Has the Universe Stopped Expanding?

[budcamp]

I keep trying to refine this idea. I am just about ready to send it to 20 or 30 professional astronomers and see what they think about it. If you see something particularly stupid here please let me know before they do.

 

Bud

 

 

 

When I look at “The Expansion of the Universe”, I see a massive dichotomy.

 

Everyone basically agrees that the universe is expanding and the galaxies are moving away from each other. The farther away they are the faster they are moving apart. Every new astronomy student hears the expanding Universe described as being comparable to a balloon or to a cake with raisins stirred into it. As the cake raises, the raisins move apart. If two raisins are half an inch apart and the cake doubles in size they will then be one inch apart. However, if they start at two inches apart and the cake doubles they will be four inches apart. The farther apart they are the faster they recede from each other. But, they always move away from each other at some rate of speed. The raisins are used to symbolize galaxies.

 

But, everyone also knows that in the world of real galaxies; everywhere we look, within say a few billion years; everything is coming together into super mega-clusters and walls. All of those billions of galaxies! They are not moving away from each other they are moving toward each other! In the real universe, the raisins are forming into clumps, and clusters, and super clusters and walls. The cake explanation does not conform at all to what we see in the Universe.

 

A long time ago, galaxies were expanding from each other very rapidly: almost at the speed of light. That was plus or minus fifteen billion years ago. What has happened to that expansion today? We just don’t know! We have absolutely no idea of what is happening fifteen billion light years from us, at this instant. The only things we know about the present, is what we can see within a few light years. Astronomers are historians, not news reporters. Astronomy deals almost exclusively with “old news”.

 

Cosmologists generally agree that if there is enough matter in the Universe it will expand for awhile and then contract. This is the closed universe model. Gravity will slowly gain control of all matter. When it has, the universe will start to contract. How could we tell if it started to contract? How would we know it was contracting rather than expanding.

 

Most people tell me the Hubble Constant is the proof it is still expanding. We can see that the farther away we look, the faster space is expanding. The red shift lets us know it is still expanding. The problem with that is; the light that is red shifted left its source fifteen billion years ago. Even I agree it was expanding back then. But that gives us no clue as to what is happening now.

 

 

So, how would we know if The Universe were contracting?

 

This contraction would first be noticed in the home galaxy. Then the local group would start to move together. In the beginning of the Local Group’s contraction the cluster would still be expanding, though at a reduced rate.

 

In another few million years or so, the Cluster would start to move together, but the Super-Cluster would still be expanding, though at a reduced rate. Of course in real time the entire Universe would stop concurrently (or thereabouts), but because of the look back into time we can only observe the contraction within the number of light years since the contraction began. Before that time, it was still expanding.

 

In other words if the universe came to dead stop say one billion years ago, what would we see now? Well, we should see our own Galaxy perhaps having a slight contraction. Our local group should be generally trending toward blue shift, though the proper motions of the bodies would ameliorate this to some degree. Our cluster would be a trifle into the blue. Our super-cluster would be red shifted but decreasingly so.

 

These are exactly the conditions we find today. Our home galaxy is stable. In our local group: the Magellanic clouds are in the process of merging into the Milky Way, as are Sagittarius, and Canis Major among a number of others. The Andromeda Galaxy is closing on us, while also merging with M32, M33, and M110 amongst others. The entire local group is moving toward the Virgo Cluster. Which is moving toward the Virgo Super-Cluster.

 

This meets all of the conditions for contraction of the closed model of the Universe. Why then would we still think that the universe is continuing to expand? It seems to me the reason for this is that it is less than 100 years since we found out there was an expansion. It was quite a discovery since everyone at that time thought the universe was static, even Hubble!

 

Since we were not around when the Milky Way was expanding, we didn’t notice it stopping. The same applies to the local group! We didn’t see it expanding so we think it was always gravity bound. We have never really dealt with the question of "Why isn’t space expanding between us and the other galaxies in the local cluster?" We just say they are gravity bound and let it go at that. GRAVITY BOUND LOCAL AREAS IS ONE OF THE FIRST CHARACTERISTICS OF A CONTRACTING UNIVERSE!

 

 

The Hubble constant says that in the distant past the Universe was expanding very rapidly. The closer we get to the present the slower the Universe is expanding. We generally hear the constant used to describe what happens to light shift based on how far away galaxies are from the Earth. The farther away the galaxies, the faster they are receding and the higher their red-shift. But the constant doesn't really deal with distance; it deals with time. The farther in the past, the more expansion.

