Theory of the Universes Increased Rate of Expansion

Hey ATS. I was trying to wrap my mind around the reason for the Universes Rapid expansion at the beginning of the Universe known as "Inflation" and then the slowing down of the Universes Expansion and now what some Scientists are saying is a increase in the Universe expansion once again.

I think I might have found a solution today.

I am by no means a Physicist or Astrophysicist and I have no clue on how to write a proper paper so I will just present my idea to you guys, my peers. I know there are some bright minds on this website and thought I would share my idea and see what yall think about it.

Ok here goes.

Theory to explain the increase in the rate of expansion of the Universe

My theory is dependent on a few other theories being accurate (I will list them).

1) At the beginning of the Universe there existed a rapid increase in the rate of the expansion of the Universe (known as Inflation).

en.wikipedia.org...(cosmology)

2) The rate of expansion of the Universe slowed down.

www.physicsforums.com...

3) The rate of the expansion of the Universe is now increasing.

spaceflightnow.com...

4) That the Universe does not create EXTRA matter and that the Universe is a closed system that has the same amount of matter now as it did when the Big Bang first occurred. (That is not to say that the universe cannot create NEW matter just that when NEW matter is created OLD matter ceases to exist)

wiki.answers.com...

5) That Gravity is the Force that Initially caused Inflation to slow down.

www.astro.caltech.edu...
(I think that is what this article explains! LOL I am not sure though!)

6) That Photons exert no Gravity. (I cannot figure this one out. I have looked high and low if Photons have a mass that exerts Gravity and it seems to still be up for debate! Photons are AFFECTED by gravity as we can see from the curvature of light in images from Hubble, but do they exert gravity on other things?)

www.physicspost.com...=&TOPIC_ID=8311.htm

www.physicsforums.com...

After the Big Bang the Universe was expanding very rapidly during inflation but was slowed down by the gravity from the mass of the Universes Particles. The Universe still had enough energy to keep expanding and prevent itself from collapsing back as it continued to expand, but at a much slower rate than Inflation.

Ok My Theory to explain the increase for the Rate of the Expansion of the Universe is that as the Universe cooled and the particles of the Universe began to form Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium the First Stars were formed.

Since the Universe has been around for a while there has been plenty of time for a portion of the mass of the Universe to form roughly 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars.

The Conversion of a portion of the Mass of the Universe into stars does not change the amount of Gravity that is exerted on the expansion of the Universe since the mass of the Universe has not changed.

The Conversion of the Mass of the Stars into Photons DOES change the amount of Gravitational pull that is exerted on the expansion of the Universe since Photons might not exert a Gravitational force!

The More Stars that are formed and convert their mass into Photons the less of an amount of Gravity there is to limit the rate of expansion of the Universe.

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Well there is my Theory. What do you think? Plausible? Laughable? Not Understandable? All input is appreciated since I only seek knowledge and answers to questions. Thanks for taking the time to read through my theory. -Josh














[edit on 21-7-2009 by TurkeyBurgers]

Interesting theory.

My son and I were watching an astronomy documentary a few days ago and the topic of the rate of expansion of the universe was discussed. We chatted about it and it gave me an opportunity to float a theory by him to keep his mind open.

As we know we have this wonderful thing known as gravitational acceleration. I offered the theory that the universe is not infinite and is in fact contained within another 'object'. The gravitational attraction of the mass outside our universe's bubble is what is causing the increase in rate of expansion of our universe. My son thought for a moment, shrugged his shoulders and said "I'd buy that." (He's 11 years old)

From what I understand, photons should theoretically exert gravitational forces, but it would be an incredibly small amount. While we commonly say mass has gravity, it is actually energy that has gravity (and energy=mass, as Einstein said). Now, when you consider that even a massive object like the Earth produces so little gravity that even simple phenomena are stronger (heck, think of a kite, much less a space shuttle), and then you consider how much energy is in one tiny photon compared to the energy of the entire planet, were it converted from mass to energy, I can't imagine how we'd ever measure any force that small.

