Thanks to NASA for this image.
My sole purpose in writing this paper is to challenge the assumption that our universe is all there is in the cosmos. It is time to ask the question -
How big is the universe?
It is such a simple and obvious question.
Why bother? Everyone knows that the (observable) universe is 93 billion light years across and you can't do evidence based science beyond that.
It all started 14 billion years ago. There is nothing south of the south pole.
“It is known Kahlesi”.
There are three reasons to ask the question.
It is the biggest question in cosmology.
The time is right. We have a new tool capable of detection beyond our universe.
There are so many unanswered questions. If the cosmos is much bigger and older than our universe then it may explain some of them.
(I’m going to use ‘cosmos’ to mean anything and everything that may be beyond and before the universe which started with our Big Bang.)
As telescopes got bigger and better, the universe also got bigger.
We now know that the sun, planets and stars do not revolve around the Earth. The universe is more than a galaxy of stars we call the Milky Way. Today we know that there are trillions of galaxies each with billions of stars.
The only certainty is that as our instruments improve we find more; more twinklies; more of the dark stuff which dominates our universe.
The universe has always been much bigger than we thought.
We have a totally new technology to investigate the cosmos.
Gravitational Wave Detection
LIGO is a miracle of vision, determination and instrumentation. It took half a century to build. In decades to come this new technology will give us a whole new perspective on our universe - and possibly our cosmos. Just as multiwavelength astronomy has changed our view of the universe, gravity wave astronomy will allow us to look out into the cosmos.
If the universe really is much bigger than we think then gravity wave detection will prove it.
But we will not find it unless we look for it. We have to open our minds to the possibility that it's out there.
We don’t have all the answers
There are gaping voids in our understanding of cosmology.
It was that pie chart showing that we can only explain 5% of the energy budget of the universe which first grabbed my attention. But there are more gaping voids. I don’t need to list them all here. You know what they are.
I want to thank Scott Dodelson of Carnegie Mellon University, for confirming my concerns;
“We’re not sure our current way of thinking [about the universe] is correct because it
essentially requires us to make stuff up , namely dark matter and dark energy. My bet is that we’re looking at things all wrong. Someone who’s 8 years old today is going to come around and figure out how to make sense of all the data without evoking mysterious new substances.”Source- Astronomy, November 8, 2017.
Also, the Buchalter Cosmology Prize 2018
“The Standard Big Bang model has done a remarkable job in explaining many fundamental observations, such as the microwave background (CMB) radiation, the Hubble expansion, primordial element abundances, and more. However many other, seemingly fundamental, observations are not immediately explained by the model.
A few examples include dark matter (introduced to explain large-scale dynamics), inflation (introduced to explain the so-called Horizon Problem), and dark energy (re-introduced to explain the apparent cosmic acceleration).
These examples share a common issue: they explain a phenomenon that is not
understood in the context of an existing theory, by introducing a new idea or
mechanism which itself is not understood and which has no physical motivation to
exist, other than to explain the original phenomenon. In effect, there is a one-to-one
trading of ignorance, so to speak.”
Cosmology:
“the scientific study of the origin, evolution, and eventual fate of the universe” Wikipedia.
The problem with the Standard Big Bang model is that it tells us nothing about the origin, very little about the fate and only explains 5% of the bit in the middle.
Now don’t jump in to defend ΛCDM. It does a great job explaining so much, from that super dense hot plasma to the amazing structure of the universe we see today.
I need another quote - from Professor Stacy McGaugh of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. An extract from his excellent blog tritonstation.com :-
“we should remember that we once endowed SCDM with the same absolute certainty we now attribute to ΛCDM. I was there, 3,000 internet years ago, when SCDM failed. There is nothing so sacred in ΛCDM that it can’t suffer the same fate, as has every single cosmology ever devised by humanity.
Today, we still lack definitive knowledge of either dark matter or dark energy. These add up to 95% of the mass-energy of the universe according to ΛCDM. These dark materials must exist.”
How big is the universe?
I suggest that a big old cosmos may help us answer these fundamental problems we have with our cosmology.
What happened before the Big Bang? Where did all that stuff come from?
Dark Energy - what is it?
How will it all end?
Let's start with the easy one - Dark Energy
Readers will be informed of the current theories on the cause of the accelerating expansion of the universe. The truth is, of course, nobody knows and it shows.
Another Wikipedia definition; not because it's the best, they are all rather embarrassing.
“an unknown form of energy which is hypothesized to permeate all of space, tending to accelerate the expansion of the universe”
From NASA
“More is unknown than is known. We know how much dark energy there is because we know how it affects the universe's expansion. Other than that, it is a complete mystery. But it is an important mystery. It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy.”
I won’t mention the Quantum Catastrophe!
All of the theories start from the same assumption.
I am indebted to Paul Sutter for this statement which I think perfectly sums up the problem.
"As far as we can tell, the universe is totally self-contained. All of its dynamics are governed purely by its interior contents."
There is so much missing in our understanding of the cosmos. I am not challenging the model, nor the maths. I challenge the assumptions.
Look outside of the box. It's time to look over the hill.
The common feature of all of the theories on Dark Energy is that they assume that there must be some force pushing galaxies out into the universe, a kind of negative gravity. It is sometimes amusing, sometimes excruciating to see how these theories try to explain how this force is maintained and not diluted in an expanding universe.
