Being a simple layperson, much of cosmological theory seems unnecessarily complex to me at first glance. I've come to realize that much of this is because each field of science has its own language.

The "M" theory I was just learning about on the Science Channel, actually has many similarities to a post I once made entitled "gravity as an emission". However, mine was written in terms the average 10th grader could easily understand. The jist of my post was that gravity is composed of ridiculously small particles (for lack of a better word) that are produced as matter breaks down at the center of every larger system or particle. The gravity particles displace the medium that provides bouyancy to matter (also composed of particles much smaller than we can observe) much as the co2 from an alka seltzer or crystalline methane exposure does to water. It's a very strong effect close up and rapidly diminishes over distance as the particles are dispersed.

I imagine the relative motion of objects in the universe as the effect of variances in pressure from point to point, with everything moving toward lower density with respect to itself (nobody likes to feel crowded). I don't think conventional science differs much from that view, it just uses insanely complicated mathematical mechanisms to explain the same observation. One thing that bothered me was that for the universe to have ever changing pressure variances throughout, there must be something outside it stirring things up. Otherwise, it would eventually reach an equilibrium state. Then I read about "dark flow" and eureeka...an outside object exerting force. Problem solved. (if there's one, there's likely many more. There are very few "one of a kinds" in the universe)

It would be interesting to see what might result from a collaboration of cosmologists, meteorologists, electrical engineers, software engineers and experts from other various fields, all thinking and talking in plain English rather than the particular lingo of their own professions.

another example: Just saw yet another discusssion of "spacetime" which always gets my goat, because to the average ignoramous like myself, space and time outside the context of stuff has no meaning. Time is the relative motion of stuff and space is the volume in which it sits. If you see a volume of space with no stuff, that's a failure of perceptive ability, not "empty space".

There was a discussion of how time "slows down" near a black hole. That's because the activity within the confines of a space ship are much slower when compared to the activity of stuff near a black hole than when compared to the motion of stuff not near a black hole. Your relative motion slows down. No kidding. Then there's the notion of space being "stretched". No it isn't. Stuff is stretched. The density of gravity particles near a black hole is much greater than not near a black hole, so there's less room for other stuff.

Spacetime isn't a rubber sheet like thing. It's a description of the condition and relative motion of stuff in a given volume. You can't productively ponder them by themselves because they don't exist by themselves.

yeah, I know, I'm talking to myself, but I'm on a roll. Regarding the "beginning" of the universe. At one point, the theory goes, the universe was a big dense ball of something. Then it all came apart. Doesn't it stand to reason that what we call the universe was not an isolated entity sitting in a void, but a particle traveling through some medium. The condition of the medium through which we were traveling suddenly changed dramatically.

What happens to an object traveling at very high speed that gets too close to say, Jupiter? It breaks apart. Perhaps what once was our little universe particle got to close to something much more massive and did so at incredible speed. Now the debri is in a much different environment than that from which it came. Dark flow seems to fit nicely into this scenario in that we are still moving toward whatever it was that tore us apart in the first place. Or maybe we wandered between two supermassive objects, or three, or a whole system (our universe could be the asteroid belt or the ort cloud of a much larger system).

In any case, I don't buy the idea that whatever you want to call the pre-big bang universe spontaneously exploded. Something changed. The logical suspect is the medium through which it was traveling.

It's easier to imagine the big picture in a familiar manner when you step outside our Earth-centric and even universe-centric notions of size and relative velocity. For example, we say that nothing can surpass the speed of light. Maybe that's simply because above the speed of light, things break down into the stuff of the medium (whatever that is) and the individual entities within that stuff are much smaller than we have imagined, traveling at speeds we can't comprehend and have no math to deal with. I think the universe is both much larger and much smaller than we know.

Hi, Edward; long time no see! Welcome to the forum! :)

Ed said:

Just saw yet another discusssion of "spacetime" which always gets my goat, because to the average ignoramous like myself, space and time outside the context of stuff has no meaning.

Well, I think the discussion is in different terms than what you might be thinking of. This is how I understand it, anyway:

* Space affects the objects in it and vice versa
* It is not supposed to be some static rubber sheet; otherwise there would be a preferred frame of reference
* The conjugation with time is an effect of holding light speed constant for all observers and assigning gravity to a geometry of space
* In "spacetime", your velocity is always constant, but it's a four-part vector (x, y, z, time)
* Higher slopes in the geometry of space shift the magnitude of the space vector (x, y, z) and into the time vector
* That interdependence leads to them calling it "spacetime"

Ed said:

The density of gravity particles near a black hole is much greater than not near a black hole, so there's less room for other stuff.

