Thread: What would it look like if...

Recently I heard a quote that got me thinking. It went something like this:

We originally thought that the Sun, Moon and stars orbited around the Earth because it looks like they do. But, what would it look like if it looked like the Earth orbited around the Sun? It would look the same...

So, my thought was:

We think the universe is expanding because it looks like it is expanding. But, what would it look like if it looked like everything in the universe was contracting? Wouldn't it look the same?

For example, take the doppler red shift we see from very distant galaxies, which seem to be accelerating away from us. The red shift, which moves the spectral lines towards the red end of the visible spectrum results from wavelengths which are elongated due to the motion of the distant galaxies away from us.

Consider the following scenario: If it takes, say, 50 million years for the light from a distant galaxy to reach us, and in that time all matter in the universe has contracted by a very small amount, wouldn't that cause an apparent red shift of these wavelengths? Wouldn't that look the same?

This could be explained if, say, rather than a big bang there was a big pop, where initially all matter filled up the entire universe, but at some point rather than expanding, or exploding, everything contracted in on itself, or imploded. Think of all matter being like balloons. At the start of time each subatomic particle was much larger than it is today, like a blown up balloon, to the extent that they filled the entire universe, with no room between them. If something caused all the matter (balloons) to suddenly shrink (pop), they would all seemingly rush away from each other.

Wouldn't it look the same? If not then what would be different between the two scenarios, i.e big bang, v.s. big pop...

I understand there are at least two possible explanations:
1) The two scenarios describe the same thing, due to symmetry, the only difference being the point of view of the observer
2) I'm totally missing something that would be different between the two scenarios

I'm assuming #2 is the more likely explanation, but I figured it might start an interesting discussion...

So, comment away!

Yes, they would look exactly the same, actually.

Consider that the expansion as observed only happens in regions of space that are not gravitationally bound.
Where you find mass - gravity appears to Overwhelm Dark Energy and you do not see space expanding within gravitationally bound systems. Such as between our planets within the solar system or our stars within the galaxy.

Which is exactly what we would see if all gravitationally bound mass was shrinking away from other gravitationally bound objects.

A very basic problem is that expansion is far easier to try to test, observe or measure. Much less hypothesize as to why - than shrinkage. Hell, shrinkage would be a nightmare to explain (dark Shrinkydinks?)

That's where it starts... Enter WMAP.

The CBR is MUCH more consistant with a hot, rapid expansion than with an unexplained shrinkage. In fact, from a lay physicists point of view, even - Shrinkage should result in a cooling effect, not a heating effect.
In the case of a sudden shrinkage, we would see nothing resembling the WMAP data. Rather, we would see cumulative compression instead of energy to matter ignition.

It gets worse...

Basic astronomy shows that we are all made of Star stuff- at least third generation.
The heavier elements forged in the nuclear fusion furnaces of the stars.
As the stars, employing nuclear fusion convert gydrogen to helium, they eventually run out of hydrogen and begin to convert helium into beryllium. And so on.
Eventually, the fusion reactions are not enough to support the star. The star expands and eventually... goes SuperNova- spewing the heavy elements that were created within across the cosmos.
This dust coalesces over time, to make planets, debris... and Stars. Stars which start the fusion all over again...

Our observations are consistent with this kind of cosmology. But with a shrinkage- a Big "Crunch" of sorts as you hypothesized, this would be radically different. These elements would require themselves to be already in place.

I'm sure there's more but at 1am, my brain is wandering to lusty thoughts of ice cold cans of Dr. Pepper.

Originally Posted by Neverfly

Yes, they would look exactly the same, actually.

That's where it starts... Enter WMAP.

The CBR is MUCH more consistant with a hot, rapid expansion than with an unexplained shrinkage. In fact, from a lay physicists point of view, even - Shrinkage should result in a cooling effect, not a heating effect.
In the case of a sudden shrinkage, we would see nothing resembling the WMAP data. Rather, we would see cumulative compression instead of energy to matter ignition.

It gets worse...

Our observations are consistent with this kind of cosmology. But with a shrinkage- a Big "Crunch" of sorts as you hypothesized, this would be radically different. These elements would require themselves to be already in place.

Ok, one of us is confused (probably me!). You say it would look exactly the same, but things would be radically different. Huh?

