So get this: It turns out that there are solar systems moving away from ours faster than the speed of light."How can this be?!" you might ask. "According to Einstein's (whom I have heard was fairly smart) 'relativity' NOTHING can move faster than the speed of light!" It turns out either you are right, or scientists are idiots.

Here's the deal: It turns out that there is a misconception about the expansion of the universe and things aren't actually moving away from us. Instead of other solar systems moving away from us (and getting bigger themselves), what's actually happening is the actual space between us and the other galaxies is what's expanding.Since this isn't "conventional" motion, so nothing's actually moving, galaxies can move away from us faster than the speed of light and not break relativity. The analogy used is of two ants standing on the surface of a balloon. As you inflate the balloon the ants get farther apart, but aren't actually "moving", and don't get bigger themselves.

Here's where it gets weird. The big bang is often thought of as a small infinitely dense piece of matter in a whole lot of empty space. It then blows up and expands through the space. This isn't true, what actually happened is all of space was incorporated in this tiny piece of matter, and then the distance between the objects increases as the space itself expands. Getting back to the ant/balloon analogy: As the balloon gets bigger, the ants world (the surface of the baloon) gets bigger even though they cannot conceive of there being any space for their world to expand into. This is because they live in two dimensions and the baloon is expanding in three dimensions. Our situation can be thought of in the same way except we live in three dimensions and our universe is expanding in four dimensions (thanks to the convenient curvature of space time). This is why our universe's expansion happens with no edge, no center and no space to expand into, just like the ants 2d world of the balloon.

Awesome!

The only complication is that Einstein said the universe can expand without the presence of a fourth dimension...doh! Although he did believe in the curvature of space time...You can't have your cake and eat it too Einstein!