It's not quite so simple as that. There is actually quite a wealth of particulate gravity hypotheses, including LeSage/"push" gravity hypotheses, which require that some absorption take place (or else no gravity 'well' takes place).

I haven't seen any "plain" gravity particle hypotheses for quite a while - certainly none that would squeeze apart the interstices of ordinary matter. Mind you, that's as likely to be from me not looking as anything - is there someone's hypothesis you're using for reference?

Ed said:

What happens to an object traveling at very high speed that gets too close to say, Jupiter? It breaks apart. Perhaps what once was our little universe particle got to close to something much more massive and did so at incredible speed.

I'm not sold on the BB these days because of all the theoretical backfill going on, but such hypotheses are possible. One thing that always intrigues me about particle formation from energy is that it seems to require either proximity to charge or proximity to other energy to produce particles; gamma rays can travel for a very long time without incident. It would seem to be that the charge, or in the case of energy, the oscillating E-M field, are required to separate the produced components, or prevent them going back together again, or both, or perhaps the field twist helps spur it on in the first place.

That might be analogous to what you're proposing.

As an aside, how are you doing? :)

Hi Ritchie,

I'm doing well. Hope you are too. I enjoy these forums, mainly because you all are very tolerant of a non-science guy putting his two-cents in.

I'm sure in the world of math, considering time and space as entities unto themselves works fine. In real life though, I think they are defined by the stuff that gives rise to them. My analogy is considering "inside" and "outside" with no container as a reference.

I know the notion that there was activity within a much larger system prior to the big bang is not popular, because it raises the question, where did the "extra-universal" or "pre-universal" stuff come from? But, the fact that our universe probably wasn't the first thing in existence is inconvenient, doesn't make it any less likely. I just don't think that a point of super condensed material sitting in a void that suddenly, spontaneously blew apart rings true.

Ritchie said:

Well, I think the discussion is in different terms than what you might be thinking of. This is how I understand it, anyway:

* Space affects the objects in it and vice versa
* It is not supposed to be some static rubber sheet; otherwise there would be a preferred frame of reference
* The conjugation with time is an effect of holding light speed constant for all observers and assigning gravity to a geometry of space
* In "spacetime", your velocity is always constant, but it's a four-part vector (x, y, z, time)
* Higher slopes in the geometry of space shift the magnitude of the space vector (x, y, z) and into the time vector
* That interdependence leads to them calling it "spacetime"

Any change in x,y and or z is a movement along the "time" vector. This can only be experienced through the observation of something other than the target (or yourself, if that's what we're using as a reference"). Another way to look at time is simply a recognition or observation of change, any change. The smallest unit of time then, would be "one observation" or if you're looking at it from a programmers point of view, a single change in a bit of data.

Another way to look at the universe or the reality we perceive, is a giant collection of data streams. The movement of data being time and a snapshot of any particular intersection of data streams being a moment. Matter is relatively stable data set, that more or less travels together.

But enough trippy stuff, gotta get back to work. Thanks for playing along.

Ritchie: "It's not quite so simple as that. There is actually quite a wealth of particulate gravity hypotheses, including LeSage/"push" gravity hypotheses, which require that some absorption take place (or else no gravity 'well' takes place).

I haven't seen any "plain" gravity particle hypotheses for quite a while - certainly none that would squeeze apart the interstices of ordinary matter. Mind you, that's as likely to be from me not looking as anything - is there someone's hypothesis you're using for reference?"

Nope, just little old me. You say absorbtion, I say precipitation. Tomato, tomaato. Maybe the little gravity buggers, in the right environment, combine with each other or with other tiny little critters and become matter or some form of energy. Just as H2O has very different properties than H or O, the combination of some tiny little entities could have very different properties from the components.

Ritchie: "I'm not sold on the BB these days because of all the theoretical backfill going on, but such hypotheses are possible. One thing that always intrigues me about particle formation from energy is that it seems to require either proximity to charge or proximity to other energy to produce particles; gamma rays can travel for a very long time without incident. It would seem to be that the charge, or in the case of energy, the oscillating E-M field, are required to separate the produced components, or prevent them going back together again, or both, or perhaps the field twist helps spur it on in the first place.

That might be analogous to what you're proposing."

Right, (on the gamma ray thing). Back to my vision of time being "change". There was a "pre universe" or " pre big bang" state, and then there wasn't. Something changed. Time took place. Time is relative. Relative to what? It's an observation of one thing relative to another. That necessitates an other.