Expanding Universe or, Shrinking matter?

[infamous]

When I first learned about black holes in high school, I came up with that interpretation.

That would require though that the universe be closed. Both cannot be true... :hihi:

 

Maddog

Yes Maddog, I was only agreeing that the expanding model is the most accepted view in scientific circles today, and I happen to blieve that it is most probably the closest to reality. I was just asking the question, If and only if we view the universe as closed, as you state, how would things appear to us as observers. There are a small minority of those that are still pushing this concept, without much success I might add, and I was wondering if there might be some as yet unresolved questions about this possibility. What single fact do we have ,or group of facts, that completely eliminates this theory from reality. Thanks for your interest. Infamous.

[infamous]

Imagining other possibilities is a good way to understand reality although scientists usually pick simplest solution that fits the model until something contradicts it. Speculation is always part of the process but unless some resonable evidence to support a theory has been discovered, then it's not very worth pursuing.

I personally don't believe that for one to ask the question, what if, can be considered a waste of time. Maybe for those with all the answers, but I really haven't run on to anyone like that yet. I believe myself to be a man of many questions, and very few answers. Those that believe themselves to be the contrary, have little time to learn anything new.

[alxian]

If it's accellerating, the relative distance would be greater, so same difference.

 

but would not the energy required to overcome that distance ni a given amount of time increase?

 

in this shrinking matter hypothesis, matter gets more complex but the most basic particles have not moved since the BB? but they are so tiny that we will never in our lifetimes see the difference.

 

would this not also account for entropy (be explained by entropy)? (as matter cools it becomes more complex and less fluid?) those base elements of 'what is' have lost so much energy since the BB that they are 'cooling' and their relationships to each other become ever more complex to fill the void while the elementary particles (strings or even more elementary still) either don't move, or don't move much in relation to each other?

 

basically that during the BB these basic elementary particles were so packed with energy that it would have appeared to us at our scale that everything was infinite amounts of incredibly large stars, as these elements 'cooled' (through entropy, but without actually having moved much) the stars we would see would seem to shrink and eventually over time become so tiny that they are now motes (or even smaller than), and still today continue to lose energy appearing to shrink but not having really moved since the BB (universal expansion)?

[BigBear]

Funny you should put this post up. I have been thinking the same thing recently. If the universe itself is a gigantic black and our day-to-day realities are actually what it's like living in a black hole, then I think it's also possible that we are doing what stuff does inside a black hole - continuing on a big shrink! Also it would look like the universe was expanding. Also, couldn't that lead to the idea that gravity itself is simply a characteristic of black holes. The fact that all masses have gravity as part of them could mean that they are simply demonstrating a "native" property of a black hole which says "pull inwards". In other words, gravity is itself the property of the black hole... So of course it's part of each mass/energy in the universe (black hole). Not sure if that's completely clear, but like you I haven't been able to kick this thought out yet.

[maddog]

Yes Maddog, I was only agreeing that the expanding model is the most accepted view in scientific circles today, and I happen to blieve that it is most probably the closest to reality. I was just asking the question, If and only if we view the universe as closed, as you state, how would things appear to us as observers. There are a small minority of those that are still pushing this concept, without much success I might add, and I was wondering if there might be some as yet unresolved questions about this possibility. What single fact do we have ,or group of facts, that completely eliminates this theory from reality. Thanks for your interest. Infamous.

 

As I said, in high school; I worked out that if the universe were close (without inflation

by Guth), that were Quasars to be distant objects (this was unknown then) then some

of the Quasars could have been copies of others. By cataloguing their spectra and then

matching up likely candidates one could deduce size. By the time I went to college, their

was no ability to get spectra from Quasars. In my Astrophysics class, I asked the prof

what if Quasars were massive Black Holes as this could produce the calculated output

of 10^66 erg/s for distant object. He said some indignant ^%$&* comment.

 

Today that is the conventional wisdom, so their specra/signature could be found as in the

X-ray region.

 

In the meantime, Inflation theory happened and this whole concept went out the usual

window with it. I just finished the book on VSL by João Magueijo, "Faster than the speed

of Light". The point of here was to create a model that doesn't use inflation. Hubble Law

still shows the unverse expanding. However, João gives a great breakdown how the

latest lowdown is the universe is VEEEEERRRRY FLAT! I'd read the book to get a better

idea. Whether or not you buy his VSL idea, it is full of easy to read science. A great

book! :cup:

 

Maddog

[infamous]

Hello friends; Check out this website: http://www.zyx.org/CONTRACTING. htm Maybe we'll need to look at things from a different angle?

[C1ay]

Hello friends; Check out this website: http://www.zyx.org/CONTRACTING. htm Maybe we'll need to look at things from a different angle?

 

Did you mean this page? http://www.zyx.org/CONTRACTING.htm

 

FWIW, I did not see anything there that changed my opinion that the universe is expanding and will continue to do so.

[maddog]

Did you mean this page? http://www.zyx.org/CONTRACTING.htm

I gotta' say that I thought I had heard everything. I will give 'em credit for being

inventive and for admitting it only a hypothesis instead of claiming it as fact... :friday:

 

Maddog

[Odin]

If matter is shrinking the universe isnt expanding. In all relativness infinity and eternity are two hyperbolical tangants of the creation within the mind as there is always an end...to a new beginning...and in all aspects of philosophy and the such infinity and eternity is a mere perception of the human conscousness in terms of creativity as the human mind is far off from comprehending the mysteries of the universe. The beginning of any such understanding begins with the understanding in philosophy of eternity and infinity.

