I think…remember you heard it here first…that all our atoms and stars and galactic clusters are rushing away from each other because…
…wait for it…
Another Big Bang has happened at the heart of it all, and new matter is accelerated outward, pushing our universe outward at all inner points of origin. Being separate universes we cannot see each other. But that’s it. The cosmos has hiccuped again, and we are one in a succession of such pulses, chasing the wavefront of the universe before us. Dark matter and dark energy are the only manifestation of the other universe threaded through our own—and it keeps on happening.
Of course, I may have another theory by supper. But I enjoy wondering about such things.
OK, one universe exerting cosmic pressure on another, but not likely noticed by inhabitants of either — sounds plausible, if a bit worrisome for either inhabitants.
So I’ll see your Big Bang 2 (aren’t they in season 5 or something?) and raise you another:
So if two universes exert pressure on one another, then…do multiple branch-points of related, parallel universes exert pressure to “knead together” or “pull apart” nearby branches? (Apologies for the mixed metaphor, I guess it’s Play-Doh trees. No, I’m not sure I’m ready for the Claymation model of the multiverse, though I suppose Wallace and Grommit, Shaun the Sheep, Gumby, and Rudolph would all applaud it.)
I’ve probably just given away another Big Idea, I don’t know.
Or another question: If we were nudged into a parallel universe that’s *almost* like ours, would we even notice it? Does it happen all the time, or very infrequently?
I should probably caution, I was never any good at physics. I always would insert some additional force where it didn’t belong, or neglected one.
Still, it beats the stuffing out of contemplating my budget after paying bills! :o)
I’m thinking this Big Bang stuff has gone on forever and that the interfaces between ‘universes’ due to internal (but not external) entropy are increasingly chaotic…so that the number of universes that can be coiled up inside each other is only finite in the sense that only a certain number of them can be accessed from any other—but that the multiverse is potentially endless and eternal, for any purposes discernible within t, and that our points of contact with other universes will never diminish in number, though they may not be TO the same universes. For all we know, the multiverse is an immense toroid of eternally increasing size, and as all universe disperse to the outer-current-limit, they will be sucked back to be spat out again. The universe is the one constructible perpetual motion engine.
Been reading Brian Greene, have we? String Theory, M-Theory, and “Branes”? The question is always the same, is it testable?
You have reminded me of Poul Anderson’s Tau Zero, which I have not read in decades. May have to go searching for a copy.
I haven’t thought about Tau Zero in a long time. I may have to pull it down and read it again.
And maybe The Triumph Of Time by James Blish.
I trust everybody is familiar with Abbott’s “Flatland” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland). OK, so now let’s draw a “flatland universe” on the surface of a balloon rather than a Cartesian plane. The balloon exists in three dimensions, but our flatlanders are still two dimensional. The circumference of our balloon is so large that no flatlander could possibly travel in a geodesic path, return to his starting point, thus proving the existance of the third dimension. Of course there are parallels to 15th Century humans. 🙂
OK, now let’s add one dimension; change it so our “flatlanders” are three dimensional, as are we, but they live on the surface of a 4-dimensional sphere, rather than a 3-dimensional one. If we inflate their 4-D balloon, space expands for them, inexplicably. Of course there are parallels with 21st Century humans. 😉
And, of course, the fastest way between any two points on the surface of their 4-D sphere is a chord through the sphere in the 4th dimension which is forbidden to them. 😉
Then the question becomes, why is the ‘balloon’ expanding? Perhaps that balloon itself is only the surface of an n+1 dimensional balloon which is also expanding. And why is that one expanding? … turtles all the way down…
It’s balloons all the way down, instead of turtles?
There’s nothing in my model that speaks to whether the “center” of the four-dimensional sphere is “special”. To a hypothetical being in this 4-space, our balloon need not necessarily be unique. At different places in the 4-space there may be other balloons. They need not be concentric. How big our 13.7BLY balloon might be in 4-space terms is unknown. We know nothing about relevant scales. Relativity, the Curvature of Space-Time, and what happens to sigularities in this model are things I never had the chance to investigate. It’s certainly suggestive, but that’s not enough.
And just to throw something into the mix:
You should realize that the ENTIRETY of the scientific basis for the idea of an expanding universe is based upon a single metric: red-shifted stellar spectra.
That’s it. That’s the whole enchilada.
“What’s the big deal?” you may ask, or “Why is that significant?”
Because the interpretation of that redshift is based on one very, very important assumption: that the cause of the redshift is solely due to movement+distance, or Doppler shift. What’s ironic is that while this is called Hubble’s Law, I read Hubble’s paper, and in it he says, IF there is no intrinsic source of redshift (meaning, something besides velocity/distance) in stars, THEN the following law applies…
So the question is, what’s causing the redshift? The work of astronomer Halton Arp has falsified the redshift-as-distance idea with observations of quasars (which turn out to be defined as “blobs” seen in the telescope with extremely redshifted spectra) that are supposedly orders of magnitude more distant than an observable galaxy… that are in the FOREGROUND in FRONT of said galaxy.
My personal research has led me to understand that stars are fundamentally electrical… and one known phenomenon that will cause redshift is when light passes through an electric field.
It’s amazing to me how much “understanding” can be built, line-upon-line, on top of that single observation. 🙂
(Of course, if I’m correct, then the vast majority of recorded distance/mass/brightness values for most stars and galaxies are fantastically incorrect. The exception would be those nearby stars for which distance was determined via parallax.)
“The Universe… is like an onion. It has layers.”
No, see, when a black hole shrinks down and finally disappears, a big bang happens someplace else, like a big sneeze.
My buddy L. Ron said if you decide to understand it becomes true.