Please explain the physics that shows I'm wrong.

[elegance coral]

I'm sorry, but this may be a long post.

 

I think about physics quite a bit, and question everything. Lately I've been thinking about the big bang and the problems associated with it. Like dark energy. The way I see it, with my limited understanding, we had a good theory with the big bang. That is until the discovery that the expansion of the universe is increasing. This showed that something was fundamentally wrong with our understanding of the universe IMHO. In stead of trying to figure out what was wrong with our theory, science simply made up something that would make our theory work. Dark energy was born. We can make any theory work, if we get to make up stuff as we go. This problem has caused me to do a great deal of thinking, and researching, with my limited resources. The next paragraph is the conclusion I've come to, but I'm sure it can't be correct. It's to simple, so there must be a flaw I'm unaware of. That's where you come in. Please explain to me why, or how, my theory doesn't work.

 

Okay, there are two places in the known universe where gravity actually makes objects move apart from each other. One is near the event horizon of a black hole. The other is where space is warped in a spiral galaxy, like our milky way. There are bands where stars are clustered tightly together separated by bands with fewer stars. As the stars rotate around the center of our galaxy, they move through these bands, getting closer together and further away as they do. Why can't the acceleration of the expansion of our known universe be explained in a similar fashion? If there are two stars leaving one of these dense bands of stars, in a spiral galaxy, the one leaving first would move away from the one behind it. The rate at which the space between them grew would increase as they moved further away from the band.

 

Nearly everything we know seems to fallow the same simple plan. One thing(like electrons), or body, revolving around another. From electrons around the nucleus of atoms, to moons around planets, to planets around stars, to stars around super massive black holes. Why can't we simply continue this pattern one step further? What if our known universe is simply a very tiny part of a much, much, much larger structure? A structure similar to a spiral galaxy. If our known universe was on the exit side of a large band where galaxies are closer together, it would seem, to us, as if the universe was expanding, and that expansion would seem to be increasing. If this were the case, our known universe would continue to increase expansion, until we approached the next band of galaxies. The galaxies that got there first would slow, and the space between them and us would begin to decrease. There would be a continual cycle of expansion and contraction as our known universe revolved around an unimaginably massive structure. To me, this would give a logical explanation for "dark energy".

 

I have searched the web looking for evidence to disprove my line of thinking, but can't seem to find any. I hope the members of this site can help me out with this.

 

Thanks for your time

EC

Edited January 2, 2011 by elegance coral

[ydoaPs]

I'm sorry, but this may be a long post.

 

I think about physics quite a bit, and question everything. Lately I've been thinking about the big bang and the problems associated with it. Like dark energy. The way I see it, with my limited understanding, we had a good theory with the big bang. That is until the discovery that the expansion of the universe is increasing. This showed that something was fundamentally wrong with our understanding of the universe IMHO. In stead of trying to figure out what was wrong with our theory, science simply made up something that would make our theory work. Dark energy was born. We can make any theory work, if we get to make up stuff as we go. This problem has caused me to do a great deal of thinking, and researching, with my limited resources. The next paragraph is the conclusion I've come to, but I'm sure it can't be correct. It's to simple, so there must be a flaw I'm unaware of. That's where you come in. Please explain to me why, or how, my theory doesn't work.

 

If you have time, watch this video:

 

 

Nearly everything we know seems to fallow the same simple plan. One thing(like electrons), or body, revolving around another. From electrons around the nucleus of atoms, to moons around planets, to planets around stars, to stars around super massive black holes. Why can't we simply continue this pattern one step further?

 

That's not exactly correct. The Bohr model of the atom has been known to be false for a long long time. It's in fact impossible as the accelerating electrons would radiate photons thus losing energy and would then crash into the nucleus. The Bohr model is a nice toy for school kids, but it's not correct; electrons do not orbit.

 

What if our known universe is simply a very tiny part of a much, much, much larger structure?

It most certainly could be. But there could also be a giant pink elephant right outside our light cone. The problem with both of these ideas is that they're unfalsifiable; there's no way to know if they're wrong.

 

Science is in the business of falsification. We get an idea, design a test, and see if it works. If it doesn't, we discard or change the idea. If it does, we do more tests to see if it is wrong in other aspects. It works on a simple logical syllogism:

 

p->q

~q

~p

 

If p, then q. Not q, therefore not p. This is how we falsify ideas. We can't do it the otherway around, because it's a logical fallacy called affirming the consequent:

 

p->q

q

p

 

If p, then q. q therefore p. That doesn't hold, because q could be true for any of billions of reasons other than p.

Edited January 3, 2011 by ydoaPs

[swansont]

If an unknown required us to abandon a theory, there would be very few theories left standing. Theories that are applied all the time, successfully, to give us things from computers and phones to nuclear reactors to pharmaceuticals. What is important is that the unknown is a different (or ignorably small) part of the behavior than what we have verified.

