Ok, so, this is something that's been on my mind for quite awhile, and unfortunately I don't know anyone in the "real" world who understands this stuff well enough to discuss it with. I'd kinda like a little more feedback on it than just "Whoa, dude!", and there seem to be some very sharp and well educated minds here who might be able to tell me if I'm actually on to something, and if not, why. I should probably just go research it in more depth and try to disprove it myself, but that wouldn't be much of a conversation starter. Also there's a hell of a lot of info out there to try and dig through! It's more fun to just ask and see what you all have to say about it. This may get pretty long but hopefully it's interesting enough to be worth it.

Before I get to the point of this I guess a little background is in order. First I should probably explain that I'm not a scientist, and don't pretend to be. I make my living as an artist, and musing about subjects like this is more like a hobby. Except for a few classes in physics and astronomy in college, I don't have a formal education in science. Frankly most of what I know comes from shows on the discovery channel, and books by guys like Brian Greene and Fred Alan Woolfe who have a gift for dumbing these things down for those of us who can't hack the math. I'll try to explain what I'm talking about here in a similar way, for the sake of anyone who has no idea what I'm on about. And obviously, I can only explain it as far as my own understanding goes. But of course there is plenty of more detailed info out there for those who are interested.

So, anyway, as I'm sure just about everyone here is aware by now, it is pretty much agreed by science folk that the universe is expanding. This was first discovered by Edwin Hubble by examining the light from faraway galaxies, and noticing an effect called "red-shift". Basically it's like the visual equivalent of the sound a car makes when it goes past you. The same way the pitch of the sound gets higher then lower as it passes, the light from things moving towards us gets shifted towards the blue end of the spectrum, and things moving away get shifted to the red. What Hubble found out is that just about everything out there is shifted to the red, which means everything must be moving away from us, which means that the whole universe must be inflating like a big balloon. This is the discovery that led to what's now called the Big Bang theory. If everything is flying apart, at some point it must have all been in one place.

When I first got interested in this stuff back in the early 90's, this was all well established and there were basically two prevailing ideas about the ultimate fate of the universe. One was called the "Big Freeze" or "Big Rip", and the other was the "Big Crunch." The first one of these said that if the total mass of the universe is below a certain threshold, everything would just keep getting farther and farther apart from everything else, until eventually either all the stars would burn out and just leave us with a big cold dark void, or that it might even keep going beyond that, until even atoms couldn't hold together anymore, and everything just gets ripped apart.

The alternative idea was that if there is enough mass in the universe, the gravity of everything pulling on everything else should gradually slow everything down and eventually bring the expansion to a stop, then reverse it, bringing everything back together again in the opposite of the big bang, which they named the big crunch. This could then theoretically lead to another big bang, giving us the possibility of a pulsating universe that can recycle itself for eternity.

I was always a huge fan of this second possibility. It just fits so much better with the way that everything else seems to work, and at least to me just makes for a much more elegant and esthetically pleasing way to imagine it. This idea also happens to fit perfectly with a lot of very old mystical traditions, such as Hinduism. The thought of everything just sort of fizzling out, or tearing itself apart and leaving nothing but a thin soup of subatomic particles hanging around for the rest of eternity, just doesn't sit well with me at all.

So naturally I was pretty upset when around 1998 someone doing even more detailed studies on the red-shift of distant galaxies discovered that not only is the universe expanding, it APPEARS to be accellerating. Which pretty much killed the idea of the big crunch. Since nobody could explain how this could possibly happen within our current model of physics, some jerkoff came up with the idea of "dark energy", which is supposed to be some kind of mysterious anti-gravity nobody has ever observed in any experiment ever, but is still supposed to be everywhere in the universe and is stronger than gravity, and is pushing everything apart.

And for some reason, this was apparently pretty much just accepted as the answer, without anything to support it except for this red-shift "proof" of accelleration, AFAIK. But the whole idea has always struck me as a lazy cop out, and seems to me like just plain old bad science. Hey, I can't understand what's happening here so let's just make up something that would explain it, without any other evidence! That's just circular logic, and not really much better than saying "God is doing it to test our faith". But nobody ever seemed to be able to find a better answer, and it's been sitting there in my head ever since, just annoying me whenever one of these documentary shows would try to explain it, with me occasionaly poking at it like you do with something stuck between your teeth.