 

If we see a galaxy that is red-shifted, is it necessarily moving away from us? Of course not! It just means it was once moving away. What is happening to galaxies ten billion light years away from us at this moment. We have no idea what is happening to them. We really know very little about what is happening in the universe at present.

 

The red-shifted light we see from Andromeda left there over two million years ago. All we know is that it was moving toward us two million years ago; not what it is doing today! Hubble deals with what was happening in the past, not with what is happening now.

 

The farther that we go into the past the faster the universe was expanding and the closer that we get to the present, the slower the universe is expanding. This is not theory; this is what we observe.

 

Occam’s razor say’s the simplest explanation that fits all of the facts is probably the correct one. The simplest explanation for the data is that the expansion of the universe has stopped.

 

If I am correct, we should be able to find a roughly spherical horizon around Earth; inside of which most bodies are being drawn together and outside of which they are expanding from each other. Those at the horizon being generally stable. Proper motion will cause some problems in finding this horizon, but should not prevent its being found.

 

 

If you think some of the data or conclusions presented here are incorrect, please contact Bud Camp. The humility might do me some good. If you agree with them also please let me know.

 

bud.camp@verizon.net

__________________

bud camp

[blike]

That's a great read. I had never thought about the fact that what we are seeing with the redshift is millions, if not billions of lightyears away. That gives us no indication of whether or not the universe is still expanding.

 

Check out this news item:

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=654&highlight=wmap

 

Seems as if the physicists and astronomers at NASA have concluded that the universe will not stop expanding. I'm neither of the aforementioned, so I'm not sure how they arrived at their conclusions.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

We could notice the contraction by measuring blue shift.

I have NO clue how to determine any of that, so I don't want to play with advanced physics and astronomy. Way over my head.

[Sayonara]

You should try posting it on http://www.physicspost.com and see what sort of response you get

[Radical Edward]

budcamp said in post # :

Everyone basically agrees that the universe is expanding and the galaxies are moving away from each other. The farther away they are the faster they are moving apart. Every new astronomy student hears the expanding Universe described as being comparable to a balloon or to a cake with raisins stirred into it. As the cake raises, the raisins move apart. If two raisins are half an inch apart and the cake doubles in size they will then be one inch apart. However, if they start at two inches apart and the cake doubles they will be four inches apart. The farther apart they are the faster they recede from each other. But, they always move away from each other at some rate of speed. The raisins are used to symbolize galaxies.

be a bit careful when thinking that "all the galaxies are moving away from one another" because you are not taking their relative motion into account. The distances for red shift calculations are indeed significant, and take into account local aggregations caused by the gravitational pull between those bodies overcoming the overall universal expansion.

But, everyone also knows that in the world of real galaxies; everywhere we look, within say a few billion years; everything is coming together into super mega-clusters and walls. All of those billions of galaxies! They are not moving away from each other they are moving toward each other! In the real universe, the raisins are forming into clumps, and clusters, and super clusters and walls. The cake explanation does not conform at all to what we see in the Universe.

actually it kind of does. The expansion of the cake is the result of the water boiling in the mixture, and possibly CO2 or whatever emerging from the baking soda (I think it is CO2, someone correct me if I am wrong) and this we can equivocate to the expansion of space. But why doesn't all that CO2 and water just shoot off out into the oven? well it is restricted by an attractive force i.e. the molecules and fibers within the cake mix. Locally the cake mix may overcome the expansion of this space, and then you get the material surrounding bubbles within the cake (these bubbles, especially in something like really light bread, look a little bit like the overall structure of the universe actually) so we get locally high densities of cake mix in a cake with an overall low density. The further away from each other the bits of cake mix are, the less attraction they have to one another, which is why the cake on the whole expands, while little bits of the cake actually stay dense.

A long time ago, galaxies were expanding from each other very rapidly: almost at the speed of light. That was plus or minus fifteen billion years ago. What has happened to that expansion today? We just don’t know! We have absolutely no idea of what is happening fifteen billion light years from us, at this instant. The only things we know about the present, is what we can see within a few light years. Astronomers are historians, not news reporters. Astronomy deals almost exclusively with “old news”.

sort of, but the thing is this. The light that was emitted from a star wasn't actually red shifted the moment it left that star. It was red shifted because in all of it's intermediate travel, it was slowly stretched out over billions of years as the space it was in slowly got bigger.

 

Cosmologists generally agree that if there is enough matter in the Universe it will expand for awhile and then contract. This is the closed universe model. Gravity will slowly gain control of all matter. When it has, the universe will start to contract. How could we tell if it started to contract? How would we know it was contracting rather than expanding.

well the space occupied by a photon would slowly start to shrink, and hence the photon would be blue shifted.

