Accelerating expansion

How does science work? And what's all this about quantum mechanics?

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QuantumT
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Accelerating expansion

Post by QuantumT »

The universe is expanding at an increasing rate. What is causing this acceleration?

The easy answer is the yet to be detected "dark energy". But that's a "ghost theory". Not yet provable.
Some think our universe is inside another, moving through a black hole.
Others think external universes are pulling from the outside.

But what is your theory?
Age
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Re: Accelerating expansion

Post by Age »

How do you define Universe?

If the definition for 'Universe' is everything, then how could everything expand?

Only something limited, thus not everything, could expand.

Are some galaxies coming closer together?

If so, then where exactly is this expansion, you talk of, supposedly talking place?

Has the furthest parts of the Universe been observed?

If not, then how do you know, for sure, that whatever it is that you define the 'Universe' as is expanding?
Impenitent
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Re: Accelerating expansion

Post by Impenitent »

a decentralized poor observer

-Imp
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Necromancer
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Re: Accelerating expansion

Post by Necromancer »

QuantumT wrote: Sun Aug 05, 2018 11:22 pm The universe is expanding at an increasing rate. What is causing this acceleration?

The easy answer is the yet to be detected "dark energy". But that's a "ghost theory". Not yet provable.
Some think our universe is inside another, moving through a black hole.
Others think external universes are pulling from the outside.

But what is your theory?
I don't think there's any foundation for saying that the Universe is expanding at an increasing rate. We're back again in the bubble of Laniakea.

We know less about the Universe than previously thought.

Wikipedia, Laniakea Supercluster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laniakea_Supercluster
Wikipedia, Observable Universe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe
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Greta
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Re: Accelerating expansion

Post by Greta »

A rapid growth phase of what is effectively an immature cell within an unimaginably larger reality!

Or it might be burgeoning information since the universe's information is necessarily building up exponentially as it builds upn itself.

Or it might just be a phase and will slow down later on.

Or something else :)
Dubious
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Re: Accelerating expansion

Post by Dubious »

Maybe there's such a thing as an anti-gravity particle just as there are anti-particles. If we knew or were reasonably certain other universes exist then that would probably be the best explanation for the time being. Or maybe the universe is contained or surrounded by a giant vacuum forcing it to keep inflating from its initial state. The more empty space between bodies the less gravitation holding everything together.

We'll likely know eventually (it's not a god problem) if we're still around to know anything.
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Cerveny
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Re: Accelerating expansion

Post by Cerveny »

QuantumT wrote: Sun Aug 05, 2018 11:22 pm The universe is expanding at an increasing rate. What is causing this acceleration?

The easy answer is the yet to be detected "dark energy". But that's a "ghost theory". Not yet provable.
Some think our universe is inside another, moving through a black hole.
Others think external universes are pulling from the outside.

But what is your theory?
Instead of “dark matter” we should rather consider “wrong theory of gravitation”. Galaxies are not “pure” matter, it is some vortex of “mix of physical space and matter”, better: “dirty aether”, flowing “toward” the Future...
uwot
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Re: Accelerating expansion

Post by uwot »

QuantumT wrote: Sun Aug 05, 2018 11:22 pmThe universe is expanding at an increasing rate. What is causing this acceleration?

But what is your theory?
If the universe is made of the stuff that the big bang was made of, then it's the same stuff that has all the mechanical properties that experiments demonstrate in atoms. The one quality we can unreservedly attribute to it on a cosmic scale is a capacity to expand, which has the effect of a repulsive force. Long story short; the whole universe is the product of a relativistic quantum field. It's all in the book. https://willijbouwman.blogspot.com p13-31 for details. There's lots of illustrations, so it's much less reading than the number of pages suggest.
It's fairly mainstream science*, the maths just hasn't been worked out yet:
"Robert B. Laughlin, Nobel Laureate in Physics, endowed chair in physics, Stanford University, had this to say about ether in contemporary theoretical physics...
"The modern concept of the vacuum of space, confirmed every day by experiment, is a relativistic ether. But we do not call it this because it is taboo.""
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_theories

*Other theories are available.
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