 

IOW, the discovery of quantum mechanics or relativity didn't mean that a steam engine didn't work the way we thought it did.

[elegance coral]

If an unknown required us to abandon a theory, there would be very few theories left standing.

 

It's not simply an unknown, though. It's a discovery that contradicts the physics and assumptions made that TBB is based on. The big bang is based on the fact that the universe is expanding. If we go back in time, the universe must have been much smaller. If we continue this all the way back, it leads us to nothing. No matter, no energy, nothing. For this to be true, based on physics as we understand it, the universe would be expanding at a given steady rate, or slowing with the gravitational effects of the mass within the universe. It's doing neither. It's speeding up. Shouldn't this cause us to say, "Hang on......Somethings wrong." Shouldn't we look to the known laws of physics to explain this?

 

There isn't a force that's simply pushing galaxies apart faster and faster. It is the fabric of space itself that's expanding faster and faster. I'm only aware of one force in nature that does this to space. That's gravity. Shouldn't we question whether gravity is causing this effect or not? Using the known laws of physics, gravity is the only thing (I know of) that can explain the increasing expansion of the known universe. If it is gravity, that would mean there is something incredibly massive warping the space in the tiny universe that we know. This would further imply that at some point, in our very distant future, our known universe would once again begin to contract. There would be no constant expansion, and therefore, no constant contraction as we move back in time. In other words, there would be no big bang. The universe as we know it, would not just keep getting smaller and smaller as we went further back in time. Our known universe would be like a beach ball riding up and down on the waves in the surf.

 

I am no theoretical physicist. I'm just your average Joe that probably thinks to much. I'm sure professionals have thought of this before and dismissed it for some reason. I'm just searching for that reason. To dismiss it, we would need something that contradicts it. With my limited resources (basically Google LOL) I can't find any evidence suggesting that this line of thinking is wrong, or that the big bang is more likely.

[swansont]

Expansion does not contradict the big bang, and neither does inflation; you can have some effect that depends on energy density. The parts of general relativity (gravity) we can test confirm it, so that isn't wrong. Any new explanation that comes along also has to explain what we already know. Alternative explanations have not panned out — they require relativity to be wrong (and it agrees with experiment, so we know it isn't, i.e. these hypotheses don't conform to observation in some way). Which means looking at some new effects (dark matter and dark energy) rather than scrapping the theory.

 

here are some links that go into more detail:

http://io9.com/5528758/ask-a-physicist-why-believe-in-dark-matter

http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2010/11/the_simplest_argument_for_dark.php

[md65536]

p->q

~p

~q

 

If p, then q. Not q, therefore not p.

The words are right but the correct syllogism is:

p->q

~q

~p

 

It probably won't confuse anyone but me, but I didn't fully read your words and I was about to argue that you have the scientific method all wrong!

 

There isn't a force that's simply pushing galaxies apart faster and faster. It is the fabric of space itself that's expanding faster and faster. I'm only aware of one force in nature that does this to space. That's gravity. Shouldn't we question whether gravity is causing this effect or not? Using the known laws of physics, gravity is the only thing (I know of) that can explain the increasing expansion of the known universe. If it is gravity, that would mean there is something incredibly massive warping the space in the tiny universe that we know. This would further imply that at some point, in our very distant future, our known universe would once again begin to contract. There would be no constant expansion, and therefore, no constant contraction as we move back in time. In other words, there would be no big bang. The universe as we know it, would not just keep getting smaller and smaller as we went further back in time. Our known universe would be like a beach ball riding up and down on the waves in the surf.

I don't understand your reasoning for why the universe would begin to contract again. Are you familiar with the concept of escape velocity? Basically, if you have 2 masses moving apart at a fast enough speed, their gravitation attraction will slow their speed but not enough to overcome it completely. They may decelerate for eternity but never come to a stop (analogous to an infinite series of positive numbers that has a finite sum). I assume that most people don't get this idea. Does it apply to your reasoning?

 

I've thought of the question of whether the universe is open (forever expanding) or closed (eventual big crunch) as a question of whether the Big Bang gave the component masses of the universe an escape velocity. But, with a universe that is expanding at a constant rate, or an accelerating rate, gravitation and escape velocity are not the main mechanism that applies.

 

 

If the universe is expanding and accelerating outward at a fairly constant rate in all directions (Is it? I don't know), then some sort of uniform mass (a spherical "wall" beyond our range of observation) might account for this. Is this basically your idea? Or do I have it wrong? One way to work with this idea is to figure out how the wall may have got there (I can think of an easy way), and then figure where we (and everything we see) would be moving given the explanation of the hidden mass. Ideally you would model it. Is there a way to get the model's behavior to match what we observe today? That's not proof or anything but along the way you might find new paths of clues to follow. Anyway as for your original question (physics to show you're wrong), it's way over my head and maybe too broad.

