[Avian(Admin)]

[*] Nothing with mass can exceed the speed of light.

Nothing without mass can travel faster than light either (such as light itself - electromagnetic radiation).

Given this, how the HELL can we claim to see light that was generated 300,000 years after the big bang? Here we are, 15 BILLION years after that massive explosion. Assuming that we're not seeing the echos or some sort of universe sized mirror reflecting that radiation, how can we see it? In order to do that, the molecules that were created in the big bang that made up the cob of corn that my mother ate that helped form the optic nerve that attaches my left eyeball to the part of my brain that registers whatever said left eyeball sees, all left the site of the big bang at the same time.

I kinda lost you after "molecules" and "cobs of corn." Yes, the cosmic microwave background radiation is the "smoking gun" of the big bang. It's the clincher. It's how we are just about as certain as anything that the big bang occurred. Why?

Scientists theorized that if the big bang occurred, there should be a leftover "glow", as seen from every direction. This glow would be very faint - but detectable. They crunched the equations over many years, and came to the conclusion that it should be such and such a temperature, varying in such and such a way. But at the time, the technology wasn't there to see if it existed. But soon, someone did finally have the technology to detect it in a crude form, and behold, it fit the predicted model almost exactly! When more sensitive instruments were able to accurately map it around the sky, it fit the model even more accurately! Of course, with anything in science, the more information you get, the more questions get raised. There are a few interesting things about the cosmic microwave background radiation that are even more amazing. By looking very, very closely at the variations in the sky, some amazing theories have developed as to how the early Universe formed. Combine this with the other separate tons of evidence that points to a big bang (expanding universe, age of stars, etc), and you can start to see why it is the defacto theory of how our universe was created.

How can this be? We're seeing stuff as it was billions of years ago. How did that molecule (and every other one that makes up the entity known as Roger -Dot- Lee) make it this far out before the light (which we've all already agreed can not be beaten in a 10k road race, no matter where it's held)? How can this be?

No molecules here. Just light. Don't confuse particle radiation (electrons, neutrons, etc.) with electromagnetic radiation (a fancy word for light). We're talking about the leftover "glow" of the big bang.

Of course, I've studied, and I've studied, and I've looked and looked, but I have YET to see any definitive proof that the speed of light is an inviolate speed limit anyway, E=mc2 or not.

Rest assured, it is, by all measures of our current understanding of physics. Einstein's equation that describes this states that the faster you go, the more your mass increases, therefore requiring even more energy to accelerate you to a faste'sr speed. As you get close to the speed of light, your mass increases to a huge amount, until finally, it would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate you to beyond the speed of light. That, of course, cannot be done. Humans hate limits, and have, of course, theorized several fanciful and convoluted ways that perhaps we could get around this. But none really hold any water. Could new theories develop that would somehow disprove this? You could say yes, and of course, that's but much of modern physics would probably fall with it. And much of moden physics works pretty well. Could we discover a whole new branch of physics, like we did with quantum physics, that would take hold in special circumstances or something? Who knows?

I'd like to take this opportunity to mention how much research and incredible rigorous work goes into these "theories." A scientific theory is not like a theory you or I may have typing on this board - it has an entirely different meaning. If you think the current U.S. presidential election is nasty, you should see what even the most frivoslous proposal in science goes through. Like the theory of gravity, and the theory of biological evolution, Einstein's Theory of Relativity have planets full of rigorous and objective evidence along multiple lines over millions of years in some cases, by upwards of millions of people, in their favor. Every serious attempt to explain them away has failed. Like the rejection of notions of a flat earth, and that the stars are pinpricks in the curtain of heaven, humans have benefited greatly through the scientific method.

The objective and extremely rigorous review by thousands if not millions of scientists from all over the world through various generations is our only hope against delf-delusion. And boy oh boy, do we love to delude ourselves in many things. The scientific method has given us so much - longer lives, a method of feeding ourselves and the millions around us; it has also taken us to those tiny pinpricks in the heavens. It's enemy, and therefore our enemy as a species, is ignorance and fear.