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Let’s start off with something simple. If the speed of light is the maximum attainable speed, then the radius of the universe must be the number of light years since the Big Bang. The light from the Big Bang will have traveled exactly that distance and nothing would have traveled a greater distance. Very tidy, isn’t it?
Unfortunately, though the explanation above holds up reasonable well when light is treated as a particle, it does not withstand the concept of light as a wave. Waves have peaks and valleys.
“Frequency” in reference to light defines the number of said peaks and valleys, and “intensity” alludes to their height and depth. Imagine, then, a beam of infrared light and a beam of ultraviolet light leaving the center of the universe at precisely the same time, targeted on a monitoring device a set distance from the point of origin. Both beams, traveling at the speed of light, would register on the monitoring device at the same time, having covered the same straight distance.
Because their frequencies differ radically, however, the absolute distances of their journey would vary. Imagine straightening out the broad, shallow waves of one beam and the broad, dramatic waves of the other, and how they would then vary in length. Differences in frequency, then, do not affect a linear concept of the size of the universe, but have a tremendous impact on its potential limits when one considers a universe built on something other than the simple three–dimensional structure we learned in junior high school.
Any
other propositions about the size of the universe come to mind?