I need a scientific "dressing down" if you will..

So I was pondering the Big Bang blasphemy and how they are able to take pictures of things happening 13.8 billion years ago or at the very least view them when I thought...

"Can they see in the future the same way they can see into the past?"

Does it work like that, why and why not?

I figured this would lead to an interesting discussion at the very Least.

a reply to: onequestion

You see into the past because it takes time for light to travel. If you were ten light years away from Earth right now, and you had a radio, you would hear what was broadcast ten years ago because that's how long the radio waves take to get to you. Think of light as a mail service that carries photos at the speed of light.

thats like asking, do Aliens believe in Aliens.

its all conjecture. we are still conducting experiments to prove that the way we perceive the universe is in fact the way it actually is.
and it isnt, according to recent experiments.

so who ever 'they' are, probably do not see into the past the way we 'do'.

Does it work like that, why and why not?

the same reason i cant say definitely why is also why not.
we're doing this as we go along i guess. there's no absolute (as far as we know).
maybe some very distant future is looking at our galaxy right now and wondering the same thing. its all objective (and cyclical) for now.

a reply to: onequestion

We can't actually see stuff from the big bang. We see the diffuse radiation left over from the time that the universe had dissipated enough (spatially) to become translucent to radiation, this was about 300,000 years after the big bang.

This radiation is called the cosmic microwave background or CMB and indicates a temperature only a little above absolute zero.

The 'arrow of time' gives us a view in only one direction. If we were above or outside of temporal dimension/s we could see the future too.

a reply to: onequestion
That's an interesting question. There's a guy on here that knows a lot who could give you a good discussion on the topic. I'm not calling him out by name because I don't want to embarrass him and it irritates him when people do so. So, I'll give you a hint. This person's name starts with a P and ends with an E. That could be anybody really

a reply to: odzeandennz

No there is an actual answer for this and it is posted above yours.

a reply to: chr0naut

What about looking in the other direction?

Can we only look out at the same perimeter, does it exist in a circle that we are somehow near the c enter of or does it move I to a specific direction more linear like outwards from a starting point?

a reply to: onequestion

i posed a similar question (in the ask anything physics thread) in regards to seeing ancient earth from a point in the universe that light has not reached yet.

but in reagards to your question, no, i dont think its possible to see light from the 'future' since the light hasnt got there yet (if that makes sense), and i know the rate of the expanding universe is somehow factored in to this equation too.... im just too damn tired to think straight. but yeh... im pretty sure the answer is no!

nice question though!

a reply to: combatmaster

If we point the camera in any direction will we get the same results or do we have to point the camera in a specific direction in order to produce these results?

a reply to: onequestion

We can see light from the past because it takes time for the light to get here.

It's similar to seeing something happen several hundred yards (or more) away, but hearing the sound of that "happening" after you see it (such as hearing thunder a few seconds after seeing the lightning.

That's because is takes time for the sound to get to your ear, just like it takes time for the light from far away to get to your eye.

However, listening the other direction away from the lightning will never allow you to hear the thunder before the lightning strike.

originally posted by: onequestion
a reply to: chr0naut

What about looking in the other direction?

Can we only look out at the same perimeter, does it exist in a circle that we are somehow near the c enter of or does it move I to a specific direction more linear like outwards from a starting point?

The time dimension is shown to be linear and can be measured in meters by Einstein's equations. (1 second = 299 792 458 meters). However, mass can distort time (and space).

If time were the way some people conceive it, you could reverse time and in the case of the diffusion of a gas, it would go back into the container it came from. However, if you use a negative for a time value in most physics equations, the gas actually continues to diffuse. The genie won't go back into the bottle.

It is this divergence between the perceptual and physical concepts of time that causes the most confusion.

If we could see the future, then nothing in the universe could ever change. It would be a static monolithic block.

As it stands, things in the future are indeterminant and although we know the gas will diffuse, we cannot say precisely how each atom will end up. It is random and stochastic, to us.

a reply to: chr0naut

So the light is moving -------> in a linear direction like that arrow?

That means that all matter is going out from that starting point in all directions or is there a flow to it?

It's not an O, but a -->

a reply to: onequestion

You can think of it as an O, composed of -->, just as a wedding ring is composed of molecules.

a reply to: onequestion

Time moves linear...

However the physical composition of the Universe must be expanding in all directions.

Like an O growing larger...



Eg

The Suns light travels up down left and right...
Not just left and right.

a reply to: onequestion

The big bang was not linear. So factor that into your thought process and think about it again.

to answer: point the camera in any direction = same result.

buy hey, dont take my word i am just stating my opinion, i am in no way educated or qualified in this field, so i may be chatting out of my *******

a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

Like an O growing larger...

A three (or "four") dimensional O. It's a hard thing to grasp intuitively, like the bending of spacetime by mass. And there is no way to draw a picture of it.

Spacetime itself is getting bigger. Everywhere. And the further you are from here (and everywhere else) the faster it is doing so, it depends on your point of view.

But to put a bit of a twist on what has already been stated. Everything we see actually occurred in the past. The closer it is, the more recent past but we do not see the "present". Ever. Which makes calling it that a bit tricky.

a reply to: Phage

Is it the same measure of time looking in all directions?

(How close are we to the center?)

a reply to: chr0naut
i dont even understand how we could 'see' the future in the proverbial way. because it takes time to see light reflecting/refracting.
but on the notion on how we perceive light is also in question. what about the quantom mechanics of photons and electrons and the observer?

is that out f the window then?

[delayed choice experiment, bob and alice experiment]

a reply to: onequestion

From our point of view, yes.
From elsewhere, no.

(How close are we to the center?)

There actually isn't one. Weird, huh?

a reply to: Phage

Indeed I was going to say that it almost exceeds 360 degree (impossible I know, but) because as you say, possibly a 4D 0...

But I didn't think it sounded like it made much sense...
But that's how I imagine it.

Basically every direction between up down left right and all the diagonals you could imagine are getting further and further into this "future" we cannot see.


Admittedly, and unsurprisingly, your explanation will register much easier in the mind of others.