Escaping cosmology’s failing paradigm

Why we may be radically wrong about the universe’s size and expansion

The current orthodoxy of cosmology rests on unexamined assumptions that have massive implications for our view of the universe. From the size of the universe to its expansion, does the whole programme fail if one of these assumptions turns out to be wrong?

 

There is a great paradox haunting cosmology.

The science relies on a theoretical framework that struggles to fit and make sense of the observations we have but is so entrenched that very few cosmologists want to seriously reconsider it.

When faced with discrepancies between theory and observation, cosmologists habitually react by adjusting or adding parameters to fit observations, propose additional hypotheses, or even propose “new physics” and ad hoc solutions that preserve the core assumptions of the existing model.

 

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Today, there is increasing critical attention on some problematic parts of the Standard Model of Cosmology. Dark matter, dark energy and inflation theory are parts of the standard theoretical framework that remain empirically unverified - and where new observations prompt ever more questions.

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Ian Williams 1 6 November 2021

This article didn't set out to prove anything, rather sets out to either disprove or critically question current thinking upon which current popular cosmological 'understanding' is built. Therfore, although welcomed, not revolutionary.

The real challenge is to create an alternative perspective that explains everything we observe. Therein lies the golden biscuit!

I've never been comfortable with Dark Matter or Dark Energy, especially the latter. I believe the problem arises from a fundamental misunderstanding of the universal construct.

What if our observations and assumptions are correct and the big bang happened 13.8 billion years ago, bringing about the creation of our spacetime construct? However what if our spacetime doesn't mark the beginning of time overall?

How about this for a crazy idea:

Imagine the birth of time, trillions and trillions of years ago. Beforehand there is nothing but a vacuum, although we now know that the 'nothing' of a vacuum consists of something. In this infinity of nothing, probability suggests that something must eventually occur. At one point, there is an 'imbalance' in the vacuum, and the first wave, the first particle is born (working on the principal that every particle is a wave and every wave is a particle). This is the chronos. If we think of 4 dimensional time as a three dimensional construct, then this imbalance in the vacuum can be thought of as the birth of a singularity. And so, the multiverse is born.

However, this multiverse should not be thought of as a series of parallel universes, rather as a common chronological construct upon which separate universes can be 'built'. Thinking about time three dimensionally, the multiverse can be thought if as an ever expanding 'bubble'. Each unique 'direction' from the singularity (of which there are an infinite number) is a separate timeline/ dimension.

However, elsewhere in the vacuum, another 'bubble-like' multiverse is born, with its own three dimensional chronos bubble expanding outwards, with each unique direction from its singularity presenting a separate timeline/ dimension.

The two multiversal, chronological bubbles expand towards each other over trillions of years, and eventually they meet. A dimension from our multiverse and a dimension from the other multiverse have a head-on collision. This direct hit from two chronological timelines from two different multiverses creates a natural particle collider at a magnitude unimaginable to us. New particles are formed at this collision and with it the birth of our space time. This is what we call the Big Bang.

Matter and antimatter are created, however they are created for two colliding dimensions from separate multiverses travelling in opposite directiions. The particles in our timeline / dimension are matter and the particles from the opposing dimension are antimatter. However rather than matter and antimatter canceling each other out, our timeline takes more of the matter with us and the opposing timeline takes more of the antimatter with it. Spacetime constructs for both opposing timelines are created, across or on the 'surfaces' of the already existing time constructs of each multiverse.

This theory proposes that our Universe is built upon a double construct, namely a time construct built on a unique multiversal dimension born trillions of years ago, and a spacetime construct, built 13.8 billon years ago, upon the much older time construct.

Our 'flat' universe grows (i.e. inflation) 'outwards' across the surface of the much older multiversal time construct. Its 'growth' is subject to two separate forces, namely the inflationary growth emanating from the big bang, plus the existing expansion of the multiversal construct, which is expanding at a much faster rate because it is a much older, much bigger construct (i.e. the 'bubble').

