Another proponent of the Strong Anthropic Principle speaks

on another note:

I can easily vouch for the variability of time – The year from my 15th birthday until I got my drivers license was easily 3 years long, the year from my 39th birthday until my 40th birthday was only weeks. Two weeks at the beach is easily only one half the time as one week at work.

See this spacetime is not so hard to understand

To understand why it is necessary to assume that time cannot be expanding (or at least not expanding at the same rate) as the three dimensions of space, one must consider the following facts.

1. The universe is expanding in, at least, three dimensions.
2. The speed of light is constant (invariant over time.)

To refute either of these is to commit secular heresy and doing so would expose one to the scientific equivalent of the Inquisition.

What are the consequences of these assumptions? Let us assume that a distant galaxy is currently 100 light years away. At some time in the future it will be 120 light years distant due to the expansion of the universe. Here we are using the constant speed of light to measure the distance between two objects. If time expanded at the same rate as space then light would take the same interval to travel between the two galaxies in the future as it does currently. If this were so, then by definition, they would be at the same distance, ergo – no expansion, invalidating our first assumption. (Of course, one could just as easily imagine that time is contracting and space is stagnant!)

Therefore, one must assume that there is at least a difference in the rate of expansion of space compared to that of time. This leads to several interesting speculations, not the least of which is an explanation of the unidirectional nature of time. Consider a universe of at least four identical and orthogonal dimensions having the following two constraints; it is expanding in three spatial dimensions through the fourth as explained above and, as three dimensional beings, we cannot directly experience properties outside the dimensions of space. Time, therefore, is not the fourth dimension itself, which we can’t experience, but our perception of movement within it. Since this movement is the result of the unidirectional expansion of the three dimensions of space within the fourth, our perception of time is therefore unidirectional. (For a lighthearted discussion of this concept, see http://www.melino.org/fractured_physics/index.html)

Another interesting speculation that arises from this model concerns the nature of dark matter and dark energy, neither of which we can measure directly but only infer from their gravitational and expansionary effects respectively. The analogy of an expanding balloon has often been used to help visualize the expanding universe in which a single two-dimensional surface of a sphere expands outwards from a point representing the big bang. In this model the big bang is a single event resulting in a single universe. We can just as easily imagine an onion rather than a sphere with, not one big bang, but a continuous creation of layers (parallel universes?) occurring at the center. While we can’t have direct knowledge of any of the physical properties of any layer other than our own, we may infer their existence from their cumulative effect on our layer. Thus, the dark matter that is hypothesized to explain the missing gravitational effects in our universe may be nothing more than matter existing in other layers.

Interestingly, all sorts of possibilities arise by changing the topography of the time dimension. A hyper-spatial Klein bottle for example (http://alem3d.obidos.org/i/kbottle/kbc1.png ) would continuously recycle universes. Each would originate in a big bang, expand outward for a while then collapse inward towards its origin in a big crunch. The changing curvature of the bottle could even be used to explain the inflationary expansion of the universe that is hypothesized to have occurred in the early universe.

Rangutan’s Theory: “Gravity is an observable resultant force.” Matter is bombarded from the cosmos by waves of energy from all directions. Like you suggest a cosmic wind like the solar wind. Close to large masses a very effective large force but radiation in free space from most directions weak but nevertheless causing an effect or motion. Our “gravitational constant” applies only to our inner solar system. Rangutan’s Hypotheses #18 (in this field): “Dark Energy in form of a continuos radiating micro energy has exited since the big bang and causes the universe to expand at an accelerating rate.” That is why the Voyager modules are escaping the solar system faster than predicted.

Rangutan’s H#5: “All of our constants only apply to our small community, earth or inner solar system, in pure Science and Physics there are NO constants!” Like E=mc²

RR
[I need partners to help prove and present this new gravitational theory]

It seems strange to me that we conceive of space and time as inseparable on a local level (e.g., in describing relativistic phenomena or the bending of space-time by mass) but when discussing the universe as a whole space and time seem to be treated as distinct from one another.

