The expansion of the universe could be a mirage, new theoretical study suggests

young_broccoli, 10 months ago

So... Is there a version "for dummies"?
... asking for a friend.

VoterFrog, 10 months ago

Everywhere we look at distant galaxies, they look like they're moving away from us. We think this because the wavelength of the light they've emitted looks stretched (ie redshifted), similar to how the pitch of sound changes when an ambulance is approaching and passing you.

The fact that this is happening in all directions leads us to believe that space itself is stretching in all directions, because we don't believe that we're in a special part of the universe, like in the center of some event that sent all galaxies flying away from us.

If I understand this article correctly, it proposes that the redshifting could have another explanation. Looking at a distant galaxy is like "looking back in time" because the light takes time to cross the vast emptiness of space to reach us. So what if the redshifting is because the particles back when the light was emitted had different properties than they have now? The model described in the paper explains exactly how those properties could be changing in order to produce the effects that we observe.

Crackhappy, 10 months ago

That's a very wild theory.

VoterFrog, 10 months ago

To be fair, "95% of the mass/energy in the universe is undetectable to us except for how they impact the movement of entities at a galactic scale" is kinda wild too.

HeartyBeast, 10 months ago

I'm not a physicist, but this does look like an interesting idea. And yes, I suspect a little contraversial :)

In Lombriser's mathematical interpretation, the universe isn't expanding but is flat and static, as Einstein once believed. The effects we observe that point to expansion are instead explained by the evolution of the masses of particles — such as protons and electrons — over time.

Maeve, 10 months ago

Shrödinger universe quashe wrapped Planck * verse?

exohuman, 10 months ago

I find it really interesting too. I struggled to understand it though. Is he saying that stuff that is further away is made of elements with a higher (or lower) atomic number?

Pons_Aelius, 10 months ago

I don't think so.

I think they are suggesting that the mass of protons etc is not stable over time.

style99, 10 months ago

It's also worth noting:

In this picture, these particles arise from a field that permeates space-time. The cosmological constant is set by the field's mass and because this field fluctuates, the masses of the particles it gives birth to also fluctuate. The cosmological constant still varies with time, but in this model that variation is due to changing particle mass over time, not the expansion of the universe.

HawlSera, 9 months ago

That… that’s certainly an idea

PabloDiscobar, 10 months ago

However, García urged caution in assessing the paper's findings, saying it contains elements in its theoretical model that likely can't be tested observationally, at least in the near future.

Xeelee, 10 months ago

That makes the whole thing rather pointless, doesn't it?

DrYes, 10 months ago

at least in the near future.

HeartyBeast, 10 months ago

I don’t think so. It’s an interesting hypothesis that has been slung on the table to account for weird discrepancies between current models and observed reality. It suggests a paradigm shift. Suggesting ‘we’re thinking about this is in entirely the wrong way’ is an important part of the scientific process.

Xeelee, 10 months ago

Yeah, but the hallmark of a useful scientific theory is that it makes testable predictions.

HeartyBeast, 10 months ago

So you would argue that the Higgs Boson was a useful theoretical construct ahead of the building of CERN or that black holes weren't useful in theory until detected?

Xeelee, 10 months ago

No. Even if the predictions couldn't be tested at the time there was a clear path to doing it. That's different. This is (in my very limited understanding) more like string theory.

HexTrace, 10 months ago

Some of Einstein's predictions weren't really testable when they were posited. "Not currently testable" doesn't mean they can't be improved upon to be testable, or provoke a shift in thinking that leads to other research pathways opening up. The whole field has been somewhat stagnant and searching for something that can compete with the Standard Model, so ideas like this that could prompt a breakthrough get visibility and traction for that reason alone.

ivy, 10 months ago

so if I understood this article properly, this is proposing a model where the universe is not expanding but just exists infinitely. also this seems to neatly fit everything together eliminating dark matter and energy

if so, that's crazy! it would be really cool to see some research on this in the future and hopefully see some new developments because of it

JWBananas, 10 months ago

If it used Meteor Attack or Static E, then it is indeed a mirage

Entropywins, 10 months ago

They use gravitational waves and parallax as other sources of confirmation for expansion and I don't see those mentioned or accounted for but I'm just a guy who reads science books for layman, what do I know...

Sodis, 10 months ago

I also don't see, how this new model explains, that every galaxy but one moves away from us.

stevexley, 10 months ago

I think that they are saying that they aren't moving away from us, the redshift is caused by this mass change effect not movement or acceleration.

VoterFrog, 10 months ago

OT but any good science book recommendations?

lanbanger, 10 months ago

I so dearly hope this is accurate. I've been against "dark energy", "dark matter", and "perpetually accelerating expansion" for years now. This has the potential to be a Michaelson-Morley moment, where the Ether was disproven by creating a universe that doesn't require it.