Our universe is young and growing

In an infinite universe, which has existed forever, we should not see darkness in the night sky.
Imagine a universe divided into shells, with stars of a single brightness distributed evenly.
If you look at a shell twice as far, each star is only a quarter as bright.
But there are four times as many stars.
So each shell is equally bright.
If you have an infinite number of shells, you end up with infinite brightness.

There are many other possible explanations which have been considered:
-There's too much dust to see the distant stars.
-The Universe has only a finite number of stars.
-The distribution of stars is not uniform. So, for example, there could be an infinity of stars,
but they hide behind one another so that only a finite angular area is subtended by them.
-The Universe is expanding, so distant stars are red-shifted into obscurity.
-The Universe is young. Distant light hasn't even reached us yet.

The big bang theory might solve this by the implied age of the universe.
We only see light emitted since the beginning of the universe.
This is a long time, but certainly not infinite, and not enough to make the night sky bright.

reply to post by SamTGonzalez


Dear AsmTGonzalez,

S&F, an intriguing post to be sure, I will think about it. Peace.

The universe is not infinite, it is expanding, so there is not an infinite amount of stars.

reply to post by SpearMint


I think Stephen hawking is on to something about time and space warping and overlapping. Think about how huge the known universe is. We may be in some kind of warp in space-time. how do we not see billions of more stars? Maybe our sun is so bright to us that we can not perceive any light brighter than it?

Originally posted by SamTGonzalez
In an infinite universe, which has existed forever, we should not see darkness in the night sky.

And here I was, about to suggest that you might not have heard of Olbers paradox... and yet I now find you carefully hid a reference to it in your posting where nobody would see.

reply to post by alfa1

Originally posted by SamTGonzalez
In an infinite universe, which has existed forever, we should not see darkness in the night sky.

Actually, you don't need to even go that far -- while the amount of time that follows this moment may be infinite, the amount of time that precedes it cannot be infinite, or this moment would not exist.

This reality needs a "start point" in time, no matter how far back it goes -- so long as it is less than infinite.

The universe is not infinite. It's round. Think about it. All start's with a bang.

Originally posted by donniered
The universe is not infinite. It's round. Think about it. All start's with a bang.

Nope. Recent cosmological observations have shown that the universe's expansion is accelerating. If the universe was cyclical, it would have to either be decelerating, or accelerating in contraction. As that is not the case, we're not in for a "big crunch", but rather a "big rip." Which, were we around to see it, would be rather unpleasant, lol.