Expert: Jayendra Upadhye - 3/22/2009

Question
QUESTION: What do you think of my thoughts explaining the accelerating expanding universe ?::::

I just figured why the universe is expanding at an accelerating speed ( I think).  Nature abhors a vacuum. The area outside of our observable universe is a perfect vacuum. Since this area is infinite, the known, observable, universe we live in is being drawn outward to this area. And, since nature is always trying to fill a vacuum, it draws our universe into it at an ever increasing rate.

Can you think of any reason why this is not an eplanation for our expanding universe at an ever increasing speed?

I have been working, for decades, on the problem of gravity. What it is, and how to measure and reveal it's exact field. What kind of energy field it is, and how to shield it. I do not believe in "push" gravity, and figured out it doesn't work that way long ago. I don't have time to go into that right now. Might later. I am a theory type person, and not much at math.

Dwayne

ANSWER: Hi,
First of all accept my congratulations for thinking by yourself, and for saying (I think) at the end!!
Dwayne, we MUST learn to doubt ourselves. Science is all about doubt, and that is why it is so good and correct. Only those things that have overcome all doubts (till now) have persisted. These too will one day be shamelessly and in all humility, modified, as new facts emerge.

Now do this thought experiment.
You have a balloon filled with gas at a certain temperature, and it is in absloute vacuum of space. (best practical vacuum).
the pressure inside will be the one exerted on the gas by the enclosing skin. There will be a corresponding RMS velocity for each molecule of the gas, inside the balloon.
Now you prick that balloon.
What do you think happens?
Silly guys like you and me, will shout .."It will explode and all gas will go off in space at high speed".
After a time, since we still do think (remember the i think part?)..we will realise that vacuum or not, the gas could never have escaped at a speed greater than the one it possesed when inside the balloon! Its RMS velocity!

There simply was no additional heat source from which each atom of gas could have acquired additional kinetic energy! And you know energy is NOT freely available in THIS universe!!
The gas will expand isentropically!

Now expand your horizons to replace atoms with galaxies and the bubble with our universe! No matter WHAT is "outside", we can expand into it only so fast and no more! (conservation of energy holds universewide!! God does not play dice remember?).

Lastly, do not even think of "outside" the universe, because the moment you think about it, by definition it gets "included inside" the universe. It is all in the very definition of the word universe!
It holds every thing that there is, to hold!! In fact, and in fiction! Period.

I know you are going to sulk on that one!
But logic is a very cold blooded creature.
What to do?

We should all once in a while take on the role of Captain dastardley and see our petty theories come to ruin thanks to the snickering dog muttley that LOGIC is!!

regards
Jayen

Hi,
Thanks for the ratings.

But I could not quit on account of two things.
1 - Gwayne..I sense a negative emotion somewhere.
I am no expert in the conventional sense of the word. I am not harvard educated and all. But I have made Siemens guys quiver ehrn it came to application of ideas. And I am not boasting.
But a sense of humor and some sense of self doubt are prime pre-requisutes. Humility I think will come as you age. (I trust you are not as old as i am, brcause then you would have time on your hands).
2- That statement "I don't believe that a source of heat is necessary for a vacuum to draw matter into it." really made me decide i had to talk further to you.
Have you studied kinetic theory of gases? If you have, you would be familiar that gas molecules exert pressure of any kind solely due to their thermal motion. When expanding adiabatically in a vacuum, (for the only way heat will escape in such an expanding gas is via infrared and radio emission, and trust me, the expanion will be very rapid), a gas can only expand as fast its molecules move, and that movement is always never faster than the RMS velocity (root mean square velocity) of its molecules.
It goes without saying that the cooler the gas, the slower its molecules move, the slower will it expand in vacuum.

Why in absolute space, we have large molecular hydrogen clouds of cool hydrogen, that DONT expand wasy into nothingness around them, primarily because they have very low thermal velocities. (3 to 4 deg kelvin, the temperature of absolute space. Nothing can be cooler than that anywhere at this epoch of time. That is the temperature of space.


