Posted on 02/13/2022 5:54:10 PM PST by nagant
Dr. Hooper delivers a very interesting lecture discussing the origins of the universe, and where it might be going according to the latest models of physics. Dr. Hooper's "hook" comes in minute 8. He says that an alternative view of universal expansion is that space is shrinking. It couches universal expansion in a way I’ve never considered, that alternatively, universal expansion can be stated as universal shrinkage.
For decades cosmologists have reported that, from redshift observations, the universe is expanding at a fixed rate, the Hubble constant. Recently astronomers took more accurate measures of how fast distant objects are receding, and discovered that actually the universe’s expansion appears top be accelerating. Distant objects appear to be receding at faster rates than they had previously receded.
My question: If local space is shrinking wouldn't that account for the observed discrepancy between redshift recession and direct measurement recession? The standard answer is that “dark energy” is causing expansion to accelerate. If local space is shrinking wouldn't we perceive the outer universe's recession to be accelerating when it's not?
One outcome of the gravitation model says a universe with more than critical mass will expand until it starts shrinking. Because past redshift observers saw receding objects they assumed the universe to be in the original expanding phase. However, they were observing the past universe. It seems to me that local shrinkage combined with past distant expansion would yield an observation of accelerated expansion.
The universe's expansion could reverse all at once, and we wouldn't know that the outer universe was doing anything but expanding. With local shrinkage it seems to me that we would perceive that the universe’s expansion is accelerating.
To me this model would account for acceleration without the need for dark energy. What am I missing?
George Costanza knows all about the perils of “local shrinkage”... (Probably the funniest Seinfeld episode.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85MZ4c1EWkM
“I was in the pool!!”
It depends “when” you see it. If an object 400,000,000 light years away changed course and started accldeating toward us to day you would no see that change until 400,000,000 years from now. The deeper into space you look, the further you are “looking” into time. In a galactic context it makes no sense to be concerned by any of this as the Sun will be burned out, the Earth a cinder, and our civilsation long-long gone before any of this makes the slightest difference.
At the outer limits we are seeing light from the distant past not the present.
This whole body of speculation is based on the premise that light actually travels at a uniform velocity in all directions; which decided to be so by convention, not observation, which, some say is not possible to do.
Oops.
Way back in 1966 when I was a junior in high school, I attended a lecture on Relativity by George Gamow. This guy's lecture was presented every bit as good as Gamow's.
Also if shrinkage has started, the must have been a point in time in the past when the universe stood momentarily still - just as it stopped expanding and before the start of the shrinkage. Is there an observational or theoretical way to determine when that occurred?
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It finally occurred to me that, if the gravitational model’s expansion slows and stops like you say, the subsequent shrinkage will accelerate. And acceleration is what cosmologists are observing.
We may only get 10 billion more years out of this model no matter how well we maintain it. Maybe Dr. Hooper understands that many viewers would dislike news that all that we see is coming to an end, and that’s why he didn’t expand on this topic.
From fossil records we see that most animal species are increasing in size with succeeding generations. I wonder if somehow this is due to shrinking space. This would imply some inherent genetic ability which supersedes space/time constraints.
“Maybe Dr. Hooper understands that many viewers would dislike news that all that we see is coming to an end,”
Which could be the start of a new beginning according to the theory of the oscillating universe.
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