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Is it possible that things in the universe are shrinking rather than moving away from each other?

Hypothetically Let’s say everything lost 1% of its size/mass/energy every 12 months. From our perspective, because everything was shrinking we wouldn’t notice but if all of the objects were in a finite space it would appear that the objects were physically moving apart.

The smaller everything got the faster that expansion would seem to be happening. This seems a good explanation for the mystery of why the expansion of the universe appears to be accelerating against the known laws of physics.

Is it possible that things in the universe are shrinking rather than moving away from each other? Hypothetically Let’s say everything lost 1% of its size/mass/energy every 12 months. From our perspective, because everything was shrinking we wouldn’t notice but if all of the objects were in a finite space it would appear that the objects were physically moving apart. The smaller everything got the faster that expansion would seem to be happening. This seems a good explanation for the mystery of why the expansion of the universe appears to be accelerating against the known laws of physics.

(post is archived)

[–] • 2 pts

It's not possible. Our detection of expansion is not based on the apparent size of other objects in the Universe, it's based off of things like . We can accurately guage distances to faraway galaxies using things like stars.

In other words, we know for a fact that the Universe is currently expanding and the farther away something is from us the faster it is moving away from us.

[–] • 1 pt

We know for a fact that there's a redshift but we guess it's because things are moving farther away. No one's out there checking.

[–] • 0 pt

We know for a fact that there's a redshift but we guess it's because things are moving farther away. No one's out there checking proposed a different theory that better explains the observation that the more distant a galaxy the larger its redshift.

FTFY

[–] • 1 pt

Just because no one's proposed a better theory doesn't mean the current one is correct. No one's out there checking that the stars are actually moving, it's basically a religion at this point counting angels dancing on pinheads.

[+] [deleted] • 0 pt
[–] • 0 pt

But I have always wondered, expanding towards what? What is there beyond the edge of the universe...

[–] • 1 pt

That's the confusing part. You're mind has a terrible time with "nothing." Nothing doesn't mean empty space, it means nothing. There isn't anything to expand into. Even if there was it's impossible for us to know anything about it, and it's impossible for it to have any influence on our physical universe unless the speed of light is not constant.

[–] • 0 pt

Rather of thinking of it as "nothing" I would rather view it as "devoid of anything" as it is easier to wrap your head around, but yeah, even then it is impossible for us to understand the concept of "nothingness".

I have this weird theory where the universe isn't expanding so much as it is being "sucked" from the outside, like how a ballon inflates inside a low air pressure room.

[–] • 1 pt

we are in the expolsion right now.. just like a firecracker

[–] • 1 pt

Hypothetically Let’s say everything lost 1% of its size/mass/energy every 12 months.

If that was true, the universe would be filled with White/brown dwarf stars and the excess energy/matter would have to go somewhere. The rate of expansion of the universe is greater than could be explained by a 1% per year shrinkage (which wouldn't be linear by the way). It's not a good explanation as you say simply because it doesn't scale correctly or match observations.

Stars would fail below a certain mass and we don't see that happening unless another star or black hole is feeding on them. Also the lowered gravitation of massive objects would greatly changes their orbital or galactic mechanics. Again we are not observing any such effects. The expansion of space-time fits well with the observations we have made. It's not a perfect match but it certainly doesn't have the problems a shrinking object theory has.

[–] • 0 pt

The 1% figure was a number pulled out of my butt to use as an example.

I don’t mean if objects shed mass, I mean what if the mass actually shrinks at atomic levels?

We in the universe would not notice any difference in size because it would be relative to our own shrinkage.

To notice the difference you would need to be outside the observable universe looking in and what you would see is every object shrinking while staying stationary which would cause the distance between the objects to get bigger

[–] [deleted] • 1 pt

We can measure the baryon acoustic oscillations formed in the CMB (cosmic microwave background) at the last moment of the cosmic dark ages, when the temperature of the universe finally fell below a threshold to allow atomic nuclei to capture electrons (recombination) and photons could travel freely. Basically an imprint left on the CMB, way back around 300k years after the "big bang."

We can measure the properties of baryons as they were when recombination occurred, and it tells us the particle masses haven't changed since then.

[–] • 0 pt

Lol, that’s retarded. Some fag in a lab coat told you that and it sounded cool… so you instantly believed it.

[–] • 1 pt

Mathfag mostly, but IIRC the shift of light indicates motion away. I'm not sure whether earth shrinking would cause spectral shift.

[–] • 1 pt

Matter/energy has never been observed "going away".

[–] • 0 pt

It is the light reflecting off of the matter

[–] • 0 pt

Measuring instruments would show the shrinkage, esp. the ones used by engineers to build dams etc

[–] • 0 pt

We can measure the number of atoms and we can measure atomic mass. 1 mole = 1 mole. Nothing has changed in over 200 years, so the number of atoms are not changing.

Could the atoms be all shrinking in a uniform way? If so, the wavelength of light shrinks with it.

I would need something to measure against?

[–] • 0 pt

Yes!!! Could everything be shrinking in a uniform way? Would this account for everything seeming to be moving away from everything at the same time?