- #1
zadignose
- 17
- 0
After reading about the expanding universe, and the balloon analogy, I found myself wondering about some things. Like many in these forums, I found it difficult to get my head around the concepts. At first I wondered, if space is expanding, and the distance between galaxies is increasing, then are the galaxies themselves getting larger, as well as rocks, trees, electrons, and quarks? It seemed to me that this cannot be. If everything was getting larger, then our measuring stick, or idea of how far away things are, would also be growing with the universe, and we would perceive no expansion at all. (I have since found, through another description of the balloon analogy, with "pennies attached to the surface of a balloon" that my surmise was correct... the expanding universe theory holds that the galaxies themselves are not enlarging).
Okay, so far so good, but thinking along these lines led to an alternative model. Is this a fair approximation of what is really happening? Has this been discussed thoroughly before? Is there a flaw in the thinking displayed below?:
-Imagine the universe is a static hypersphere, not growing or shrinking.
-Viewed from this "universal" perspective, all matter, all galaxies, everything down to quarks is shrinking.
-At the same time the speed of light, and the speed of all processes is slowing down by the same factor.
-Viewed from the perspective of a person on planet Earth (or any intelligent being made of matter somewhere in the universe), because our measuring stick is shrinking with us, our concept of what a meter is remains constant relative to ourselves, but the galaxies appear to be receding. The speed of light also appears to be constant, and all mechanical processes proceed at a "normal" rate, giving no evidence to the shrinking of matter relative to the universe.
Does this differ in any way from the expanding universe model, other than simply a shift in perspective? Is it mathematically equivalent? Does it simplify things in a way that makes the process more transparent or easier of comprehension? In short, whaddayathink?
Okay, so far so good, but thinking along these lines led to an alternative model. Is this a fair approximation of what is really happening? Has this been discussed thoroughly before? Is there a flaw in the thinking displayed below?:
-Imagine the universe is a static hypersphere, not growing or shrinking.
-Viewed from this "universal" perspective, all matter, all galaxies, everything down to quarks is shrinking.
-At the same time the speed of light, and the speed of all processes is slowing down by the same factor.
-Viewed from the perspective of a person on planet Earth (or any intelligent being made of matter somewhere in the universe), because our measuring stick is shrinking with us, our concept of what a meter is remains constant relative to ourselves, but the galaxies appear to be receding. The speed of light also appears to be constant, and all mechanical processes proceed at a "normal" rate, giving no evidence to the shrinking of matter relative to the universe.
Does this differ in any way from the expanding universe model, other than simply a shift in perspective? Is it mathematically equivalent? Does it simplify things in a way that makes the process more transparent or easier of comprehension? In short, whaddayathink?