Originally Posted By: Bill 6
In their book 'The Matter Myth' Paul Davies and John Gribbin wrote (110, Viking, 1991):-

"As the recession speed of galaxies grows with distance, there comes a point at which this speed is so great that it exceeds the speed of light."

Well, that isn't quite the way it is. In fact as the recession speed grows it approaches the speed of light (C). Of course as the galaxies approach C their clocks slow down in accordance with relativity, and the frequency of the light they emit is red shifted so much at its frequency approaches 0. Thus, from our point of view, they disappear. In actuality, again from our point of view, they become so short that they appear as 2 dimensional objects. So anything at the edge of the observable universe appears to be pasted to the sky at that distance. They effectively disappear to us, but they aren't moving faster than C. In fact if you could be magically transported to the edge of the observable universe you would look around and everything would look just the same as it does here. And if you could find our galaxy, it would seem to be disappearing from sight into the edge of the universe.

And as far as your quote from Isaac Asimov is concerned. I greatly admire Dr. Asimov's writing, but keep in mind that his PhD was in biochemistry, not physics. So he didn't always get it just exactly right.

Bill Gill

C is not the speed of light in a vacuum.
C is the universal speed limit.