Most people tell me the Hubble Constant is the proof it is still expanding. We can see that the farther away we look, the faster space is expanding. The red shift lets us know it is still expanding. The problem with that is; the light that is red shifted left its source fifteen billion years ago. Even I agree it was expanding back then. But that gives us no clue as to what is happening now.

as above, it was not red shifted when it left that star. It has become red shifted in it's intermediate journey.

 

So, how would we know if The Universe were contracting?

 

This contraction would first be noticed in the home galaxy. Then the local group would start to move together. In the beginning of the Local Group’s contraction the cluster would still be expanding, though at a reduced rate.

If a photon was emitted from me to you, then I suppose you might see that it was blue shifted, but it would be quite hard, because the space will not have expanded or contracted much in the meantime.

In another few million years or so, the Cluster would start to move together, but the Super-Cluster would still be expanding, though at a reduced rate. Of course in real time the entire Universe would stop concurrently (or thereabouts), but because of the look back into time we can only observe the contraction within the number of light years since the contraction began. Before that time, it was still expanding.

this is false. the behaviour of the local cluster is not indicative of the behaviour of the universe as a whole. The Local cluster may indeed contract, but this does not mean that the universe as a whole will contract. Just like in the cake, a local bit of the cake might collapse when the attractive pull of the cake mix overcomes the expansion of the gas, but this does not mean the cake will collapse.

 

Sadly the rest of your essay is built on these same false assumptions, so there is no need for me to dismantle your argument anymore, since I would in effect just be repeating myself.

 

Your fundamental flaw has been to assume that every single galaxy is moving away from every single other galaxy, without taking local effects into account.

[YT2095]

"The expansion of the cake is the result of the water boiling in the mixture, and possibly CO2 or whatever emerging from the baking soda (I think it is CO2, someone correct me if I am wrong) "

 

you`re bang on the nail

[Radical Edward]

thanks, I thought I was right it is Bicarbonate of Soda now I recall. so it would be

[budcamp]

Radical Edward

 

Thanks for the answer. You spent some time thinking before you answered. Unfortunately not quite enough time.

 

If a baking cake had water boiling in it, it would be a very lugubrious cake indeed. It is the gasses within the batter that cause the cake to rise. You also forgot the raisins, which you will find do not tend to clump together; they recede from each other as the batter expands. The little clumps of batter that did not get stirred sufficiently are more representative of the quantum flux that is the beginning of new galaxies

 

“be a bit careful when thinking that "all the galaxies are moving away from one another" because you are not taking their relative motion into account. The distances for red shift calculations are indeed significant, and take into account local aggregations caused by the gravitational pull between those bodies overcoming the overall universal expansion.”

 

You must have missed this part of my entry. "Why isn’t space expanding between us and the other galaxies in the local cluster?" We just say they are gravity bound and let it go at that. GRAVITY BOUND LOCAL AREAS IS ONE OF THE FIRST CHARACTERISTICS OF A CONTRACTING UNIVERSE!

 

 

“The light that was emitted from a star wasn't actually red shifted the moment it left that star. It was red shifted because in all of it's intermediate travel, it was slowly stretched out over billions of years as the space it was in slowly got bigger. “

 

That is a real interesting concept!!!. I will think about that and get back to you about it. But, while it is interesting it is also wrong. The atom that emitted it determines the color of the photon that is emitted. The red or blue shift is determined by its speed in approaching or receding from the observer. If a light emitting body sped past us in space and was only a few hundred thousand miles from us, its light shift would still be determined only by its speed.

 

 

“well the space occupied by a photon would slowly start to shrink, and hence the photon would be blue shifted.”

 

I didn’t understand this.

 

 

It may not sound like it, but I thought you presented a good answer, and made me think about some of my statements.

 

I would like to make this recommendation.

 

Let’s make the assumption that space has started to contract. Don’t tell me why it isn’t; just tell me how we would know if it had. That is the question that got me started on this to begin with.

 

HOW WOULD WE KNOW IF IT HAD STOPPED EXPANDING?

[Sayonara]

I don't think I'd want to eat a cake which had sufficient structural integrity to keep water in a liquid form at 250F.

[YT2095]

ROFLOL, consider sayos statement seconded

[Rasori]

Thirded too

[Radical Edward]

budcamp said in post # :

Radical Edward

If a baking cake had water boiling in it, it would be a very lugubrious cake indeed.

of course the water boils in the cake. I set my oven to a temperature far in excess of 100 degrees Celsius.