I specifically called this a "big pop" to try to avoid confusion with what is commonly referred to as the "big crunch", or the end of the universe, where everything comes slamming back together into a singularity.
Nothing is slamming into anything else, so no compression. Again, think of an area of space, totally filled with valloons (virtual balloons). Suddenly they all pop at the same time. Where initially the space was full of inflated valloons, now it is almost empty, except for the now uninflated valloons sitting at what was the center of the area the valloon originally occupied. If you are a valloon who hasn't realized that you have changed, it looks to you like all the other valloons have suddenly moved away from you.

Didn't the rapid expansion from the big bang cause rapid cooling? Why would the cooling from a big pop be any different?
I don't understand why would we see a "cumulative compression"? That would cause heating, not cooling, no? Since everything would be getting smaller, from the reference point of the individual particles wouldn't each be getting farther away from every other?
Why would the heavy elements need to be in place, rather than being generated inside of stars?

The main idea is that the universe, as a single entity, isn't expanding, everything in it would be getting smaller. This would explain the distant galaxies apparently accelerating away from us.

Extreme example: Say that when viewed from outside of the universe the size of the universe is unchanging, but everything inside the universe is shrinking at 1% per day, but not moving with respect to anything else. Also say that from inside of the universe the size of everthing seems to remain constant, as the size of all objects change identically. The size of everything (as seen from outside of the universe whose size is constant), and the distance between objects (as seen from the particles themselves, given their size from their perspective remains constant) would change as follows: The first column is the day. The second column is the object size, w.r.t. the size of the universe (i.e. as viewed from outside of the universe). The third column is the distance between the objects, w.r.t. the objects themselves (i.e. as viewed by the objects who don't see themselves as changing at all)

day 1: 100.0000% 100.0000%
day 2: 99.0099% 101.0000%
day 3: 98.0296% 102.0100%
day 4: 97.0590% 103.0301%
day 5: 95.0980% 104.0604%

This shows that from the point of view of the objects, each is rushing away from all the others at an accelerated rate. This very naturally explains what was discovered by Hubbles discovery of the doppler red shift (if you assume that emitted photons don't change wavelength over time as matter changes size)...

I guess this is sort a relativity thing. What is happening is relative to the frame of reference of the observer. From outside stuff inside shrinks in the given fixed space. From inside space expands, taking stuff with it. The difference is that conceptually with an expanding universe we have to find some force to account for the acceleration between galaxies. With the popping stuff inside the fixed universe it's explained naturally, with no need for a cosmological constant, dark matter, dark energy, etc...

Thanks for the reply!

Alan

Originally Posted by Alamaral

Ok, one of us is confused (probably me!). You say it would look exactly the same, but things would be radically different. Huh?

What I had said was: Yes, they would LOOK the same from the perspective of shrinking gravitationally bound objects OR expanding space. That was the ONLY thing I said would appear the same.

Originally Posted by Alamaral

I specifically called this a "big pop" to try to avoid confusion with what is commonly referred to as the "big crunch", or the end of the universe, where everything comes slamming back together into a singularity.

Yes, that's why I put it in quotation marks- But I wasn't clear. Sorry about that.

Originally Posted by Alamaral

Again, think of an area of space, totally filled with valloons (virtual balloons). Suddenly they all pop at the same time. Where initially the space was full of inflated valloons, now it is almost empty, except for the now uninflated valloons sitting at what was the center of the area the valloon originally occupied. If you are a valloon who hasn't realized that you have changed, it looks to you like all the other valloons have suddenly moved away from you.

So, you are saying that the gravitationally bound areas are the "Valloons?"
The distances between the galactic clusters do not have "valloons," correct?

Originally Posted by Alamaral

Didn't the rapid expansion from the big bang cause rapid cooling? Why would the cooling from a big pop be any different?

Because it would be in reverse order.
See Below--- Again, I apologize for being so simplistic earlier. It was very early morning here.
And I'm in the middle of work, now- So I'm going to be simplistic again. Bear with me.

Originally Posted by Alamaral

I don't understand why would we see a "cumulative compression"? That would cause heating, not cooling, no?