Change the assumption; change the landscape and in a bigger older cosmos these problems disappear.
DON’T PUSH! - PULL!
In a big old cosmos Dark Energy is just gravity, plain, vanilla gravity.
The gravitational pull from a bigger older cosmos.
No new physics; no new particles; no quantum effects; no sleight of hand needed to produce energy from empty space.
Dark Energy is the gravitational pull of the cosmos.
Evidence, evidence I hear the cry!
Evidence of course will not be easy, but unless we look, we shall not find.
The ultimate proof will be gravity waves from beyond our universe originating from the big old cosmos.
It is an enormous challenge but who would not want to be the first to find evidence of a universe beyond ours.
The Hubble Constant
We have tension in cosmology and not for the first time. I refer of course to the tension in Ho. The tension is not only in the value of Ho. There was a conference in Santa Barbara this July with all, or most of the main players. Reiss, Freedman et al. How I would have loved to be a fly on that wall.
If Dark Energy is indeed the gravitational pull of the cosmos then it could explain the different values between the local and early universe measurements. Once again, no new physics, it's just gravity.
There already is an imperative to resolve the tension. Now I do not want to spoil a good fight, but it's possible that they are all right.
I acknowledge that a Dark Energy which increases with time is not proof of cosmic gravity, but it would support it.
If Ho is constant then at least cosmic gravity is falsifiable.
About 6 billion years ago the rate of expansion changed. Instead of slowing down under the force of the gravitational pull from within the universe it changed. It started to increase. Hence we need Dark Energy.
How about this simpler version? When the universe expanded to a size when the gravitational pull from the cosmos exceeded the internal pull of our universe things started to speed up. It is just gravity.
It will continue to speed up in a way which any simple Newtonian model could predict.
Conclusion
So, Dark Energy is the gravitational pull from a cosmos which is much bigger and older than we thought.
Even better it's falsifiable and provable. It is time to give it proper consideration as an assumption which can explain and simplify some of those “fundamental problems”.
In my reading and study I am constantly reminded that the more I learn, I realise how little I know. Many or all of my conclusions may be wrong but I am confident that my question is the right one -
HOW BIG IS THE UNIVERSE?
Notes
It is interesting to speculate on how the Big Cosmos landscape would answer some of the other big unknowns, but also challenge some of the givens of the standard cosmology.
I suggest that by assuming a Big Cosmos a new, much simpler view of our universe is possible.
Thought Experiment
Before we ‘shut up and calculate’ let's play the game and have a think. There will be plenty of time for calculation if it looks like a good idea.
The Expansion of the Universe.
Until 20 years ago we did not need an expanding universe. Until then the acceleration of the galaxies was assumed to be slowing under the gravitational pull of our universe. The concept of an expansion of space was only needed to explain the acceleration of galaxies out into space.
In Big Cosmos the explanation is again rather obvious. Movement through the cosmos is determined by gravity. No need for Expansion.
There is no expansion of space - it's just gravity.
Cosmological Redshift
It would be more accurate to describe it as the Gravitational Redshift; the gravitational pull of the cosmos. It's not Expansion which is redshifting the light from distant galaxies it's gravity.
Now this will have some implications for the calculation of true cosmological speeds and possibly the size and age of the universe.
'Honey, I shrunk the universe!'
The origins and fate of the universe
So how do we explain where all this stuff came from?
We can extrapolate our universe back to a small dense hot ball of plasma but then it all gets a bit fuzzy. We apologies to the many theories trying to explain where all this stuff came from. My advice to them is another quote. This time from the old Scot who was asked the way to Aberdeen. His answer was simple “ You’ll no want to start from here.”
If you assume that our universe is all there is then you may be starting from the wrong place. Change the assumptions and it's much easier.
So what does the Big Cosmos theory say about the origin and fate of the universe?
Well, our fate is sealed.
Under the gravitational pull of the cosmos we are accelerating out towards the black cosmos.
I going to assume a flat universe because that is what the evidence suggests.
We can rule out the “Big Crunch” as it is usually understood. There is no going back. Neither will there be a “Big Freeze” as our universe is not expanding out into the infinite cold cosmos.
The fate of the galaxies of our universe is to come under the gravitational control of the big black masses out there. Some will get the “Big Rip” as they are drawn into the black holes of the cosmos. Others will remain as clusters orbiting the cosmic scale black hole they were drawn to.
Whether this is preferable to the usual fates is a matter of personal choice! I like to think of it just as a redistribution of the energy of the universe. Not an “end” of the universe but part of the cyclical nature of the cosmos. I like a happy ending.
The origin?
We'll something very big went 'bang'. So the Big Bang was well named after all.
Black holes
I am old enough to remember the time before black holes. They have come a long way since then. Their role in our universe just gets bigger and bigger. Black holes are here to stay! To put it very simply; stars and galaxies come and go but black holes grow and grow.
When we imagine what could be out there in the Big Cosmos then massive black holes are a good candidate. The origins and fate of our universe may be explained by black holes. It's how we started and where we are going.
How did the smbhs at the centre of our galaxies get so big?
Is Dark Matter primordial black holes?
OK it's pure speculation, as is this -
The stuff of the cosmos is Black Holes. Our universe is only a temporary, excited state of Black Matter (not a typo). We came from Black Matter and will return to Black Matter. Our universe is nought but a firework in the timeline of the cosmos.
Game over.
HOW BIG IS THE UNIVERSE?