Proof we are in the matrix: Olber's Paradox

[PAH]

While musing the +/- of solar panels I began to wonder why the universe appears dark if there are so many stars in it.

Looks like I'm not the only one to question this apparent flaw in the matrix logic:

Olbers' paradox - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now, which pill is it I should be taking?

[Off to patent a solar panel that generates electricity from redshifted wavelengths. ]

[original PM]

well not really.

Olbers paradox is only a paradox if you hold to the steady state universe theory as it is that type of universe that should have stars in al directions

the big bang/inflationary model does not insist that the universe is the same in each direction - as confirmed by the COBE sky map.

[TimberWolf]

It would be interesting to know what proportion of the area of the sky around us does intersect matter. I thought the Hubble telescope had trouble find empty sky.

I heard an amusing anecdote that they pointed it at an empty piece and in it saw 3000 galaxies. That's galaxies, not stars nor dust.
Hubble Deep Field - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[OwlHoot]

Curiously, the first person to suggest the correct resolution of this "paradox" was author Edgar Allen Poe !

linky

... So why is the night sky dark? The first scientifically reasonable answer was given in 1848 by the American poet and writer Edgar Allan Poe! He suggested that the universe is not old enough to fill the sky with light. The universe may be infinite in size, he thought, but there hasn’t been enough time since the universe began for starlight, traveling at the speed of light, to reach us from the farthest reaches of space. ...

[TimberWolf]

Curiously, the first person to suggest the correct resolution of this "paradox" was author Edgar Allen Poe !

linky

Yeah but, if I understand correctly, he was wrong. With an expanding universe, the sky can be filled with stars.

[NickFitz]

Yeah but, if I understand correctly, he was wrong. With an expanding universe, the sky can be filled with stars.

And the stars that fill the sky would be wherefrom the starlight that hadn't had time to arrive came, making him right.

Unless you believe he was saying that the not-yet-arrived starlight was coming from where stars weren't.

[TimberWolf]

And the stars that fill the sky would be wherefrom the starlight that hadn't had time to arrive came, making him right.

Unless you believe he was saying that the not-yet-arrived starlight was coming from where stars weren't.

He didn't know about the big bang but was right in that there are stars whose light will never reach us.

But in an inflationary universe, light is also red shifted, in effect the sky could be filled with stars whose light is dimmed.

[suityou01]

While musing the +/- of solar panels I began to wonder why the universe appears dark if there are so many stars in it.

Looks like I'm not the only one to question this apparent flaw in the matrix logic:

Olbers' paradox - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now, which pill is it I should be taking?

[Off to patent a solar panel that generates electricity from redshifted wavelengths. ]

Professor Brian Cox said once on the beeb that a lot of light in the universe has stretched cos of the big bang and you can't see it, only hear it on the radio.

Or summat like this.

[NickFitz]

Professor Brian Cox said once on the beeb that a lot of light in the universe has stretched cos of the big bang and you can't see it, only hear it on the radio.

Or summat like this.

So Eddie Grundy is the light of the universe?

[suityou01]

So Eddie Grundy is the light of the universe?

No, Chris Moyles.