All right, bear with me now, I'm finally getting close to the point. Earlier this year I saw an episode of "Through the wormhole" about all this, and while it all seems to make sense as long as you accept the idea of dark energy, since I really don't, it all pretty much just sounded like a lame excuse for not understanding this red-shift thing. This super powerful force that nobody has ever been able to detect, is supposed to account for nearly all the energy in the universe? It's stronger than gravity, and we're not using it to power our spaceships WHY?

Anyway, not long after seeing that, I got to thinking about it while on a low dose of mushrooms, and the pieces suddenly all rearranged themselves in a way I'd never considered before. Even after coming down and pondering it for months it still seems to make perfect sense to me, but so far I've never heard of anyone proposing anything similar. Maybe someone else has thought of it and it just doesn't work for some reason? Even the most current shows I've seen don't mention any alternative to the standard party line. It seems like I've got to be missing something, how could all these real scientists possibly miss such a seemingly simple answer?

So, finally, here's what I'm trying to say. WHAT IF, rather than accellerating, the expansion actually IS slowing down as proposed by the big crunch scenario? Relativity says that space and time are actually two inseperable parts of a single thing, woven together into a "fabric" called space-time. So, if the expansion of SPACE is slowing down, doesn't that mean that TIME would have to be slowing down as well? How could it not be? We wouldn't be able to notice it, being caught up in it's flow, but viewing the whole thing from some outside perspective, wouldn't you see the whole universe and everything in it slowing down more and more until it finally stops, then reverses direction and starts gaining speed?

Now, as far as I can tell with my admittidely limited understanding, IF this were the case, when we looked out at a faraway galaxy (which because of the time it takes the light to reach us also means looking back in time, to when things were moving faster), the red shift would look like it was accellerating away from us, right? The farther away it is, the faster it would appear to be moving. Which is exactly what we're seeing, right? So couldn't the "proof" of an accellerating expansion, actually just be proof that time is moving slower now than it did in the past? And isn't this a much simpler explanation than all the dark energy mess? As I understand it, this should fit in very easily with our understanding of physics and relativity etc, without needing to invent a whole new force to explain what we're seeing. Occhams razor says we should accept the simplest explanation... so... what's wrong with this picture?

The thing I'm currently puzzling over the most about this is, assuming this idea is right, what happens to TIME when gravity finally wins, and expansion becomes contraction? Does time keep moving the direction it currently does, and just accellerates as space collapses back in on itself? Or does time literally reverse direction along with space and start playing the entire history of everything backwards, like rewinding a movie? I have heard and read from numerous sources that there's no good reason in physics why time should only be able to move in one direction. Any calculation you care to do works equally well going both ways, and it's a bit of a mystery why it only moves forwards. Also, wouldn't this change in speed over time affect our calculations about the age of the universe?

I suppose there could be exactly enough mass for it to reach it's maximum size then just stop, but that seems less likely than either of the other alternatives to me, and would mean a universe that ends up frozen in time forever. How boring. So if it does just "rewind", when it gets back to the point of "Banging" again, does everything replay itself exactly the same way, because it has exactly the same starting point? Or would some kind of variable make things happen differently the next time around?

I really have no clue, and just get boggled trying to figure it out. And maybe there's no point thinking about it anyway if there's some simple reason this can't be right. I can't imagine being the first to come up with the idea, there's too many people out there who are too much smarter and better educated than me for them to all miss something that seems so obvious. I know it's much more likely that I'M the one missing something here. Actaully I feel like a dummy for not coming up with it a lot sooner, why did this take me 10+ years to put together? Anyway thanks for reading if you made it through all this, I'd be very interested to know what you all think!

I like the way you think there.

I definitely subcribe to the big bang theory because it goes right along with creation as described in the Torah. (Bereshith)

I personally believe that the multiverse theory solves the problem as to what to do about a dying universe...

It makes sense to me that in an ideal scenario us humans will be advanced enough to possibly escape this universe and move to a different (bubble) or universe before this one collapses.

