Could the Universe be Collapsing?

[aguy2]

Current observable evidence seems to be indicating that the universe is not only continuing to expand, its expansion is accelerating.

(see http://www.er.doe.gov/Sub/Accomplishments/Decades_Discovery/43.html )

My basic philosophical paradigm (see my signature) is much easier to see if the universe were oscillating between expanding and contracting phases. Thus I found that the current evidence that this might not be the case to be somewhat disconcerting. After considerable thought and research, I have developed a cosmological model that takes this and other current observational evidence into account while still being consistent with my basic view of the nature of the universe. The only problem is that the model predicts that although the universe may be growing larger (expanding), it could at the same time be collapsing (contracting).

 

Almost all cosmological models make a common presumption that the expansion of the universe is isometric. They presume that the universe is akin to a balloon being blown up, with the galactic clusters being like spots on the balloon growing further apart. This could very well not be the case. The closest phenomenon to the Big Bang in the current universe are being called 'hypernovas'. They seem to be the source of what was up to a year or two ago the great mystery of random gamma ray bursts. They are rapidly rotating giant stars that in the process of collapse eject mass in the form of high energy 'jets'.

 

My model assumes that shortly after the BB event the universe was akin to these hypernovas in that it was rapidly rotating. Unlike these stars it was much too hot to permit the existence of even subatomic particles. When it had expanded and cooled sufficiently to permit the formation of subatomic particles, they took the form of paricles and anti-particles in the ratio of 1:1. The vast majority of the particles and anti-particles annihilated one another and erupted from the proto-universe in two gigantic jets. The eruption of these jets could be seen as being comparable to the proposed 'inflationary epoch' of the early universe, without the need of such possible contrivances as a momentary reversal of gravitational effects.

(see http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/cosmology/inflation.html )

 

In one of the jets a small proportion of particles survived the annihilation, and in the other an equal number of anti-particles survived. My model assumes that the jet that contained the surviving particles has become what we call the visible universe, and due in part to the possibility that the visible universe has an anti-matter copartner, if left to its own devises the two halves of the universe shall eventually collapse (or re-collapse) to where the BB originated.

 

In the accompanying attachments I have made a couple of representations of possible histories of the model. © represents the universe at its point of maximum expansion from the BB. (D) represents the possible state of the current universe, where the visible universe could be increasing in size at an accelerating rate while at the same time be collapsing toward the BB point. The second attachment shows the matter jet from a different perspective and indicates that the conditions of rapid expansion could start well before the point of maximum expansion vis-a-vis the BB point. NASA has produced a graphic animation of what they think a 'hypernova' would look like. It is at http://www.imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_1l/bursts.html under the subheading "Race to Gamma Ray Burst Reveals Gigantic Explosion, Death & Birth".

 

I began investigating the possibility of this cosmological model because the evidence of an accelerating expansion did not seem to sit well with my most basic philosophical pov, but the model not only increases the probability that my basic paradigm is the actual case it also seems to answer several questions of why our universe is the way it is.

1. An 'inflationary epoch' without the need for a temporary reversal of gravitational effects.

2. A viable explanation for why the visable universe isn't half matter and half anti-matter.

3. A possible source of the observed conservation of angular momentum within the universe.

 

aguy2

[Sayonara]

Current conventional wisdom seems to be saying that the universe is not only continuing to expand, its expansion is accelerating.

Surely you mean "the observable evidence", rather than "conventional wisdom"?

[Gilded]

Yum yum, a Big Crunch. In a book, I think it was stated that it's about 35 billion years after the Bang when the universe goes *crunch*. Don't know if that's complete bulls*** though, as it was a geography book.

[aguy2]

Sayonara3,

 

Thank you. I have edited the post. My background is in the social not the hard sciences and I guess it shows. Other than instantly recognizing that I am something of a dilettante, do you think my model has any possible merit?

 

aguy2

[Severian]

Other than instantly recognizing that I am something of a dilettante' date=' do you think my model has any possible merit?

[/quote']

 

Your model necessarily has a centre of the universe, and we really don't see any centre experimentally. Presumably you also need an extra dimensions to do this in too, or are the two 'universes' moving away from each other in real space? (Your pictures look like projections...?)

[Martin]

...My basic philosophical paradigm (see my signature) is much easier to see if the universe were oscillating between expanding and contracting phases. ...

====

BTW today' date=' in about 3 hours from now. Martin Bojowald will be giving a talk called "Quantum Gravity and the Big Bang" at Penn State.

see this link

http://www.phys.psu.edu/events/index.html

==========

a Guy, here is some comment, first on a place where I think

your imagination can be improved:

 

space does not need space in which to exist

space IS space

so when you picture the surface of an expanding balloon, imagine that the room outside the balloon is not there

 

and the room inside the balloon is not there

 

only the stretching surface of the balloon exists

 

=========

 

Severian already pointed this out. you seem to be making an error of imagination because your universes have some larger surrounding space in which they exist

 

picture only the surface of the balloon (except that that is 2D and what we want is 3D) and then you will see that there is no center

 

there is no centerpoint on the surface of a balloon----no unique point away from which things are expanding---all points equally central

 

===========

 

the basic model of cosmology is currently being modified by quantizing

the standard picture of space and time (General Relativity). One of the most promising candidates for a new cosmology model is called Loop Quantum Cosmology. this makes testable predictions and is approaching the stage of being tested.