It is the gasses within the batter that cause the cake to rise.

gases like water vapour

You also forgot the raisins, which you will find do not tend to clump together; they recede from each other as the batter expands. The little clumps of batter that did not get stirred sufficiently are more representative of the quantum flux that is the beginning of new galaxies

It doesn't matter. the raisins are only a part of the illustration. The actual cake mix itself is a much better representative of the overall mass distribution of the universe.

You must have missed this part of my entry. "Why isn’t space expanding between us and the other galaxies in the local cluster?" We just say they are gravity bound and let it go at that. GRAVITY BOUND LOCAL AREAS IS ONE OF THE FIRST CHARACTERISTICS OF A CONTRACTING UNIVERSE!

space does not appear to be expanding in our local region simply because there is a local gravitational attraction that exceeds the overall expansion of the universe. Gravity bound local areas are not the first characteristics of a contracting universe. The contracting lumps of cake mix are not the first characteristics of a contracting cake.

That is a real interesting concept!!!. I will think about that and get back to you about it. But, while it is interesting it is also wrong. The atom that emitted it determines the color of the photon that is emitted. The red or blue shift is determined by its speed in approaching or receding from the observer. If a light emitting body sped past us in space and was only a few hundred thousand miles from us, its light shift would still be determined only by its speed.

It is not wrong at all. You are taking not taking both effects into account: local motion and spatial expansion.

I didn’t understand this.

okay. Now imagine a really huge balloon, with two cars on it, both driving at 60mph. When they set off from garage A, one of the cars is at the front of the garage, and the other is at the back, and they are holding a pubber band between them. imagine it is a very soft rubber band so that it does not slow the first car, or speed the second. These two cars drive to Garage B, which is some good distance away, while the balloon is being inflated. Now despite the fact that they have both been driving at 60mph, when they get to Garage B, they will be further apart, and the owner of Garage A will be jealous that the guy who owns Garage B has had an extension built since he last visited the place himself.

Let’s make the assumption that space has started to contract. Don’t tell me why it isn’t; just tell me how we would know if it had. That is the question that got me started on this to begin with.

 

HOW WOULD WE KNOW IF IT HAD STOPPED EXPANDING? ]

 

because the light from objects sufficiently distant to be affected by the expansion of the universe would not appear red shifted. You would have to take into account local motion though to be completely accurate.

 

Another illustration of your problem is like this. Say 2 galaxies facing each other edge on are receeding from one another and are close enough to ignore spatial expansion. Now they are also both spinning, but one is spinning clockwise (to some arbitrary "north" that we will choose to be the same for both, and the other is spinning anti-clockwise. (see the picture)

 

Now if the two scientists on the top (A) measure each others' velocities, they will think that they are approaching one another more slowly than the scientists on the bottom (B) because they have not taken their local effects into account.

 

Another example is, say you launch a rocket from the earth at just over 11km/s so that it escapes, and a bit falls off that is only going at 10.9km/s, then the bit that fell off will fall back to the earth. so you cannot use the behaviour of the bit that fell of as indicative of the rocket as a whole.

[budcamp]

Ok Edward, lets see what you think about a few things. Then we can go on from there.

 

How fast is space expanding?

 

Why is nothing blue shifted beyond a billion light years distant?

 

Are other local groups also contracting?

 

At what distance does gravity stop affecting the expansion of the universe?

[Sayonara]

budcamp said in post # :

At what distance does gravity stop affecting the expansion of the universe?

 

Isn't a better question "At what distance does gravity stop significantly affecting the expansion of the universe", seeing as it has effectively infinite 'range'?

[budcamp]

I can live with that Sayonara

 

Bud

[budcamp]

lets try this

 

At what distance does a given mass stop the effects of the expansion of Space relative to that mass?

 

Bud

[budcamp]

If any of you have ever backed a cake, and looked into the oven and the dough was boiling, you can be sure that what you get will be more like oatmeal than like a cake.

 

Bud

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

There would not be enough water in one place to boil like a pot, it's scattered around a hole lot. So it will quietly turn to vapor without much fuss.

[budcamp]

Some of it will definitely evaporate, and the rest will stay in the cake making it moist. It was the boiling inside the cake that amused me.

 

Bud

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

If it evaporates, that's boiling.

[budcamp]

If you leave a bowl of water on your table it will evaporate while never getting anywhere near 100c

 

bud

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I know. But that is a lot slower than baking it, so it can't just evaporate!

[budcamp]

Sure it can. In the area where I live it evaporates over a foot a day in the summer. You turn off the water supply for your swining pool for a week and it is empty! It never boils though.

 

Bud

[Sayonara]

So you're saying water that is heated from around room temperature to 3 times the boiling point of water does not boil?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

He's saying it evaporates, not boils. It's flawed, I know.