The universe appears 'flat' to us (looked at four dimensionally across the CMB) because it is built across a bubble-like chronological construct that is so old and large, the 'part' we are able to see appears to be flat. The older the age of the multiverse, the flatter the appearance of the time construct.

Following this premis, there are two 'forces' acting upon the rate of expansion of our universe, namely inflation and multiversal chronological expansion. This being the case, could this explain the increasing rate of universal expansion? With this model, would Dark Energy even be needed?

Furthermore, could the double construct also explain the impact of so-called Dark Matter? Could matter be being held together by the presence of two contrusts working together, and not just the gravity apparent within a single construct?

Or are these the ramblings of a mad and ignorant fool with an overactive imagination? ????

David Dilworth 6 November 2021

Excellent article.
Great metaphors and it doesn't draw any lines outside the bounds of accuracy.
The article exposes the extremely awkward state cosmology has developed into.
Not unlike an avalanche of mathematical snow that has stopped and hardened into a solid block of ice fiction.

Jim Balter 5 November 2021

The one good thing about this article is the link to Stacy McGaugh's blog entry, but it rips that quote out of context and severely misrepresents that context as "of dark matter theory". The decision he refers to is to "alter Newtonian gravitational theory only as a last resort". As he says,
"[LCDM and MOND] are both examples of what philosophers of science call a No Miracles Argument. The problem is that it cuts both ways. I will refrain from editorializing here on which would be the bigger miracle, and simply note that the obvious thing to do is try to combine the successes of both, especially given that they don’t overlap much. And yet, the Venn diagram of scientists working to satisfy both ends is vanishingly small."

I advise ignoring this article and just reading McGaugh's piece and the comments on it (ignoring the stuff from crackpots like J Mark Morris)..

Jim Balter 5 November 2021

"Bjørn Ekeberg and Louis Marmet point the way to a new paradigm."

No they don't ... at best they point to a very old paradigm: question everything.

This is a lot of pointless handwaving. Science is in the business of inference to the best explanation. If a better explanation appears, it will be adopted. Nothing in this piece helps us get there.

Roy Lofquist 5 November 2021

There are two assumptions that underpin moden cosmology that are in question due to recent observations: the expansion of the universe and that gravity is the dominant force.

That the Universe is expanding is based on the premise that the Hubble Red Shift is due to a Doppler effect recessional velocity. When Hubble published his observations of red shifted light from distant objects there were two possible explanations that came to the fore. One, originated by Georges Lemaitre, was that the Universe was expanding. The other, from Fritz Zwicky, was that light lost energy as it traveled, termed "tired light". At that time, ca. 1930, interstellar and intergalactic space were assumed to be perfect vacuums, and thus there was no mechanism to redden the light.

Now, 90 years later, we have actual observational evidence that Zwicky was right. In the radio astronomy of Pulsars we find that the shorter wavelengths of the leading edge of the pulse arrive before longer wavelengths. The velocity of light, c, is NOT constant but varies by wavelength. The implication is that the interstellar medium is not a vacuum but rather affects light waves in a way best described as having an Index of Refraction greater then 1, unity. We find the same phenomenon in the observation of Fast Radio Bursts from other galaxies, thus indicating that the intergalactic media is not an electromagnetic vacuum. The distance to these pulsars can be computed from the time dispersion by a formula that is algebraically identical to the one used to compute the distance to distant objects by red shift. This implies that the Hubble red shift is the result of the light traversing a distance through a medium denser than Eintein's "in vaccuo" rather than a recessional velocity.

The second questionable assumption is that gravity is the dominant force in the universe, this despite the fact that electromagnetism is 36 orders of magnitude stronger than gravity. Electromagnetism was thought to be a strictly local phenomenon, effective only near stars and planetary bodies. Since that time we have discovered the Solar Wind (Russian Luna 7, 1959); interstellar magnetic fields (Voyager 1, 2012, and Voyager 2); galactic magnetic fields; and magnetic fields BETWEEN galaxies. Magnetic fields manifest only in conjunction with electrical currents. That we have detected magnetic fields between galaxies means that vast electrical currents permeate the universe and the potential differences (voltages) are, can we say it, astronomical.