Late Night Philosophy

The Expansion of the Universe

I know I haven't been updating recently, but it's because nothing of much importance has happened. No revelations or inspiration. It's sad, really.

But there's still the fact that I now have 200 views, which is quite excellent.

I do have a point to talk about, though. I remember hearing a cosmologist talking about the expansion of the universe. He's had people ask him what the edge of the universe is and where it is and where the center of the universe is. He gave the analogy of a balloon. Instead of us being inside the balloon as it fills with air and the edge of the universe is the edge of the balloon, we are on the edge of the balloon as it expands. I had accepted that, but I didn't really get what he was saying. Finally, it has occured to me.

Because we are on the outside, there is no border or edge to the universe. I can go in one direction and end back up where I started because there is no center. But how does the universe expand then? The answer, as I understand it, is that space-time itself expands outward. Space-time, of course, is where the laws of physics apply. So while the volume of the universe increses, the border of space-time is right in front of your face. It's just that gravity keeps the clumps of mass together (so the force of expandsion in minimal). It's the strange anti-gravity energy that's doing it, but it really only applies under large-scales. It's culuminative. Out between galaxies is where most of the expansion happens or at least is noticed.

For one, this explaination accounts for how the universe looks so uniform in all directions. The only barrier that stops us from being able to see ourselves off in the distance is the speed of light. We look so far back in time to when light ceased to propogate, so there's a barrier of blackness. Now, no matter what direction we look in, we always see that barrier (or not see it, since it doesn't emit light anyway). It's because of this uniform expansion in all directions.

If any cosmologists read this, tell if I'm least half correct.

"I can't imagine a God who would care."
"Every moment we are alive is a moment that we have cheated Death."
Myself
Please read my journal "Late Night Philosophy"