First, I'd like to clarify that I'm in no way a physicist, not yet, anyway. I'm merely a young college student fascinated by all things..."big-picture" physics, for lack of a better word. As such, my scope is very narrow, and my understanding, limited. That being said, the following, "theory," or thought, is probably a better word for it, likely holds no water or, is in no way plausible due to some physical law I'm not aware of. So please be gentle when you poke holes in this.
Also, I don't
realistically believe this.
We attribute the expansion of the universe to dark energy, but what if there isn't actually any dark energy? What if we are actually part of a multiverse, and to my understanding, a multiverse implies that all possible configurations of a universe are recognized. So what if this means that not only are there universes out there with different physical laws than ours, but also universes with higher dimensions as well?
My "theory" is this: It's not dark energy pushing our universe from within. It's another higher dimensional universe situated in some close proximity to ours, and because it is of a higher dimension, it's gravity pulls on our universe from all directions.
What a higher dimensional universe looks like, I haven't a clue. I understand that this is a vague explanation, and I haven't the knowledge to explain any sort of math that would support this. Calculus 3 is all I've got under my belt, but I really would like to know what is wrong with this theory, as I'm sure there is a lot. And again, this was simply a thought that I had.
Really dark energy isn't responsible for "expansion". The cosmological constant people refer to as dark energy is responsible for positive "acceleration" of the expansion. That what is responsible for the existence of a nonzero cosmological constant could be something extra dimensional would be interesting, but I doubt this will be the case.
If you consider a two dimensional shell of matter embedded in 3 dimensional space and Newtonian physics for a moment, and you find that it is accelerating in expansion, then because of gausses law it must be because of a reaction to something contained inside the shell, or attached to the surface, and not outside. I would think that the analogy to a universe with accelerated expansion with three spatial dimensions embedded in a higher dimensional spacetime would be that either the cosmological constant is due to stuff attached to the 3d space or that its attributed to something thats not uniform in the higher dimensional space being inside the embedding and not outside. If this is the case then first you would have to demonstrate that something physical actually exists associated with the higher dimensional space in which we are embedded and then you would have to demonstrate that such a thing can be distributed in such a nonuniform way or that gauss's law doesn't apply and then you'd have to demonstrate that the reaction to it accounts for the cosmological constant.
Maybe, but it seems a bit far fetched to me.
Then again there are a lot of string proponents out there and that seems far fetched to me too.
hortino
10th May 2012 - 12:57 AM
QUOTE
Really dark energy isn't responsible for "expansion". The cosmological constant people refer to as dark energy is responsible for positive "acceleration" of the expansion. That what is responsible for the existence of a nonzero cosmological constant could be something extra dimensional would be interesting, but I doubt this will be the case. If you consider a two dimensional shell of matter embedded in 3 dimensional space and Newtonian physics for a moment, and you find that it is accelerating in expansion, then because of gausses law it must be because of a reaction to something contained inside the shell, or attached to the surface, and not outside. I would think that the analogy to a universe with accelerated expansion with three spatial dimensions embedded in a higher dimensional spacetime would be that either the cosmological constant is due to stuff attached to the 3d space or that its attributed to something thats not uniform in the higher dimensional space being inside the embedding and not outside. If this is the case then first you would have to demonstrate that something physical actually exists associated with the higher dimensional space in which we are embedded and then you would have to demonstrate that such a thing can be distributed in such a nonuniform way or that gauss's law doesn't apply and then you'd have to demonstrate that the reaction to it accounts for the cosmological constant. Maybe, but it seems a bit far fetched to me. Then again there are a lot of string proponents out there and that seems far fetched to me too.
Ah ha, So where I'm mistaken is that I had attributed the the actual expansion to the presence of Dark Energy, when its actually, just the Big Bang?
And about this cosmological constant, are you referring to the one associated with the amount of dark energy needed in order to produce the acceleration? The video I mentioned earlier addresses this number, and how they can't seem to find any other physical law that it shows up, and that's where he tags it to a multiverse theory, but I'm beginning to have the feeling, some thanks to you all here, that since the proposal of the multiverse anytime we can't explain something they blame it on the multiverse.