Another scenario/idea would be that humans will have advanced into a more eathereal non organic form that is capable of sustaining itself within a collapsed universe.

Or perhaps we will be advanced enough to create our own universe in much the same way that this universe was created by advanced intelligence.

I have considered the idea that our own universe is in a manner of speaking....built on top of a much more ancient "collapsed" universe.

It's a theory of mine that this "collapsed universe" is possibly the dwelling place of the beings that created this universe we know as humans and it exists in sort of a condensed parralell dimension...

According to this half baked theory that I am toying around with here, the collapsed ancient universe of these ultra tech beings can become avaliable to human perception with the aid of DMT and other psychedelics. Sort of like peering into another dimension, that has collapsed on a sub atomic scale?


Haha I'm no scientist either obviously but it's fun to think about with the ganja pipe in my hand here.....

Hoss;

Interesting thought there. And you are correct that it is such a big and obvious answer that it must in fact be wrong. Let's see if I can do this any justice.

Time and space are indeed linked, but not in the way you describe. The arrow of time is determined by the action of certain processes- for example, when time moves forward, objects fall toward masses, hot objects cool off, nearly ordered items fall into disarray; entropy happens. The movement of time can be measured by these processes- a pendulum clock is a great example, while an atomic clock, driven by the periodic release of subatomic particles by radioactive isotopes, is the most accurate way we have of measuring this thing called time.

Now, it is true that if time were slowing down, we wouldn't know by the measurement of these processes, as they would be slowing down too. But there is nothing that suggests that our perception of time would slow to a stop and reverse if our universe's expansion were in the process of doing the same.

Imagine you are in a rocket that is being shot straight into space with just enough fuel to exit the atmosphere, hang weightless for a moment, and then fall back to Earth. Would your perception of time slow to a stop at apogee, and then reverse? Of course not; time moves forward even as you fall back down. In effect, that is what would be happening in a "big crunch" scenario: all matter has been shot away from its gravitational origin, has reached the limit of how far gravity will allow it to go (apogee, in essence) and then it all falls back. As with the rocket analogy, there is no reason why a passenger in this process would experience a reversal of time.

Does that make sense?

Good topic crazyhorse. Much like yourself i'am not a scientist but i'am extremely interested in such subjects. Ive often thought about the big bang and space time etc.. i don't fully have a grasp on the whole concept if i'm honest.

The big bang theory rests on everything flying apart as you described, but this is where my problem comes in. Andromeda is the closest galaxy to our own galaxy and instead of moving away from us it is actually on a collision course with the milky way. If this is true then everything clearly isn't flying apart as described in the big bang theory. I'm sure everyone has also seen photographs of galaxies that have collided and have merged to form new galaxies. This could be one nail in the coffin of the big bang theory in my mind. I'm still looking for others

The other thing is that our only concept of time is how long it takes our earth to go round the sun. This is the basis of our hours minutes and seconds. I think time could actually just be a local phenomenon invented by us t explain why the sun rises and why the seasons happen etc. I wish i had a cleverer mind to study the idea of time in more depth but unfortunately i haven't spent the "time lol" to study it. Your new theory could be heading in the right direction but i couldn't possibly say.

Dark energy is something i'm really interested in and i'm going to study online to find out as much as possible what exactly scientists think it as and maybe i'll add to this discussion at a later date. Cheers

Something that just came into my mind there when i'm thinking about time is, you know when you are dreaming and you are running away from a threat or something but everything slows down and you seem to be running very slow? When i thought about this i also thought that while this is happening the only thing that slows down is the physical dream world, my brain and thinking still think at normal speed. My anxiety during such an event doesn't slow down or my ability to think about it. Basically i'm thinking that matter can slow down but because time is an invention by us our minds run at the same speed. I don't know where i'm going with this thought but it kinda interests me

Awesome. THIS thread is why I love this place sooooo much.

I understand the big bang theory enough to agree that its a strong possibility. EXCEPT, that it doesn't quite jive with me in the sense that when it collapse's or rips apart or condenses or whatever it may do, everything that happened is done for. Unless, that is, what Eliyahu said about jumping around between different universe's in order to escape the big collapse or whatever is an actuality (which I love that idea btw man!).

