Einstein's Theory of Relativity....Was he incorrect?

>You mentioned that the age of the universe is around 14 Billion years
>old, and our event horizon is there. As inflation occurs, do we loose
>sight of galaxies? For example, do galaxies pass through our event
>horizon and disappear from our sight because of inflation? Also, if
>enough time passed, would all other galaxies pass beyond our event
>horizon?


Yes, in an inflating universe, parts of the universe which were in
causal contact lose causal contact. That is, in fact, the reason
that early-universe inflation (the inflation that occured in the
first microsecond) was proposed. Before that inflation, the causal
contact results in approximate uniformity over regions in causal
contact, and then inflation makes those uniform regions very, very
big, so that during the subsequent normal expansion phase (such as
we are in now) the material coming in over the event horizon is much
like the material already inside the event horizon. This is the
only viable explanation we have for the observed fact that the
material we see coming into our event horizon is just like the
material already inside our event horizon. If that material were
never in causal contact, there would be no reason to expect that
it would be anything like the material already inside. In particular,
the (evolution-corrected) density of the "new material" is the same
as the density of material already inside our horizon. Specifically,
the microwave background radiation from opposite directions on the sky
is the same to one part in 10^5.

Of course during that early-universe inflation there were not yet
any galaxies. With "dark energy" becoming dominant, we seem to
be entering a new period of inflation and in several billion years
galaxies may start disappearing across our horizon
as the universe inflates, instead of the horizon catching up
with new material, as is currently the case. In fact, if the
inflation becomes very strong for a long time everything could
disappear. No one really knows why inflation starts or why it ends, but
if there was early-universe inflation, it did start and it
did end. This is generally thought to coincide with phase changes
in the vacuum state, i.e. inflation occurs during the time the
vacuum "melts" from one state to another.

>One last one, you also mentioned that every 10^113 years, there was the
>possibility of a big bang occurring. So, in essence, could we just be
>one big bang in an infinite number of big bangs, where the universe
>constantly perpetuates itself by exploding, expanding into nothing, then
>re-exploding? Is this where current theory is pointing us and am I
>understanding this correct?


Yes. But the theory on this is very primitive (largely bull****)
and is definitely incomplete. We really need an actual unified
field theory to make progress. I think the problem is actually
modern physics' dependence on "field theories" which start with
very definite assumptions about geometry (i.e. space is locally flat
and 4 dimensional, with one time dimension) which may not actually be
exactly true. Various higher-dimensional "string theories" are
attempts at better theories.

I grew up knowing you couldn't accelerate a particle with mass to light speed - it would take infinite energy.

Now I know this is flawed thinking. If you accelerated as partilce to the point it had say 10 ^ 19 joules of energy it would not be governed by Relativistic physics, it would be governed by quantum gravity. It's reality would interact strangely with our own relativistic world.

In such a governance model e = mc^2 has no relevance; indeed e and m hardly exist they have translated possibly to different properties and not be bound by spacetime.

10 ^ 19 is a huge number, but the combinining of forces (the Heirarchy problem) starts at far lower energies than this - around 120 GeVolts - the terrority of the LHC due in 2007 at CERN. The trouble is the next step in the enegry well to reach non relativistic states of existences is prohibitive on Earth - you need around 10 ^ 14 GeV.

What we don't know is what happens to Einstein's reality when energy densities are really condensed - say within the event horizon of a black hole for one!