The
Big Bang or the Big Bloat?
Riddle
me this:
What is very big but very small?
Constantly grows but stays the same?
Is very old but is just born?
The universe.
If nothing else, the universe is dense with paradox.
We live in three dimensional space and experience the flow of time. That is not
true everywhere and for all things. Light exists without time and in an
undefined space; which in our space may result in the perception that light
acts as both wave and a particle. In some ways the universe parallels light;
depending on your perspective, the universe can be paradoxically different.
The
Paradigm
The most commonly accepted explanation for the
origin of our universe is the Big Bang Theory. Briefly, about 13.8 billion
years ago all the matter and energy of the universe was in an incredibly small,
hot, dense state which then started to expand. With expansion, time and space -
as we perceive it – were created. Accelerating rapidly, due the
antigravitational force of dark energy, the universe was/is a growing bubble of
space-time. As it grew and cooled, subatomic particles formed; followed by the
first atoms. As it grew larger, the force of gravity became strong enough to overcome
the repulsive force of dark energy, and began to pull matter together to form
stars, then galaxies.
That the universe is expanding has been convincingly
demonstrated by the observed red shift in all distant (beyond the local group
of galaxies) objects, with the more distant the objects the greater the red
shift. Cosmic background radiation, coming from all directions in the sky, is
cited as conclusive evidence of the original event, the big bang of the Big
Bang. The background radiation is viewed as the ultra red shifted light emitted
by matter near the edge of universe, and traveling at near speed of light away
from us. Two major problems with the Big Bang Theory are that it requires using
an unknown force, dark energy, to explain the expansion and it seems to contradict
relativity.
Beyond
the Paradigm
The
TARDIS Effect
The BBC’s Doctor Who travels through space and time
in a ship called the Tardis, which is short for “Time and Relative Dimension
in Space”. Its most distinguishing characteristic, other than the fact in looks
like an old British police call box; is, as any character in the series remarks
upon first entering, “It’s larger on the inside than the outside”.
We are residents of an easily recognizable three
dimensional plus time universe. And we interpret what we see using what we
know. When something expands, like a balloon being inflated, its outside edges
are moving away from a central point, increasing the volume. But the universe
isn’t a balloon.
A tenant of the Theory of Relativity is that as
speed increases the flow of time decreases. To calculate the time that passed
by for a moving reference (seen by an observer) compared to the observer, use
the following derivative of the Lorentz
Transformation:
Where:
t’… is the time that passed by for
the moving reference
t… is the time that passed by for the stationary
reference (for simplicity, set to 1)
v… is the speed of the moving reference
(set as a decimal fraction of c)
c… is the speed of light
When v is measured as a percent of c, as v approaches c, t’ approaches
0
Figure 2 Graph of time dilation as the
observed objects speed goes to the speed of light (C).
It appears that the Big Bang is both the origin and outer
edge of the universe. If the universe as we know it is expanding at the speed
of light; the outer boundary, the edge, does not experience time - there is no
time for anything moving at the speed of light. Whether the universe formed
What is very big but very small?
From our vantage
point in the universe it has a radius of approximately 13.82 billion light
years; near its edge, it approaches a singularity in size.
Constantly grows but stays the same?
From our vantage
point in the universe it appears to be expanding at rate refered to as the
Hubble Constant, approximately 68(km/sec)/Mpc; but
at the Big Bang the size is frozen in time.
Is very old but is just born?
Like size and
growth, the age of the universe depends on where you are. For mankind it is
13.82 billion years old; near the edge the universe has just come into existence.
Questions
that need answers:
How is time created?
Is the Hubble Constant truly a constant? That is,
does it vary depending on the density of the universe, or does it change due to
the different flow of time depending on how far from the Big Bang expansion is
being observed?
How is matter created?
Atomic theory is in large part derived from experiments
in which atoms and subatomic particles are smashed; but what if the products of
destruction are not the same as those of construction?
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