My theory is:

Light creates (defines in a way) space.
As that happens gravity begins to pull it together.
Therefor nothing is expanding, more so an optical illusion.

We are seeing farther into the space between us.

Almost as if we are being pulled backwards inwardly through our eyes projecting what we perceive as space or empty darkness.

That, or we are shrinking down a fractal, either way an illusion yet quite perceptibly real.

"maybe the dark is from your eyes, you know you have such dark eyes" - Jerry Garcia

Think Hollow Matter instead of hollow earth

So matter being what composes atoms which make up what we see in the visible universe
These atoms contain mostly empty space
And for all measurable purposes theirs technically more empty space contained in a single atom
From nucleus to orbiting electrons comparing them their relative size to the solar systems-sun, planets and the distances between them both or the space encompassing the whole of the suns Heliosphere
And atom still has more comparably empty space within it.

This makes the one constant of movement or flow of energy/matter to be inward
This is gravity all other forces of the universe work against gravity to slow the movement of energy
Which comprising matter is moving down within the empty space that is within us all and everything we know
The electromagnetic, strong, weak nuclear forces conservative the energy that creates the perception of time and allowing for perceived existences’.

Easy. The physical universe is held in the fourth dimension. This is what the Bible has always talked about.

It's funny that the idea of God is rejected by those who believe that all we see physically came about by an explosion of nothing out of nothing into nothing (if you see the irony) and still can't answer the question this post asks.

Yet it's all very clear to me. You have to understand the basics of the forth dimension. It's where all creation comes from. There may be multiple universes for all I know but they all came out of the same dimension because you can't have nothing produce nothing inside the physical dimensions we experience.

Now, I'm all fine with those that say it's weird to believe in a God. Ok, I'm happy with you thinking that because it doesn't change anything, just explain the question in this post then? No? Can't? Are you prepared to except there are things that exist we don't understand... or more importantly, we actually exist inside something else! We all came from there, and we are all going back there when we die.

It's all there in the Bible (written by those that don't even know what we know know about the universe) and has been for four thousand years... yet we reject it and drive ourselves silly because we still can't work it out on our own.

I'm not trying to 'convert' anyone, I'm just saying the answer is not in what you see with your eyes. And if you think it is and still can't work it out, there might be a clue there?

The way spacetime curves, no matter which direction you look "out" into the sky, you're always looking back in time and at the center of the universe, which turns out used to be exactly where you're standing right now. It's tricky to comprehend.

Sure its already been said, but ill just throw my penny in the Jar

the expansion is not an expansion into space, it is an expansion of space. So outside it there is nothing at all, at least not dimension as we understand it. It is not like a diffusion of gas into empty space, it is the space itself that is expanding.

On the compactness of space just after the big bang, if you believe in it, yes it is difficult to fathom but it is more understandable when you think of various super compact objects that do exist in the universe that are also difficult to imagine.

White dwarfs and neutron stars for example. These objects prove that most of the 'space' within an atom is basically empty and that when you squeeze it all together there are limits to the existence of matter in normal form. The thing you have to sort of imagine that matter condensed out of light, the early universe existed as energy or electromagnetically dominated, and by early universe i am talking about a time scale of 10^-30 seconds... any way couldnt all matter have existed as a singularity or a very small compact scale back at that time? you can make a gamma that spontaneously converts into an electron/positron pair, and photons dont seem to have a defined size... so why not? it is interesting to hear about some of the 'off the mainstream' ideas and thoughts that people have on ATS, and the big bang is truly a difficult one to figure out, and yes some of the ideas and theories are totally off the wall... id have thought many of you 'out of the box' thinkers as you claim to be would LOVE this kind of stuff... I mean compact objects.. you only need to go and look at a white dwarf and do the mathematics that requires you to look at 7 dimensional space... to explain it... isn't already awesomely weird enough?

This is sometimes one of the reasons why out of box thinkers are not taken seriously, because like some kind of religion, most out of the box thinkers just oppose anything and everything anyone who has knowledge or experience and training in a subject says or thinks... You want to know, as a particle physicist who we think are out of their minds and are nuts with the theories they come out with? String theorists, totally stark raving bonkers the lot of them LOL (jk) I guess i find it surprising that people still basically think some of the things i am involved in are crazy and want to tell me that the experiments i am doing are stupid and that i am being controlled by some form of dark organization...

A neutron star is essentially a huge atomic nucleus at its most dense part. The whole point about conceptualizing the big bang as being denser than that is basically because the material that existed back then was at ultra-high energy and what existed was not the ground state what we observe today. It would have been a universe of pure energy, gammas basically, which as far as our theories work, do not have a finite size.

Compact objects such as white dwarfs and neutron stars are some of the most extreme objects we have studied and observed.

White dwarfs require 5 dimensions or quantum states to explain their size, they are basically 3 spatial and two spin states. When the matter is compressed, eventually the electrons of the material start to fill all the available quantum states, this gives a degeneracy pressure limit. It simply means that up to the degeneracy pressure limit the star will support its shape and the mass. This limit is 1.44 solar masses.


Neutron stars themselves are incredibly compressed and compact, and at their core probably exists a form of matter similar to that of a giant nucleus, a sea of quarks and gluons, but this is all very unknown.

Other compact objects? Well black holes? what these are is a little unknown though, and there are a few theories to their structure and what exactly they are and their properties though much of it is unknown.

Super massive black holes? Enormous mass has been determined to exist at the centres of all galaxies;.... anyway all this detracts from the question of the big bang. I don't really see why the universe existing in a super compact way is all that difficult to imagine.

Space is composed of time that is static. Time is composed of space that kinetic. They exchange properties as to appear majority space or majority time regularly.

An energetic Quantum Hernia into a zero mass anti-vacuum.

Maybe space isn't expanding -- matter is just becoming smaller.