And a bit of maths will be needed for kinetic theory too.
regards
Jayen


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi again, Jayen.  I am 65 yrs old, and no I have not read nor studied the kinetic theory of gasses. I believe your statements about why gases expand. Looking at my own personal thinking, I am putting the pull of a vacuum on the same level/idea as the pull of gravity. No heat is needed. All matter is endowed with a gravitational field. It's a different kind of energy than electric, and has nothing to do with electromagnetic forces ( I think).
I am having fun with this kind of thinking, and enjoy exploring different facets of science.  I remember being "astounded" to learn that our sun has a surface, as I had been taught that all matter was vaporized in the thermonuclear activities of our sun. So, I learned that all facts are subject to revision. Amazing !  I already knew that all matter was a "grand illusion" Due to the enormous spaces between atoms and their particles. Nothing is really solid. GOD is awesome!   Everything that exists is "felt" and/or detected due to "fields". Electromagnetic and otherwise.

Dwayne

P S   Nikola Tesla is my hero

Answer
Oh Dear!
(That's all i could think of on the spur of the moment!)
That also means you are in an enviable position.
If life has been kind to you, and you have provided well for yourself, you might pass days regaling yourself with theories.
It is quite addictive, I know.
Regarding the sun having a surface, it is a surface as much as Jupiter has a surface.
It is like the boundary of the earth's atmosphere. Tenuous at first, then at sea level having a pressure of 14 ponds to the aquare inch! (just about 20 km deep).
If the same gas atmosphere were to be a million mile ball of gas, we would be looking at Sol!
Almost 1/3rd all the way down, the sun is so closely packed atom to atom that the hydrogen is metallic and all heat has to be perfoce transmitted in a radiative fashion. (like diffuse red/yellow light emerging from the core of a hot iron piece).
each photon jumping atom to atom (compton scatter) and emerging from the core after a million year journey. (Cosmos, Sagan/ Asimov Opus)
To cap it all, the core is dark! (all energy radiation is in the gamma range, not visible). So a true surface is somewhere deep down at the boundary of the radiative / convective boundary! :)
Something one will never see.
There was this guy who put up a site saying the sun has a ferrite surface etc. For all his bluster, I felled him in one swoop. I sent him a simple question. If the sun were to have all ferrite, WHAT supported the enormous weight of that ferrite. By simple logic, the sun would implode under its own weight, and become a black hole!

He said "I never thought about that, i will be getting back to you soon!". That was sometime in 2001 I think. The site was "The ferrite surface of the sun" or "the surface of the sun" or something like that.here it is..http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/. Check it out.
Another thing is he has totally overlooked spectroscopy.
We know about the solar interior and surface from the light emitted by the convecting gas. There is only so much iron in that light as is to be expected in the relative abundance of elements that make up the solar system.  THAT precisely is the problem of theorising in isolation.
Makes one feel good and superior, but ignorance ALWAYS is bliss, for the ignoramuses, and somewhat of a passing entertainment for others.

But overall I am loving this sparring! my mailid is jupadhye_99@yahoo.com do send in your thoughts, whatever they are, to me. I will always welcome them, and send back something stimulating for you.
By the way we Hindus believe the universe to be a dream of brahma and all matter to come from his mind matter known as "Mahat".
Mahat differentiates into the cosmos at the start of his "dream". And the universe is but a dream for him. 1 day and a night of this being is of immense duration ..refer:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahma
[The lifespan of Brahmā is 100 Brahmā years or 311 trillion, 40 billion human years. At the end of his lifespan, there is a gap of 100 Brahmā years after which another Brahmā or creator begins anew and the process is repeated forever].
Im sure you have seen the movie "Matrix"..the reason it has leaned heavily into hindu philosophy is that like the matrix, the universe according to hindus, is nothing but deformations in Mahat. Gain control of it, and you ARE god! Creating / dissolving things at will ..provided you can control the rippling "after effects"! (Karma).

regards
Jayen