Since I'm not exactly sure what your theory is from the post, I don't know whether this knowledge, if accurate, would affect it or not.

Interestingly, I came across theory #4 in a science fiction book recently, and I'd never heard of it before. Whether it is true or not I have no idea, but if the laws of thermodynamics are correct and complete, it should be.

reply to post by jankopernik


I appreciate the reply and the input.

reply to post by DragonsDemesne


Yeah I have been seriously digging trying to determine the amount of gravitational pull of a Photon but I came up empty. If you have any links that show something either way I would like to see them. It looks like it is just up for speculation right now,

It would seem to me that something that can be affected by gravity should exert Gravity but I cannot find anything referencing the supposed amount of gravity from a photon.

If they do NOT exert Gravity then my theory should be sound though?

These are good thoughts

Hmmm.. if you imagine an object tied to a rubber band.

If you throw that object out with just enough force to break the band the object slows down, the band breaks and the object falls to the ground on the spot.

If you throw the object out with more than enough speed to break the band then the object wouldnt slow down at all.

Im not sure its possible to get an increase in momentum once the slow down has started.

(sry i posted one response and then totaly changed my mind..lol)



[edit on 22-7-2009 by VitalOverdose]

reply to post by VitalOverdose


I am picturing the expansion (Rubber Band) having enough energy to resist collapse from the gravity of the mass of the universe but to still be slowed down by it. BUT when Stars turn mass into Photons there exists less gravity to slow down the expansion so it speeds up again since it is already going faster than light speed according to the Hubble Constant. (Which I cannot figure out how to convert into the measurement of the speed of light).

There was a period of time in the early Universe known as the The photon epoch which would seem to completely destroy my theory now that I look at it lol.

The photon epoch

Between 10 seconds and 380,000 years after the Big Bang

Main article: Photon epoch

After most leptons and anti-leptons are annihilated at the end of the lepton epoch the energy of the universe is dominated by photons. These photons are still interacting frequently with charged protons, electrons and (eventually) nuclei, and continue to do so for the next 300,000 years.

en.wikipedia.org...

Current models of the creation of the Universe show Inflation happening MUCH earlier than the Photon Epoch. If that is true than the Photon Epoch should have been when Inflation occurred since there would be almost no gravitational force if the Universe was comprised of almost entirely photons.

They need to rewrite the Timeline of the Big Bang to fit better into my theory!


[edit on 22-7-2009 by TurkeyBurgers]

I do quite a bit of work with 3D games , if i set a physics volume 20 feet in the air and set it to zero gravity and then in game i throw something up into that area. The object will only continue at the speed that it enters the 0 gravity area. There has to be extra energy coming from somewhere to make the object go any quicker.

You have 2 main values for a moving object. Velocity and acceleration. For any force to act on the velocity (speed) the acceleration has to be in the minus figures. Theres no way to regain that acceleration once it hits zero.

But saying that i dont think the whole theory is without merit.

lol.. your going to have me thinking about this all day now.


[edit on 22-7-2009 by VitalOverdose]

reply to post by VitalOverdose


But since the Universe is not expanding into ANYTHING there would be no resistance or friction to slow it down. It should expand at infinite speed. The ONLY thing regulating the expansion of the Universe would be the initial amount of energy from the Big Bang and the amount of gravitational pull from the mass of the Universes contents.

Or not. I am not sure. The more looking I do the more confused I get.

The amount of energy put into the expansion of the Universe would be a constant right? It would constantly expand at the rate of whatever amount of energy was put into it from the big bang. The thing that controls the speeding or slowing of the constant amount of energy affecting the expansion would be gravity.

Something like

Expansion Speed = +/- the amount of gravity in the Universe

LOL wishful thinking right? I do not know.

reply to post by TurkeyBurgers


S&F

Yeah I have been seriously digging trying to determine the amount of gravitational pull of a Photon but I came up empty. If you have any links that show something either way I would like to see them.

This is a link about how gravity is there on a universe scale and also on a quantum scale. The theory in this link says that gravity and the nuclear force are one and the same.

www.gravitywarpdrive.com...