[Fatstep]

In the last recent years, cosmologists have proven that the universe is flat. The curvature of space depends in the total energy in the universe.

 

The universe's expansion is actually ACCELERATING! And it is dark energy that causes this acceleration.

 

How can you prove something is flat when you cannot find an end in any direction?

[Odin]

It would be evident in any case that the universe is not flat on a two dimensional plane but is actually four dimensional .If the universe was flat then there would be an end somewhere but otherwise to which cannot be proven by any scientific technique. Even if there was an end there would be another dimension of an altered physical world...and what if ours lives are based upon an endless warping through these dimensions upon each death we parlay...being a pawn in some sick cosmic joke..to which can attribute to feelings of deja vu of being somewhere when you know you havent but otherwise it is clear that you have been even though that thought would be lacking in conscouss existance as an activity cannot be conducted as being unaware in physical reality except in psychriactric cases of fuge and amnesia

[c335358]

I have given this much thought, before your post. The universe is not expanding it is in fact shrinking!

The way I believe this is occuring is as follows. Gravity is the invisible force..which is actually dark matter close up and personal. It seems to work by exerting a push force generated using the energy it converts from shrinking matter. E=mc2 is that Matter is being converted to dark energy or that invisable energy that you see as expansion force is actually shrink force and explains why we are shrinking faster and faster and why we have not been pulled apart. We are being held together by dark energy and light energy and I belive they work simular to a stirling engine..the Big Bang was actually the Big Bang! I think that the Dark matter energy converted to matter like it converts to energy by shrinkage it converts to matter by its shrinkage and our expansion in magification..This explains where dark matter gets its energy..simular to a microwave it cooks us from the inside..taking matter and sucking the energy out of it shrinking it in a relative way. Did you know that time is differant in space to earth..why? Because of magnification shift! The faster you go the slower everything else seems relative to you..Time passes us by in frames and it is not constant and speed dependant..thats a tangent..

I guess the trick would be to stop the dark matter from taking the energy to make us expand which if we did expand we would not be able to function in this engine..what a dilima!

[c335358]

For example..when we convert Matter to Energy what happens? Expansion right?

Boom!..but when you take energy and convert it to matter what happens? Shrinkage right? Suck!..Matter is the consolidation of Energy and we are being fed upon by the dark energy while we are shrinking it is appearing to expand around us but we are getting evermore smaller and smaller...at some point I belive that the dark energy will again create matter

and that will happen because he is the Alpha and Omega or the Dark Energy and Matter

the First and the Last..E=Mc2..Einstien could see only the back side of God but could never look him in the face.. We are in a black hole..we are shrinking in magnification and matter energy is being taken from us to the dark energy..it will build up and come back..like a stirling engine..except using energy and matter instead of hot and cold...obvoius if you see all the nuclear fusion going on around us!

[Alpine]

This is impossible to answer....cause no one know what is actually going on.

But...

If the universe is really expanding, then one so called fact can be proven wrong that universe is the biggest thing in the world.

 

For example, if you spill water from a glass it would only start forming shapes or expanding once it reaches the ground (or any sort of base).

So, in a way even universe might be like a water which is expanding on something far bigger than anything we can imagine.

 

In short I don't know the answer of your question :rolleyes:

[CraigD]

Welcome to hypography, c335358! :rolleyes:

I have given this much thought, before your post. The universe is not expanding it is in fact shrinking!

Before you go any further with this idea as a serious scientific one, you’ve a big problem to solve / question to answer: why, if the universe is, as you propose, shrinking, does it seem, when we look at it, to be expanding?

 

About 100 years ago, as astronomers began to get a better idea of what they were actually looking at with their increasingly good telescopes and spectrometers, it was discovered that the more distant an object one looked at, the faster its spectrum showed it to be moving away from us. The details are complicated, and took years to work out, but at present, it appears that for every mega-parsec (about 2.262 million light years) distance an object is, its speed away from us is greater by about 70 km/s, a relationship know as Hubble’s law.

 

How does you theory explain this? No matter how much one likes a theory, if it doesn’t describe what we actually see, it’s not got much scientific goodness.

[Tormod]

the Big Bang was actually the Big Bang!

 

:rolleyes:

 

But - if the universe is shrinking, what should we use to measure it against?

[sildem]

Hello!

 

I have been reading and thinking about alternate solutions to the big bang for over ten years and I came up with the solution that matter is shrinking about ten years ago. Hubble's constant is (I think) better explained by the shrinking matter theory. This would occur this way: Atoms themselves are getting smaller. Atoms 15 billion years ago would have been larger (I don't know the exact amount needed but I had been given one bit of data and computed it would only have to have been 14% larger. Depends on the amount of red shift. Easily calculated if you have the data). The larger atoms would have emitted light of a longer wavelength. So the older the light emitted the more "red shift".

 

From just a reference point viewpoint if you were to assume a viewpoint "outside" the universe where the size were held constant what you would see were the objects in the universe were shrinking. The apparency from inside the universe is space is expanding, if you assume matter has a constant size. From the outside, it is shrinking, when you hold the "size" of the universe constant.