It was bad wording on my part. A lot of that post I made above seems to have bad wording- Let me try again.
You're thinking of a gas being compressed- something with which you are familiar with, here on Earth.
But we are not talking about a gas being squeezed. By "Compression" I meant a compression of space time itself and ONLY within gravitationally Bound Areas. And again -- Conservation of Energy-- Whatever "Dark Energy" (focus point, force- whatever you want to call it that deflated the "valloons" in the first place) would need to draw it's energy from Somewhere- and the most readily available place is SpaceTime itself from within the expanses of SpaceTime that are not gravitationally bound. Anything else would require something explained from outside of the known Universe- and we just cannot even try going there...
Here is your fundamental problem: The WMAP data clearly shows an even distribution of "heat" from the initial Big Bang quite clearly (Cosmic Background Radiation or CBR).
This is consistent with Big Bang Cosmology. It is consistent with all of the energy within the known universe being in the same place at the same time (nearly, about 1 trillionth of a second after the Event) and it is consistent with the cooling effect you mentioned above of the time after the rapid expansion. Which is in reverse to a rapid deflation which would "cool" non gravitationally bound areas of the Univers at the point of (Or 1 trillionth of a second after) the Event. A rapid deflation would pull energy from indifferent areas of the Universe and not have an even distribution of CBR. Conservation...

What You are asking about would require a Transference of Energy from one part of the Universe to Another part of the Universe (Or outside of the Universe) and that is the Opposite of what the data shows.
And if you're going outside the Universe, You need to move this thread to the "Against the Mainstream" forum .

Originally Posted by Alamaral

Since everything would be getting smaller, from the reference point of the individual particles wouldn't each be getting farther away from every other?

No and this entire statement is incorrect. You will need to keep to the gravitationally bound areas and non gravitationally bound areas of the Universe or this whole topic will reduce to gibberish and no one will be able to help you out, here. We are not discussing particles, here.

Originally Posted by Alamaral

Why would the heavy elements need to be in place, rather than being generated inside of stars?

Because it was the hot and rapid expansion of the Universe that first generated Hydrogen in the form we know it today.
With your idea of suddenly deflated "valloons", the creation of Hydrogen would not have happened or must have happened in a very different way. Since hydrogen was the initial element that was used in stars- that was used in fusion to make the heavier elements- We have a problem with rapidly deflating 'valloons' and where Hydrogen and, subsequently, the heavy elements came from.
The "requirement" is that they must have been already in place. Now, obviously there can be other explanations- But then the onus is on you to demonstrate an explanation that still matches the WMAP data as well as the hot and rapid expansion does.

Originally Posted by Alamaral

The main idea is that the universe, as a single entity, isn't expanding, everything in it would be getting smaller. This would explain the distant galaxies apparently accelerating away from us.

Again, see the bit above about sticking to the Gravitationally bound areas and non bound areas.
Also, yes I said it would appear exactly the same from the perspective. But that's the ONLY perspective would would appear the same. Once we examine the observational data- It's entirely different.
Read above as to why-...

A triple post- My apologies to the board...

Alamaral, Let me give you an example now, in addition to the two posts I just made above, number 5 and 4.

You're looking at how something appears to be without examining the referenced data.

The example is, does a whirlpool galaxy resemble, in appearance, soap suds circling the drain of a bathtub?
Why, yes... it really does.
But that is not how celestial mechanics or galactic motion works AT ALL!! Once you look at the data- the pre-school imagery goes right out the window. The data shows a cumulative mass of the stars within a galaxy. As well as the proportion of mass- which is consistent not only with our (bar) whirlpool galaxy, but elliptical galaxies and bar spirals and also the collisions of galaxies that we observe.
Yet, some folks think of a Supermassive black hole in the center of a spiral galaxy and then imagine that the galaxy is "swirling the drain." Once they get this misconception in their head, they dare others to "prove them wrong" rather than educate themselves on how the mechanics actually function.


Now, armchair dreaming and speculating is a Great Thing. All of the worlds highly educated and successful scientists do it. But once they do, they obtain and examine data. If the data does not support the dreaming fantasy- the fantasy is introduced to the Trashcan.

Here's another one in Chemistry- What does the hydrogen atom look like?
Well, in grade school, they show us what looks like a blue ball with a dowel connecting a smaller green ball a few inches away.
This crude image is given in absurdly simplistic form for grade schoolers to grasp. Once you get to High School, you had better let go of that blue and green ball quickly or you could fail chemistry class. And that's to say NOTHING about college chemistry and University QM... Where a representation of Hydrogen with the proton to scale with a baseball would leave this strange and unfathomable cloud of negative charged energy around it at a radius of several miles and which can be in two places at the same exact time.

Dream...
Then take that dream and sledge hammer it with facts until it either rolls over and dies or sits up and says, "I told you so."

Originally Posted by Alamaral

...

