Expansion of spacetime: Great Break?

[Coyote]

In the standard model of Cosmology, spacetime is expanding. I tend to regard spacetime as some kind of physical entity, given that it can be affected by matter to become curved. Also in the analogy of the balloon, galaxies are carried apart because they are fixed on the surface of the balloon,which is a physical thing. So I think that in the real Universe galaxies are carried apart because they interact with spacetime, which must be physical (how else would the galaxies know to move apart?)

 

 

But my question is, the same way that if you inflate a balloon, if you inflate it beyond a certain limit, it will pop, then if spacetime is being stretched constantly, and even in an accelerated way, won't there be a point in which spacetime will "pop", because it has reached it's stretchability limit?

Edited January 17, 2013 by Coyote

[ACG52]

Don't think of it as stretching, think of it as more space coming into being between all non-gravitationally bound points.

[Coyote]

Don't think of it as stretching, think of it as more space coming into being between all non-gravitationally bound points.

I find it hard to reconcile myself with this picture. Where would this extra space come from? Like it was created from nothing?

It seems to me that the concept of stretching of spacetime is more intuitive, anyway how we can do experiments to see which mechanism is the correct one?

Edited January 18, 2013 by Coyote

[ACG52]

I find it hard to reconcile myself with this picture. Where would this extra space come from? Like it was created from nothing?

It seems to me that the concept of stretching of spacetime is more intuitive, anyway how we can do experiments to see which mechanism is the correct one?

 

Since both stretching and new space would appear identical, I don't see how we could distinguish between the two. Besides, both explanations are just metaphors for what's happening. You can pick whichever you're more comfortable with. But I wouldn't think of space as a material which has a maximum stretch limit.