It Takes a Long Time to See Far Away

“And the higher the resolution, the further a telescope can see back in time, as light can take millions or billions of years to reach Earth.”
- What Space Telescopes of Tomorrow Will See
NASA expects the James Webb Space Telescope to launch in 2013

I always giggle a little when I hear or read something like this. “Seeing back in time?” Really? Am I to believe, then, that if I had a big enough telescope, I would be able to see myself yesterday?

Somehow I think not.

Of course, the premise is sound. We are seeing light from so far away, and the fact is, while light is fast it is not infinite. That means it takes time to get here; otherwise we would see everything all at once, regardless of origin.

Technically, with the use of larger telescopes they are simply seeing farther away. It’s just that farther away takes longer to see.

This is to our advantage to some extent as we can then rationalize the “age” of the universe. Use properties of light to gauge the distance it has travelled, and then top that off with a grand leap of faith: assume there’s nothing beyond it.

If that’s how big the universe is (i.e. how far away stuff is), then we can calculate how old it is. Of course there is some other stuff in there, too, such as the direction objects are travelling away from us, etc.

But this is where I giggle more. Won’t we be surprised when they put the gigantic James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) into orbit in 2013 (or so) and begin to see stuff … even farther away!

Oh wait, our calculations were wrong, the universe is actually older than we previously thought.

Human beings are very, very small in the grand scheme of things and that despite all we know or think we know, we are really only scratching the surface. Were I a grain of sand at the bottom of the ocean, would I really be able to describe a drop of dew on a leaf in the Amazon?

Now, I am not a particularly “religious” person, but I do consider myself spiritual. I believe in God (whatever that is), and that I am connected to that thing in some way. I can't help but think that statements such as these, that so definitively state something like "the age of the universe," must come from particularly non-spiritual people, believing (arrogantly) that they can accurately perceive God’s grand design.

Somehow I think not.

Here's my take: no matter how large or old we think the universe is, rest assured it’s larger and older still.