I was pondering something along these lines a few weeks ago.
If gravity has waves then would gravitational waves ripple back to the center once it reached the edge of the expansion? - similar to when a rock is thrown in a pond and it the wave reaches the edge of the pond and bounces back toward where the rock entered.
If it did would the resulting interference/cancellation result in an approximation of the delta between the current expansion rate and the anticipated rate?
That sounds feasible, but maybe they have not reached ‘The Edge’ yet...................
What are you - some sort of flat universe nutjob? (just kidding, of course...)
If gravity has waves then would gravitational waves ripple back to the center once it reached the edge of the expansion? - similar to when a rock is thrown in a pond and it the wave reaches the edge of the pond and bounces back toward where the rock entered.
If it did would the resulting interference/cancellation result in an approximation of the delta between the current expansion rate and the anticipated rate?
Awesome thought!
“would gravitational waves ripple back to the center once it reached the edge of the expansion?”
Yes, probably, but a couple problems:
* Normal gravitational effects happen instantaneously, not through gravitational waves. Gravitational waves only happen when there is some sudden change in the local spacetime geometry, like two massive bodies colliding or a black hole being formed, something like that.
* Gravitational waves can only travel at the speed of light, and the rate of the expansion of the universe is high enough that gravitational waves from the center of the universe would never be able to reach the “edge” to bounce back. Even if waves starting near the edge of the universe could reach it and bounce back, they would be swimming against the current and wouldn’t get very far back towards the center.
Gravitational waves travel at the speed of light. The entire observable universe is too large for them to traverse and reflect back, if they were to do such a thing.
Which they wouldn't. The entire universe is larger than what we can observe, and we have no way of knowing just how large it may be. And an "edge" to it isn't going to be the sort of classical boundary you are familiar with, as there would be no space on the other side.