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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 5698028" data-attributes="member: 8835">If we ignored the math and the physics we don't understand yet:when we look at alpha Centauri, we're seeing it as it looked 4 years ago, because it is 4 light years away.  If it blew up tonight, we wouldn't know it until 4 years from now.If alpha C was moving away from us (say at .1c), saying that it is 4LY away from us is not quite precise.  The fuzziness comes in at:did we mean it is 4LY as it appears NOW?did we mean it is actually 4LY in its current real position, not as seen?Will we be updating this # next year to 4.1LY?I assume most of us civilians interpret a statement of Star X is Z light years away as how it appears to us.So. if you say something is 50 billion LY away from us and the universe is 14 billion years old, and stuff can't go faster than light, then things are a little confusing.When we hear that the universe is expanding as part of the big bang, we assume you mean, all the particles or coagulation of particles (stars, planets, etc) are flung out from the center, and thus, of course stuff is moving away from each other.But that's because of their trajectories in 3d space from a center point, described as expansion if you were observing the whole thing.This is how I think most civilians understand these concepts.When physicists speak (like umbran), we hear these keywords, but miss that they keep putting in wiggly concepts like yardsticks and clocks that aren't constant.  And the idea of adding more space between objects.So, to the physicists, what the heck is really going on?</blockquote>

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