For example, take the doppler red shift we see from very distant galaxies, which seem to be accelerating away from us. The red shift, which moves the spectral lines towards the red end of the visible spectrum results from wavelengths which are elongated due to the motion of the distant galaxies away from us.

...

Originally Posted by Neverfly

Yes, they would look exactly the same, actually.

...

Huh? If there were a Big Crunch, then it would not even look similar to Universal expansion, let alone exactly the same. If the Universe were collapsing, then all spectral lines in all the stars in all the galaxies surrounding us would be Doppler-shifted to the blue. That is the exact opposite of the red shift that we see.

Originally Posted by MisterMe

Huh? If there were a Big Crunch, then it would not even look similar to Universal expansion, let alone exactly the same. If the Universe were collapsing, then all spectral lines in all the stars in all the galaxies surrounding us would be Doppler-shifted to the blue. That is the exact opposite of the red shift that we see.

MisterMe, what Alamaral was asking/hypothesizing about was from Our Perspective, if our gravitationally bound areas were "Shrinking" then it should appear the same as if the non-gravitational bound areas of the Universe were expanding. And he's correct. It would look the same from that single vantage point. And in that one aspect alone.

A Big Crunch (again, my apologies for having referred to it that way. I wasn't thinking very clearly at the time as that post shows...) isn't what he was describing of a shrinking Universe.
He was describing a Primarily Static Universe in which only the gravity-bound portions were shrinking. Essentially, the Opposite of an Expanding Universe from a perspective view only.

Condensation! Try condensation as a model. If the universe were a box and the big bang filled it up with steam then as time moves forward the steam cools and the droplets begin to condense into bigger droplets. As they come together they form nodes and strings of galaxies that would match the model we have today. That would explain why Andromeda and the Milky Way are coming together as our local group appears to merge into the Virgo cluster but it would also explain why it seems that we are rushing away from everybody else! Imagine a fire where the as the coal (or wood) burns the ashes clumps together as the energy is released. As the ambers are hot they expand away from each other but as they ashes cool down they start to coalesce into nodes flowing as strings of matter into them. I know that Galaxies are big structures full of energy but still these are miniscule to the energy levels during the "big bang/creation" Make perfect sense to me. It would also explain the "expansion" or red shift and will also explain gravity and attraction within nearby galaxies.

http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/astr_.../FILAMENTS.GIF

Your thoughts

AHHHHHH I just spent a half hour writing my response, previewed the post, tried to edit it and when I hit <bs> went back to the previous web page, losing my edits!!! So, I'm sorry if this is a bit more terse, but I'm not going to type it all in again... Sorry...

You said that "we are not discussing particles here". You might not be, but I am, and there's the disconnect.

Originally Posted by Neverfly

So, you are saying that the gravitationally bound areas are the "Valloons?"
The distances between the galactic clusters do not have "valloons," correct?

No, not at all what I'm saying at all. The valloons are very energetic particles, I'll call them preatomic (strings, branes, or whatever there was before strings or branes formed), the vibration of which takes very large amounts of "virtual" space, much more than they do today. The sum of all the virtual space initially taken up by the vibration of the preatomic particles equals the size of the universe.

The valloons could very suddenly convert their vibrational energy into something else, background radiation for example. I suppose it could even happen very slowly, more like a slow leak than a pop, but I just pulled that one out of my arse, so haven't thought it through.

By "Compression" I meant a compression of space time itself and ONLY within gravitationally Bound Areas. And again -- Conservation of Energy-- Whatever "Dark Energy" (focus point, force- whatever you want to call it that deflated the "valloons" in the first place) would need to draw it's energy from Somewhere-

There would be no compression at all, so no need to draw any energy from anywhere, it would initially be in the valloons themselves, like the energy in an inflated balloon, or a vibrating guitar string.

As to the WMAP data the background radiation would seem to be the remnants of the original vibrational energy of the valloons.

My final point was that there seems to be many things in conventional theories that are not yet explained, like the apparent acceleration of distant galaxies away from us, and the need to find a cause, such as dark matter or a cosmological constant. I think many of these unknown things can be potentially explained, or explained away, with my model...

I'm no physicist, but I've done quite a bit of reading on the subject, and I have yet to find anything that blows my (admittedly very incomplete, concept in progress) model out of the water. Again, I'm no physicist, which is why I started this discusson here to talk with people who know much more about this than I do. Please excuse my inability to clearly convey my idea adequately.

Alan