 

 

Addendum: I don't think this "spherical wall" idea matches what we observe today. If it were true, we should see greater acceleration toward the "near wall", but I think what we see is uniform rate of expansion in all directions. So then we'd need to be in the very center of the mass, and I can't account for that. Is there another way to have a distribution of mass that causes uniform gravitational attraction in all directions without requiring special circumstances for us?

Edited January 3, 2011 by md65536

[ydoaPs]

The words are right but the correct syllogism is:

p->q

~q

~p

My bad. I guess it was momentary dyslexia. Should have used letters that don't resemble each other so much.

 

 

Edit: fixed. thanks for the catch

Edited January 3, 2011 by ydoaPs

[elegance coral]

I don't understand your reasoning for why the universe would begin to contract again.

 

 

If you look at a spiral galaxy, like ours, you will see bands of tightly packed stars, separated by band with fewer stars. This is what gives the galaxy the "spiral" look. This is caused by gravity within the galaxy. As an example, if you fill a sink with water, then pull the plug, it will create a whirlpool effect. As water rotates around the drain, there will be areas where the water movement slows. Water moving faster behind it will begin to pile up on the slower moving water. This creates waves that radiate out, spiraling around the drain, like the stars in a spiral galaxy. As stars rotate around the center of galaxies like this, they pass through these waves. Their speed increases as they pass through the waves with fewer stars, and slows as they pass through waves with many stars. Kinda like cars in a traffic jam on the freeway. If there is an accident, people slow to look at it, and cars begin to move slower and pack together more tightly. The cars behind this area will still be moving at the speed limit, and will not be as close together. As cars pass this area, they speed up and the distance between them increases again. As stars rotate around the center of spiral galaxies, this process just keeps going. They slow and get closer together, speed up and get further away from each other, then slow and get closer together, speed up and get further away from each other...........................................

 

What I'm saying is, imagine a system like a spiral galaxy only much much much larger. With a system this large it isn't simply stars that rotate around the center. It's galaxies. Now place our known universe into such a system as something tiny in comparison to the overall structure of the system. What would we see? Well, it would depend on where we are in relation to these spiral bands. If we are entering a band with tightly packed galaxies, it would appear as though our known universe was slowing and shrinking. If we were leaving a band of tightly packed galaxies, we would see what we do today. Galaxies speeding away from each other. In such a system, there wouldn't be a never ending expansion. We couldn't go back in time to see a continual contraction of the universe into nothing. Our known universe would simply expand and contract over and over as it rode these waves around the center of this massive spiral structure.

 

This, to me, is the most logical explanation for what we see in the heavens today. It is supported by general relativity and the known laws of physics as I understand them. Unfortunately, it does not jive with the big bang theory at all. I would hate to walk around thinking a particular way when there are known facts that show my line of thinking is wrong. That's why I posted the thread here. If there is a major flaw in this line of thinking, hopefully someone here can point it out to me.

[vordhosbn]

What would we see? Well, it would depend on where we are in relation to these spiral bands. If we are entering a band with tightly packed galaxies, it would appear as though our known universe was slowing and shrinking. If we were leaving a band of tightly packed galaxies, we would see what we do today. Galaxies speeding away from each other...

 

Our universe (the observable part) can't orbit around anything else, because that will require gravity propagating faster than the speed of light, which is in violation of relativity.

 

That's why your hypothesis requires our own galaxy, along with all the observable universe, to be experiencing acceleration.

But acceleration is not relative and is measurable. Why then, don't we detect this sort of "universal acceleration"?

 

P.S.: I am sorry if I didn't put the words quite right, I hope you understand what I mean.

Edited January 3, 2011 by vordhosbn

[md65536]

If we are entering a band with tightly packed galaxies, it would appear as though our known universe was slowing and shrinking. If we were leaving a band of tightly packed galaxies, we would see what we do today. Galaxies speeding away from each other.

Oh I see. I was way off.

 

Does this "leaving of a band" produce fairly uniform expansion in all directions, as we see today? I would expect the expanding and shrinking to be dependent on the shape of the spiral arms, and that the universe would shrink into and expand out of a similar long and narrow shape. If the "front" of our galaxy is heading out of a band and the back closer to the band and being pulled back, that would explain the expansion in forward and back directions, but what causes expansion in a sideways direction?

 

 

Anyway vordhosbn's post (it violates causality) and swansont's post (it doesn't account for what Big Bang Theory and dark matter etc account for) do it for me. If your theory implies no big bang, how would you explain evidence of the big bang theory like CMB etc?