My reasoning is this. I see all around me a perfect system. Nature, to me, is a perfect system. It has its checks and balances, its safety protocols, and it's PLAN B. Everything is designed to work together to grow and expand and evolve. (remember this part) Now you can see all of the same systems in nature in EVERYTHING. Like the brain cell vs universe picture, where the design looks almost identical. Now with this thought in mind I believe that nature uses each perfect design for everything. The veins of a leaf, blood veins in humans, water ways from space look the same ect.

Ok, so I believe that if we observe what nature is doing in the micro, you can apply that to the macro. Just like the brain cell, universe thing. (attached image) So remember the underlined part, grow, expand, evolve. My idea is that the universe works much like mother nature does on this planet. Probably EXACTLY like it. It's all based on the most effective methods and technology IMO.

I'd like to expand more, but I am tired and Im losing focus on what I was saying.

Also, question: If the universe were to expand like they say it is, it is generally like a rubber band. Wouldn't everything technically be expanding, like say the cells in your body, atoms, molecular structures? Shouldnt we be able to observe things in the micro that are happening in the macro? (I could be considered an idiot to the one educated on this topic)

I think I understand your point, but I'm still not so sure that space-time isn't linked the way I'm proposing. I'm pretty sure that's what relativity is all about, isn't it? But I suppose what I'm saying might be just as unprovable as dark energy seems to be, which means it's not much of an improvement anyway.

But I don't think your example quite works, because you're describing someone moving THROUGH space and time, in the normal way that we usually do. This might be hard for me to explain clearly, but what I'm talking about is a level deeper, in the movement of space-time itself. It's not really like all this matter has just been shot out into space by the big bang, and then falls back in. That would have to happen within a pre-defined space, like your example of the rocket happens within the space of our atmosphere. But when we're talking about the expansion of the universe, that means SPACE ITSELF expanding, and carrying everything along with it. I know it's really hard to imagine, I really don't get how Einstien ever came up with this stuff without some GOOD psychedelics.

But as I understand it, This is more like if the rocket were able to stay still, while space was moved around it, similar to the way warp drive is often described as working in sci-fi. If you did this, I'd agree that the arrow of time wouldn't change. I don't think anything could do that except possibly the reversal I'm talking about, and even then I'm not sure, that's kind of part of the question.

But anyway, if you're moving near the speed of light, time for YOU in the rocket would move at a completely different speed from time in the place you left. That's one aspect of relativity that's basically been proven by our technology. Atomic clocks onboard our satelites run at a differnt rate than they do on the ground, and this needs to be compensated for very slightly, even though they're only moving a tiny fraction of the speed of light.

So if space itself is expanding, presumably at or near the speed of light (at least at the beginning), ALL time becomes relative to that motion, right? So if the speed of the expansion changes as it is affected more and more by gravity, time should get affected in the same way. I guess. In theory.

DeMenTed: galaxies do collide, and there is quite a bit of relative motion going on in the universe besides the simple expansion. But by and large, looking at everything around us and measuring average redshifts, the big picture is one that shows a definite expansion.

Anrchy: if everything, including the spacing between particles, were expanding equally, we would have no way of detecting that expansion- light wavelengths would expand too, as it is the electromagnetic interaction between particles that determines their spacing, and light wavelengths are physically linked to the electromagnetic spectrum. We are able to detect this expansion precisely because some aspects are expanding (spacing between galaxies) while others are not (the galaxies themselves).

This is why I said that Hubble observed ALMOST everything as moving away. You're absolutely right, Andromeda is headed right for us. But the thing is, The Milky Way, and Andromeda, and Pegasus, and I think at least a few other smaller galaxies, are all locked together in a "local cluster." and while that entire cluster is moving away from all the other clusers, objects within it can still move in other directions relative to each other. So the whole red shift thing only seems to come into play when we're dealing with objects much farther away than Andromeda. Sort of like within our own galaxy, at any given time, some stars will be moving towards us, and others away. But the whole shebang is also moving relative to what's outside.






I like what you're saying, and tend to agree about the way things seem to scale from micro to macro. That's also a really cool picture.