Edit to add
There are also debates as to wether gravity is real time and instantaneous or it travels at a speed of light.

[edit on 22-7-2009 by sunny_2008ny]

Ok heres a crazy idea.. you said the expansion was happening faster than the speed of light. That means there is a time element involved here as well. The theory is that when you are approching the speed of light you move forwards in time. But once to get superluminal you move backwards in time.

If something is expanding and moving backwards in time it would seem like the rate of expansion would be quicker?

If the rate of acceleration has been constant from the moment the universe came into existance. While it was getting close to light speed it would be going forward in time which would make the process seem longer and then once it hits light speed and starts going backwards in time the process would seem quicker.

reply to post by VitalOverdose

The theory is that when you are approching the speed of light you move forwards in time.

As you approach the speed of light, the mass also becomes infinite, if you have infinite mass then you have infinite gravity, so as I said in my previous post, there is a debate that gravity is instantaneous, if it is, then we have a paradox

reply to post by VitalOverdose


I was incorrect in that statement of the Current speed of the Universes Expansion is faster than light speed. That would be impossible because I think that NO light would reach us if EVERYTHING was expanding at faster than the speed of light.

I understand that the CURRENT expansion of the Universe is under the speed of light but it is increasing. I do not know what the exact expansion speed of the Universe is or what the rate of increase is though.

Originally posted by sunny_2008ny
reply to post by VitalOverdose

 

The theory is that when you are approching the speed of light you move forwards in time.

As you approach the speed of light, the mass also becomes infinite, if you have infinite mass then you have infinite gravity, so as I said in my previous post, there is a debate that gravity is instantaneous, if it is, then we have a paradox

Good point

Maybe gravity only started to exist once the rate of expansion hit the speed of light. But the size of the universe at that point was so large there wasnt enough gravity to affect the rate of expansion.

[edit on 22-7-2009 by VitalOverdose]

reply to post by TurkeyBurgers

I was incorrect in that statement of the Current speed of the Universes Expansion is faster than light speed. That would be impossible because I think that NO light would reach us if EVERYTHING was expanding at faster than the speed of light.

There is a thread here on ATS where a member showed that the speed of expansion of universe was and is faster than light. The Universe expands faster than light, but the light only reaches us at the speed of light, so the objects that we see billions of light years away, are not actually there today, it is only because the light is reaching us now, we think that they are there.

If I find that thread, I will post a link here.

Edit to add

The link to the thread I was mentioning is here. The post is by user Sunsetspawn on the first page

www.abovetopsecret.com...



[edit on 22-7-2009 by sunny_2008ny]

TBH im not totaly sold on the whole big bang idea. Have you seen the shape of the universe? it doesnt look like any kind of explosion ive ever seen. It looks like a long trumpet.

I cant see how to apply any kind of explosion dynamics to that shape.

[edit on 22-7-2009 by VitalOverdose]

That was a cool link sunny. Gravity is so crazy I cannot wait to see its secrets unlocked! Nuclear Gravity sounds like a cool concept but that page had math that was so far beyond me. I could grasp the concept but not the Math of that link.

reply to post by VitalOverdose

TBH im not totaly sold on the whole big bang idea. Have you seen the shape of the universe? it doesnt look like any kind of explosion ive ever seen. It looks like a long trumpet.

The shape of the universe that we see is only that of objects that we have identified till now, there must be other parts of the universe that we have not seen yet, and we are not in the center of the universe so we see the shape from some corner of the universe, there may be other places from where the shape may be different. I agree that universe is not spherical as the big bang suggests.

reply to post by sunny_2008ny


Yeah that is the thread got me asking so many questions! I could not find the answers to my questions so I tried to think of an explanation for them.

I agree that universe is not spherical as the big bang suggests.

I dont see how anyone can calculate the rate of expansion at any point in the life of the universe if it hasnt been expanding uniformly.

Either the big bang wasnt a big bang or there are other forces at work here.

[edit on 22-7-2009 by VitalOverdose]