It’s been mentioned that the expansion of space is only noticeable because gravity and the other attractive forces keep everything from galaxies right down to atoms (including ourselves) from expanding as well. Presumably there is nothing similar which would make the expansion of time — if it were indeed occurring — noticeable?

Could the acceleration of the acceleration of the expansion of space be viewed as the acceleration of the expansion of time… and perhaps thus not so surprising? (Or is this “idea” either meaningless or just plain wrong?)

I’ve read descriptions of black holes which talk about spatial dimensions becoming increasingly timelike as one approaches a black hole — at least in part because the future of anything lies more and more inevitably in the direction of the black hole. (I suppose you could say that here on Earth gravity makes the up-down dimension very slightly time-like, since the future of any object TENDS to lie in a downward direction — “What goes up must come down.”) This makes me wonder if what we see as the expansion of the universe could also be viewed as the dimension(s) of time becoming more space-like as we move away from the “white hole” of the Big Bang. I think it’s already widely believed that time ceases to be coherent if we try to conceive of anything “earlier” than the first few micro- or nano-seconds after the Big Bang — suggesting, I gather, that the “instant” of the Big Bang is something like a limit which can be approached but never reached. So is the expansion of the universe perhaps nothing more than the transformation of pure time into pure space?…

…Okay, that sounds pretty inane, I’ll admit. But it DOES seem odd that time is considered the fourth dimension of a unified space-time, and yet — as I’ve said — concepts like the expansion of the universe are described as if they refer to changes in a three-dimensional landscape of space measured against a yardstick of constant time. (Likewise, discussions of the overall topology of the universe — as opposed to local distortions of space-time by gravity — generally seem to involve the shape of 3-dimensional space rather than the shape of space-time, as if there were no question of any essential curvature of time analogous to the question of the essential curvature/non-curvature of space.) IS time constant, or is it just convenient (as well as not misleading) to regard it as such?

If all spacetime events are indeed ubiquitous and coincident, then the notion of a spacetime continuum extending from a single point of origin located billions of light years in the past and a point of observation located here now is simply an intellectual convenience spawned by nodes within a cosmic neural net.

Is it therefore possible that the appearance of accelerating cosmic expansion is a perceptual artifact? Perhaps more to the point, can any conception of a universe hosting perceivers be anything other than a perceptual artifact?

Unfortunately this is a deconstructive contribution to the standard model of the universe – we have to start over, but it should be easier without the assumptions and mysteries.

A related contribution to the new standard theory of the universe is the concept of Expanded Gravity which modifies Newton’s gravity so that it is also valid at galactic distances – without requiring Dark Matter.

Do a Google search for inventing-solutions.com for more details.

Flingle

That is why we cannot see into the future, only the past. We can only see things that have had enough time for the photons that make up the image translate to us across the distance between. Given that we experience time in a linear fashion, unidirectional, we have no access to the future that has not happened because it hasn’t happened. We have no access to the present that is too far away to reach us immediately. Only the past, as it was when the photons left to reach us while we’re looking now.

Curiously enough, that makes looking at things further in the past difficult – we have to look farther away to see further into the past, because the light that we are seeing now left there at a particular time. If we weren’t looking ten minutes ago, we can’t see the light that passed us ten minutes ago that left that object when it did. Since the photons travel at a set speed and don’t take detours or hang out at the mall for a while before continuing on their journey, we can only see the particular set of photons that left at precisely the instant* accounted for by subtracting back the travel time for that distance from when we are looking.

*For a given value of “precisely” and “instant”. Relativity affects our understanding of simultaneity enough that these terms are difficult to express. The calculation has to be modified to account for the relativistic relative velocity difference between “here” and “there”. YMMV. Some Assembly Required. Warranty not valid in states where not legal. See your local Universe dealer now.

The answer perhaps lies in the oddities (to us) that a quantum universe reveals.

Flingle

Also, as far as the natural tendency of the universe to expand, all I have to do to affirm that idea is to look at my waist line,,,

Gary 7

Just goes to show that there are more kinds of idiots out there than we thought. Someone still belives in the Eather, who knew.

My cat agrees with this statement, or at least he’s not saying anything while he watches me type it.