And thank you waitedavid, was exactly what the kind of answer I was hoping for.
Robittybob1
10th May 2012 - 01:06 AM
QUOTE (hortino+May 10 2012, 12:57 AM)
Ah OK, so the actual expansion is due to what? Just the big bang? And the dark energy is only accelerating it.
my thought was that the expansion is a pushing force generated from the unraveling of matter itself
like E = M C^2 so matter decays back to energy and acts on the residual mass pushing it in the direction it already is going.
A bit like Hawking Radiation evaporating a Black Hole; this Dark Energy is the "vapour" coming off matter.
It only happens when it is out of reach from other galactic gravitational fields.
Just a silly thought - no science to back it up.
Robittybob1
10th May 2012 - 03:43 AM
QUOTE (Robittybob1+May 10 2012, 01:06 AM)
my thought was that the expansion is a pushing force generated from the unraveling of matter itself
like E = M C^2 so matter decays back to energy and acts on the residual mass pushing it in the direction it already is going.
A bit like Hawking Radiation evaporating a Black Hole; this Dark Energy is the "vapour" coming off matter.
It only happens when it is out of reach from other galactic gravitational fields.
Just a silly thought - no science to back it up.
I was trying to understand what this would mean for if there was a push there is a reaction, and what was it going to react against? (For every force there is an equal and opposite reaction). So could these forces be pushing against space and making it expand, for expansion of space is not just the matter traveling through space but it was space expanding and hence taking the matter with it? I thinking is an analogy like sago when left in water it swells so the core of the grains are getting further apart from each other.
That would mean space resists being pushed together and hence the whole thing expands.
Like if you can expand space can you also compress it?
hortino
10th May 2012 - 09:59 PM
An analogy that I heard was when you blow up a balloon any two points on its surface get further and further apart.
I think idea of Dark Energy is it is what is keeping our universe from collapsing back on its self. Like if we had less Dark Energy in our universe, once the initial expansion from the Big Bang was done, then the universe would begin to shrink back on itself. I think this was what was thought would happen before they discovered that the expansion was actually accelerating. I think they called it repulsive gravity? So, my understanding is that is Dark Energy is what is "resisting" some in ward force. What would be the force working against Dark Energy?
Robittybob1
10th May 2012 - 10:07 PM
QUOTE
What would be the force working against Dark Energy?
Have you heard of gravity?
The Universe is 3 dimensional so I don't quite like the balloon analogy.
hortino
10th May 2012 - 10:48 PM
Ok, so if you take away the Dark Energy, it would be gravity that would "pull" space back in on itself? I'm just having a hard time visualizing it. Gravity working in a way that would work against the expansion.
Robittybob1
10th May 2012 - 11:51 PM
QUOTE (hortino+May 10 2012, 10:48 PM)
Ok, so if you take away the Dark Energy, it would be gravity that would "pull" space back in on itself? I'm just having a hard time visualizing it. Gravity working in a way that would work against the expansion.
What if space is but a temporary phenomenon. Remove the matter and the space would just disappear. So if gravity collapsed the Universe the space it once occupied would just fade away. Anything I'm proposing is just thoughts and not based on extensive reading so I'm just exploring ideas OK.
It seems to come from nothing so why can't it just disappear?
hortino
11th May 2012 - 02:11 AM
Could you really say that it disappears though? Space is just nothing, right? So how can nothing disappear, or appear for that matter?
So basically what you're proposing is space as nothing but a "place-holder?"
Robittybob1
11th May 2012 - 02:17 AM
QUOTE (hortino+May 11 2012, 02:11 AM)
Could you really say that it disappears though? Space is just nothing, right? So how can nothing disappear, or appear for that matter?
So basically what you're proposing is space as nothing but a "place-holder?"
There is a difference between Space and no space. They tell me there is no space beyond the universe. It was brought out by Alex some months back. I had always thought space might just go on to infinity, but not according to him. So there is a difference but I'm just learning. So would that mean if there were multiverses they would have to be touching for they can't be separated by nothing!
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