As far as how things expand, that's a good question and I've puzzled over that too. It seems that space is able to "grow", and carry matter along with it, but it's like the matter is just on the surface so to speak, and doesn't expand the same way. The usual example is drawing dots on the surface of a balloon. You inflate the baloon and the dots move apart, but don't change much individually.

Edit: Oops, Guy beat me to it, Sorry to be redundant.

Thanks for clearing that up Guy and crazyhorse

Crazyhorse: I understand your distinction. And I am not qualified at this point to discuss the difference between movement through space and the movement of space. But if I'm reading you correctly, what you are proposing would be essentially a rewind of history...? Or are you proposing that a new set of events would arise, but with reversed thermodynamic laws?

All I'm really proposing, is that if time is slowing down along with the expansion of space, then this would account for the apparent accelleration of distant galaxies, because as we look farther out into space, we're also looking further back into time, and if things were moving faster then, they would appear to us to be accellerating. If this is the case, then there's no need to invent dark energy to explain the apparent accelleration. It would just be an illusion.

As far as what happens when the expansion reaches it's maximum and (presumably) starts moving the other way, I'm not really proposing anything, only asking questions. If you re-read the last 3 paragraphs of the OP I think you'll see. I don't know if everything would rewind, then play forward again, or if time would keep going forward and space would just contract, or what. I guess I'm saying I think it might be possible for the arrow of time to reverse if/when the movement of space does, but I'm not even sure if the basic hypothesis holds up in the first place so I'm just asking for more input.

So is that what they are saying then? Cause it seems to me they would base the idea that its accelerating by observing the following:

Objects farther away, hence longer ago, are moving slower apart than;

Objects that are closer, which are moving faster.

If this is what they observed, then I can see why they are claiming this. The objects that we observe that happened a long time ago would have to be moving slower then objects that were more recent. Did anyone say how they came to that conclusion? Or do I have it backwards?

Ok, now I'm confused too.

The observation in the late 90's was that not only is the universe expanding (which was known since the 20's or 30's) but based on even more detailed analasys of the red shift, the expansion was claimed to actually be speeding up. This didn't seem to fit our current model of physics, so someone came up with this "dark energy" to explain it. You can think of it as kind of like anti-gravity, it is supposed to push things apart the same way gravity pulls things together. But apparently it only works on a very large scale, or something. It really doesn't make any sense to me, but this is the explanation that has been accepted by the scientific community.

This post is primarily about an alternative way to explain the apparent accelleration, in a way that AFAIK *does* fit our currrent model of physics, and doesn't require inventing a new force of nature (dark energy) that nobody has ever observed (except for through this supposed accelleration.)

Does that make more sense?

Well if you toss a football in space doesn't it continue to increase in speed until another force interacts with it?

So if there was an explosion (big bang) then what force would be strong enough to keep the universe from expanding at an ever increasing rate? And if there is a force that my limited knowledge inhibits me from knowing, what is it? Such a force would require another force (dark matter) to negate that property.

Am I on the right track?

No, a football or anything else shouldn't increase in speed on it's own. That goes against the laws of thermodynamics. If it worked that way, space travel would be a hell of a lot easier. All we'd need to do would be to point a rocket at mars, or the nearest star even, and it would accellerate itself faster and faster all the way there without needing to burn any fuel.

So your football will tend to keep on moving, because it's not dealing with gravity or air resistance like it would be in our atmosphere, but without an engine or a solar sail or some other way to propel itself, it definitely won't speed up. But that's exactly what dark energy is supposed to be doing to space itself, even though there's nothing else in physics to support it.

Ok bear with me...I just woke up and my brain is fried..

A spanner in the works:

If space/time is expanding and we can't measure it locally ie. the space between the atoms that make US up should be expanding, but we can't see this happening....Doesn't that mean that Matter is expanding at the same rate along with the space..?

I mean I don't look or feel massively bigger/expanded than I did a second ago..

So therefore expansion doesn't sit well with me as it would have to be a 'non-local/arbitrary phenomena that is restricted to 'certain' parts of space...
ie.Why is space/time expanding ONLY and not matter along with it....things should very quickly fall apart if this were the case...