Another way of thinking about it is that a stationary/static curvature cannot be used to send information from one location to another. It is, if you like, the silent telephone line. The GW are then the telephone signal.

Nothing goes faster than the speed of light, not even gravity.

That brings up an interesting, to me, thought concerning gravity. We always talk about nothing can escape a black hole, not even light. But that isn’t entirely correct. Gravity does.

So while the effect of gravity propogates at the speed of light, gravity still must be fundamentally different from light (ie, dissimilar from ElectroMagnetic Waves/Particles). Neither Matter nor Energy, Gravity is some other fundamental thing. So what is it?

jbs

That idea relies on the proposition that there is an outside of the universe. Since we currently (and may never) have no way to see outside our universe, that proposition is speculation at best, and perhaps even unfounded wishful thinking. Whatever it is, it is difficult to investigate scientifically.

Keith Douglas Said:
>As a friendly aside, I wish physicists and astronomers would stop equivocating on the meaning of “universe”, because we need a good word to refer to “everything that exists”. Using that word to mean “local hubble volume” or something is misleading, to say the least. (This would stop religious misinterpretations of the big bang, too.)

This is a historical problem for names for “everything that exists”. The World was one of those collective words, but to most people now refers to this one world we live on, Earth. The Solar System may or may not have been used that way at one time, but the conception certainly was that way – the word “heliocentric” is based on the concept that everything is centered on the Sun. The Galaxy was also one term – back before we knew that those fuzzy spots on images were other “island universes”, or galaxies. Universe was just the next big word to describe all those different galaxies and everything in between.

The problem arises in that we have defined “universe” strongly by the existence of “universal laws”, i.e. those descriptions and constants that define how the universe works. So it is only natural for cosmologists to talk about “other universes” when they are talking about pockets of existence that may operate with a different set of rules/constants. How can they be our universe when they don’t conform to our universal laws? Nevermind the origin of the word “universe”. We’re stuck with a concept of universe that limits it’s scope.

A couple other words still exist. One is “multiverse”, which is mostly a favorite of Science Fiction writers. Another is “Cosmos”. Yes, you can still use “Cosmos” to mean “all the universes and any interrelations between them”, or “everything that exists”.

Of course there is the problem that we aren’t really sure if there is anything beyond this universe.

As a friendly aside, I wish physicists and astronomers would stop equivocating on the meaning of “universe”, because we need a good word to refer to “everything that exists”. Using that word to mean “local hubble volume” or something is misleading, to say the least. (This would stop religious misinterpretations of the big bang, too.)

As usual, the answer is found on wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift

“While this redshift of distant galaxies closely resembles what would be seen if distant galaxies simply had recessional velocities, in general relativity stretching of spacetime is different from the physical movement of the source. These galaxies are not believed to be receding; instead, the intervening space is believed to be stretching, which is subtly different. Nevertheless, astronomers (especially professional ones) sometimes refer to “recession velocity” in the context of the redshifting of distant galaxies from the expansion of the Universe, even though it is only an apparent recession. More mathematically, the viewpoint that “distant galaxies are receding” and the viewpoint that “the space between galaxies is expanding” are related by changing coordinate systems. Expressing this precisely requires working with the mathematics of the Robertson-Walker metric.”

That makes sense to me. It was due to a breakdown of language thought that distant galaxies were actually moving away from us, in addition to space itself expanding. However… I’m wondering what the “subtle difference” between these two models is.

Here is the logic behind my question: The universe is expanding. Everything is moving away from each other. So, the furthest things away are moving away from us the fastest. Therefore they should be redshifted by the doppler effect AS WELL AS the expansion of the universe. Furthermore, if the expansion is accellerating, the effect due to both redshifts should be increasing. My question was basically, how much does each type of redshift factor into the calculations?

If everything is moving away from each other then we have to be going pretty fast compared to things on the other side of the universe, especially if we’re accellerating. Relativity says you can consider us to be at rest, and the rest of the universe in motion. So the doppler effect I’m talking about is like a police car accellerating away from you- You’d see the taillights get redder and redder just like the siren gets lower and lower.