to us - because all of space is expanding. Put two dots 5cm away from each other on the surface of a balloon. Now blow up the balloon to four times its original volume. You'll find that the dots are about 10cm away from each other now. If you could blow up the balloon indefinitely, the dots would begin to move away from each other at an accelerating rate, because all the space inbetween them is expanding - not just some space inbetween.

So no matter if the universe is accelerating or decelerating, the speed that they are moving at will always been greater the further away an object is.

Now, if there were 3 or more objects, you could measure the distance between A, B, and C. If the universe is decelerating in its expansion, the difference in speed between B and C will be less than the difference in speed between A and B. If the universe were accelerating, then the difference in the speed between B and C will be GREATER than the difference between A and B.

Ours is the latter case.

However, as has been said on this forum now, it could be that, since we're seeing so close to the beginning of the universe, that the universal expansion back then was still accelerating. That's a possibility that should be logically looked into.