Alternative to dark energy.

[BigMoosie]

The idea of dark energy I believe was to explain why the observable universe's expansion is accellarating. This seems like such a radical conclusion, surely something else more simple could explain this? Here is my idea:

 

Perhaps the universe has a similar topology to a sphere, meaning that if I travel in any given direction for long enough I will end up at my starting point from the opposite direction. If that were so then perhaps all of the farthest parts of the universe are accellarating away because it is actually being pulled by matter in the opposite direction, with all of the matter actually converging upon a point rather than dispersing.

 

Does this make sense?

[timo]

No. If all the matter is converging to a point then why does all matter (stars) tend to get aways from us?

[BigMoosie]

You are not following me... I will try a simple analogy: Imgaing standing on the earth and observing many objects moving away over the horizon, after some time these objects will begin to meet on the other side of the planet, at a point. My idea is the same concept but in 3 dimensions rather than 2.

[timo]

I´m actually still not following you. When you say "everything converges to a point" I read it as "the distance between those objects will decrease". So why doesn´t that apply to the distance between any object and earth?

Of course it is possible that earth takes a position in the universe that is qualitatively different from that of the other stars. But this kind of thinking is not very modern since the end of the middle-ages.

[Locrian]

The idea of dark energy I believe was to explain why the observable universe's expansion is accellarating. This seems like such a radical conclusion, surely something else more simple could explain this? Here is my idea:

 

Energy is a scalar quantity used to describe the state of a system. In this case, it is reasonable to use the definition of energy as the ability to do work.

 

There is clearly work being done on matter in our universe in a way we were not expecting. When we say there is energy involved, all we're doing is admitting that what we're percieving is real; when the enegy is given a new name, we're suggesting it involves a force we weren't previously aware of.

 

So we've observed that something is happening we can't explain. We've proposed there's a reason for it. What's so radical about that?

[Xyph]

If things were to look the same as they do now, for what you're proposing (until we reach the halfway point when things start to converge again) the universe would need to be on the surface of a static hypersphere with five spatial dimensions. This seems a lot more complicated than the expanding 4-dimensional hypersphere that is usually proposed to explain the universe's apparently uniform expansion.

 

Edit: Oh, I've just realised that that 5-dimensional version would be the representation of a 4-dimensional universe that ends in a Big Crunch, with time represented as a spatial dimension.

[Bio-Hazard]

No. That would only happen if you were to somehow go into a wormhole or some other wierd spacial contraption where you get sent back in time or in a location within space because of energy fluctuation or some crazy crap.

 

My idea is that the universe is a sphere, however. But the farther you go into the sphere, the more it will expand. I figure that space, like nature, will only do work, when it is necessary. Which brings up the idea that consciousness is somehow interlinked with space in which when a being is entering a new location within space, the universe will expand. Which quite deep but perhaps not true. Although, I would not rule it out as a possibility.

 

Another thought is that space is already expanding on it's own without any reason to, or perhaps some reason not understood by our human intellect at the time. However, it still expands and matter takes it's place or is reorganized by an alternative being within the universe.

 

Some think the universe is expanding on it's own. Some think that it needs a reason to expand but will when given that reason. Some think there is a end.

 

I don't believe there is an end. However the idea that there is an end is the idea that there is a predetermined amount of energy within the universe and a loss of an electron would decompose the world and an extra would burn it up. With the continual of the universe however, there would need to be a balancing of all universal factors.

 

Omg startrek wtf bbqw?!!!111

[Xyph]

But that implies a center, whereas observation suggests there isn't one. If the universe is on the surface of an expanding hypersphere, there doesn't need to be a center, and expansion can be completely uniform.

[BigMoosie]

Atheist: The distance between the stars is incrasing if you look one way but if you look the other way they are decreasing. Just as if I walk away from my house I am slowly walking towards it around the Earth from the opposite direction.

 

Locrian: Fair enough, though like you say, this force remains unexplained, how do you feel about this explaination?

 

Biohazard: Please explain why this theory requires worm holes or "some crazy crap".

 

Xyph: Expansion can still be completely uniform if there is a center.

 

I am not dedicated to this theory, I just want to know what observable evidence contradicts it.

[Xyph]

No it can't. Everything is moving away from everything else. If there was a center, there would be a clearly defined spherical shell of galaxies moving away from an empty central region, but this isn't what's happening.

[GeminiinimeG]

You can not possibly know if the universe is a sphere or not, so far humans have only been able to see to a certain point were it seems its too far for us to make out what is out there, so basically the universe might be to big for us to be able to know if its a spehere or not, wich it probably is because everything seems to come out a sphere in this universe with everything being pulled into the center. If theres allways a force that contradicts another, then there might be something called anti gravity wich we dont know about. Perhaps this is the force that works on dark matter and it might make regular matter be pushed away from regular matter thus keeping the whole universe from blowing up. If what i say seems wrong please show me something the tells me otherwise.

[Locrian]

Locrian:[/b'] Fair enough, though like you say, this force remains unexplained, how do you feel about this explaination?

 

What explanation?

 

(Hint: Unless it can be used to accurately determine the luminosity of type Ia supernovae with high redshifts it's not an explanation)

[BigMoosie]

So becuase I have not explored the mathematics behind it you will not comment?

[BigMoosie]

No it can't. Everything is moving away from everything else. If there was a center, there would be a clearly defined spherical shell of galaxies moving away from an empty central region, but this isn't what's happening.

Why not? This image shows a 2d uniform expansion with a center:

[timo]

Given the picture above: In which direction do I have to look for that the distance between the points decreases?

[BigMoosie]

The x and y axis would "wrap" around so you would have in effect (not actually duplicated but relatively positioned like so):

 

_______

 

And you can see there that the distances decrease.

[Xyph]

Oh yeah, hm. You'd still need an initial repulsion to start the expansion though, since, I think, by the time things started to converge on the other side of this sphere with a 3-dimensional surface, the fact that galaxies were moving towards each other again would be fairly apparent.