 

This Fall semester Parampreet Singh gave three lectures at Penn State on the Phenomenology (testable predictions, observable effects) of LQC. The slides and audio are available on the web for download

 

today( monday 15Nov) the main founder of LQC, a guy from Berlin named Martin Bojowald (no relation of mine) is giving a talk at Penn State.

 

In the US most of the Loop Quantum action is happening at Penn State, but there are other active centers in other countries.

 

[b'] in LQC they find that the bigbang expansion was preceded by a contraction[/b]

 

there is no obstacle to extrapolating back in time prior to bigbang. there is no boundary or "singularity" where the theory fails----unlike with the earlier unquantized theory of Gen Rel.

 

LQC also explains inflation, without fine-tuning or hand-picking the parameters. it is a robust model undergoing rapid development by a growing number of researchers

 

there are some links in the Quantum Mechanics subforum here at SFN, in the thread called "Quantum Gravity" if you want to read more, or see some photos of some of the researchers in this field.

 

LQC can possibly be WRONG. the groundwork is being made to test it (as Parampreet explains in his talks) and if the tests go against it then it will be modified or replaced -----people will keep trying to find a workable predictive quantum theory of spacetime and gravity.

 

It is now fairly clear that whatever happens in the development and testing of theory, the bigbang singularity will be removed in whatever theory is successful, and the model will contain a PRIOR CONTRACTING PHASE.

(other quantum cosmology models which are different from, but allied to, Loop have also found this, which corroborates the Loop finding)

 

It is too early to say if the universe goes thru some OSCILLATING process. that is on too big a time scale to be more than idle speculation.

 

You should be satisfied with a partial answer----before our particular expansion-phase began there was a contraction phase. This much we can hope to model and test.

 

whatever cannot make predictions, to be compared with observation, is daydreams and philosophy. If you, a Guy on the Gulf Coast, feel compelled to speculate along those lines that is your own business.

 

The seminars at Penn State are listed at

http://www.phys.psu.edu/events/index.html

that page just gives this weeks seminars

to get the whole list for the Fall semester you select "Fall Semester" from the menu at the top.

Parampreet's are 10Sept, 24Sept, and 15Oct

for many of the seminars, audio and text are available to download.

 

For a less technical introduction there are "Scientific American type" articles available at Abhay Ashtekar's homepage

Here is a link for that

http://cgpg.gravity.psu.edu/people/Ashtekar/articles.html

one of the best there is by Rovelli

other good ones by Rudi Vaas

these are scanned and PDF articles, more readable than the seminar talks

====

 

BTW as modeled by Loop Quantum methods the contraction inside the event horizon of a black hole is roughly mathematically similar to the contraction phase prior to the universe's big bang

 

therefore we have something to study which is similar to the prior conditions which the model reaches when it is run backwards in time

 

Bojowald, Ashtekar and others are also working on modeling the Black Hole insides====the two studies: black hole and big bang, are connected

[aguy2]

Gilded,

 

If the universe is somewhere in the vicinity of 15 billion years old and is already accelerating toward a 'big crunch', the history of the total oscillation would probably be considerably less than 35 billion years.

 

aguy2

[boxhead]

any way will talk bout it later

[aguy2]

Your model necessarily has a centre of the universe, and we really don't see any centre experimentally.

 

My model sees the visible 'matter' universe as if it where a conical section of an isometrically expanding universe. If sufficiently large the conical section produced by a jet erupting from a rotating pre-inflationary universe would look the same as a universe produced from a isometric expansion from a non-rotating BB event.

 

are the two 'universes' moving away from each other in real space?

 

My model is assuming that they could be presently moving toward each other. As far as whether they are moving in 'real space' or not would depend on what you are calling 'real space'. If you are simply defining 'real space' as that which is bounded by the parameters of length, breadth, and width, then the proper answer would be "yes". If you are calling 'real space' a structured background composed of an as of yet unknown structure, then the answer would have to wait till we have a much better idea of what the actual structure of 'real space' is.

 

(Your pictures look like projections...?)

 

Are you talking about 'projections' like Mercator map projections?

 

aguy2

[aguy2]

martin,

 

Thanks much for the information and links on LQC. I especially like that they are trying to develop the math to discribe a BB event that is not necessarily displaying homogeneity and isotropy. Classical relativity and quantum cosmology apparently must impose such symmeties to make any sense. The point I am trying to make with my proposed model is that these imposed constaints are not necessarily reflective of the actual case.

 

As for Ashtekar et al finding exploding black holes and observing that they are acting like large scale hydrogen atoms finding their rest mass, I am not exactly going to be holding my breath, but I wish them luck. Making and finding any kind of cosmological prediction would be a breath of fresh air. Lately it seems that new cosmological evidence is automaticly followed by pulling a new 'black' something or other out of a hat.

 

aguy2

 

PS: I hope that my imagination is not quite as crude as my renderings!

[[Tycho?]]

I like the way that explains the lack of anti-matter. But really I do not have the education to make any intelligent comments on this.

[[Tycho?]]

I like the way that explains the lack of anti-matter. But really I do not have the education to make any intelligent comments on this.

[aguy2]

A cruder version of the postulate I used to start this thread has been published by "ABOUT Physics".

 

aguy2