Also another spanner:

What if Time is Not linear/arrow and does not 'exist' atall? I tend to think that Time is a 'man-made concept'.
There is only NOW....and endless, infinite NOW...
No such thing as past or future...just events that happened NOW (just earlier in the NOW).

How does this notion affect your hypothesis?


An alternative:

I have been struggling with this too for many many years...
If every Black Hole extends 'inwardly' to a singularity and nothing more is known beyond that point....

What if on the 'other side' of that singularity is a 'White Hole' that bursts out and expands (big bang etc.)
That would mean that a Universe is created through every Black Hole in every one of our galaxies....yes?

We can't 'see' this happening because it happens in another dimension/space/frequency/whatever. But we can infer all that extra matter and 'see' it as Dark Matter (so far unexplained 99% of everything).

Therefore multiverse theory could explain the expansion in this universe (other off axis universes...pushing into our space..)

I know the 'White Hole' idea is being looked at but you don't hear much about it...

Anyway I'm rambling and I havn't had my cup of tea yet so...Over to You..

No, read back up a few posts we've already covered this. Space is expanding, but not matter. Matter is carried along with space, sort of like a surfboard rides on a wave (only in 3 dimensions instead of just 2, if you can grok that.)



Well like I've said I'm just sort of at a "hobby" level with this, and I'm sure the real answer is much more complicated. But basically, as I understand it it's because matter is NOT space-time. Matter is IN space. Matter can be affected BY space, and space can be affected by matter (like through gravity for example, which is understood as space being distorted by mass), but it is something seperate. Like a boat can be affected by the movement of the water, but isn't part of it. If the lake were somehow to increase in size, it wouldn't change the boat.




I'm actually with you on this, I know what you mean, I've been there too And yes, to a degree our idea of "time" is arbitrary. A minute is only a minute because we say that's how long a minute is. But that doesn't mean time doesn't exist. It takes light a certain amount of time to cross a certain distance, for instance. What you actually CALL that amount of time, or that distance, is arbitrary. but the speed stays the same and it takes a specific time to get from here to there, and it would be the same even without us here to put a number on it.

But that's just how it works INSIDE space-time. What you're talking about is something that exists OUTSIDE of linear time, and FWIW I do believe that exists too. In fact I think that's where consciousness is based (I think of it as Zero dimension). From that perspective, everything happens together, all at once, and it is always NOW. But inside space-time, there is also a "Then".



What's going on inside a black hole is anyone's guess, known physics break down at the event horizon, just like they do at the big bang. I don't think even Hawking knows for sure and he probably knows more about black holes than anyone in the world. But sure white holes have been proposed for a long time, they could either spit matter out into another universe, or at another place in this one (wormholes). There is also a newer theory who's name I forget at the moment, but basically it says that whole new universes can grow inside a black hole in THIS universe, and that this is how universes reproduce. If that's the case our own universe would exist within a black hole in a larger scale universe. I saw a show about this recently, probably an episode of "through the wormhole."

Oh rats...it's too early to be Boggled...I wish I could get into this deeper...maybe later today.

One question for you though CrazyHorse:
When they did the calculations for the Red Shift....did they account for the variable rate of expansion? Or was it a fixed rate?

Or is that the 'Acceleration' hypothesis at work?....

I wish I understood higher math...

As I understand it, it's the red shift that's telling them what the rate of expansion supposedly is (increasing), not the other way around. If there were another way to measure it, it would be easy to tell if my idea is right or wrong. Before that discovery, it wasn't known whether the rate was constant, or if it was slowing down. That's why nobody was sure if we were going to have a "big rip" or a "big crunch". It all depended on the total amount of mass, which was unknown. I don't think anybody expected it to be speeding up, it wasn't really even considered as an option until someone saw it in the red shift. And my thinking is that when they saw that result, they pretty much just panicked at this big unexplainable thing and jumped to the wrong conclusion (basically just so they wouldn't have to tell people "we don't know".)

Isn't the Nexus great...
I don't have a single person in my life who I can discuss Red Shift with...

I'm the smartest person I know (in my reality tunnel) but I'm a retarded toddler compared to some of the minds that frequent this forum.