Starship Asterisk*

Hello All,

Just as ocean waves pull back a volume of water in front of them, for instance a tsunami that exposes the seabed before going inland, do energy waves in space occillate the spacetime fabric resulting in the space medium being stretched in reverse just ahead of the wave? The lower frequencies causing less rapid and longer back and forth stretching. That, to me, would result in redshifts variations that only give the appearance of greater speeds and distances. If that would be the case, then Gravity wells may play a greater roll in creating an illusion of accelerated expansion than we realize, speaking specifically as a result of spacetime curvature, not what we perceive as a more linear type of expansion. My point then, could the diameter of the detectable Universe then be smaller than estimated? Is this "Einsteinian"? And is this a possible explanation of how EM gets from one place to another, more like an alternating current?

I don't think I could stuff any more into a paragraph if I tried!

Hello All,

I was contemplating this idea and arrived at this:

With the concept of an alternating spacetime medium for transmitting EM and Gravity waves there follows the perishable thought that ends this way: no Big Bang may needed- the Universe could indeed be infinte, at least in the sense of Time. Could be why we see fully developed Galaxies at 13.2 billion years ago.

astrolabe wrote:Hello All,

Just as ocean waves pull back a volume of water in front of them, for instance a tsunami that exposes the seabed before going inland, do energy waves in space occillate the spacetime fabric resulting in the space medium being stretched in reverse just ahead of the wave? The lower frequencies causing less rapid and longer back and forth stretching. That, to me, would result in redshifts variations that only give the appearance of greater speeds and distances. If that would be the case, then Gravity wells may play a greater roll in creating an illusion of accelerated expansion than we realize, speaking specifically as a result of spacetime curvature, not what we perceive as a more linear type of expansion. My point then, could the diameter of the detectable Universe then be smaller than estimated? Is this "Einsteinian"? And is this a possible explanation of how EM gets from one place to another, more like an alternating current?

What are "energy waves"?

EM doesn't stretch space; gravity waves are the cyclic distortion of space. That distortion would produce an oscillation in redshift, but the effect would be tiny and it would very over a short time cycle, so the effect would average to zero. I can't think of any mechanism by which the distortion of space by gravity waves could cause the redshift effect we associate with distance (which is, of course, caused by the ongoing expansion of space).

Gravity does distort space, but that doesn't change the redshift of light passing through "gravity wells". That's because the light is blueshifted falling down the well, and redshifted coming back up, for a net change of zero. Only light originating in a deep gravity well is measurably redshifted, and it typically requires a deep well indeed- very near the surface of a white dwarf, neutron star, or black hole. So there's no reason to think that the redshift-distance relationship is based on static gravity wells, either.

astrolabe wrote:With the concept of an alternating spacetime medium for transmitting EM and Gravity waves there follows the perishable thought that ends eith this: no Big Bang needed- the Universe is infinte, at least in the sense of Time. Could be why we see fully developed Galaxies at 13.2 billion years ago.

Why is a Big Bang a problem? It seems no less reasonable than an infinitely old Universe.

We see galaxies just a few hundred million years after the BB because that's how long it takes galaxies to form- a view supported by several theories and consistent with simulations. The existence of early galaxy formation is not a problem for the existing BB models.

Hello Chris,

Thanks for responding. Energy waves in the sense of say visible light which which although narrow on the EM spectrum is nonetheless one form. I've been turning over the concept of massless particles for some time now and trying to formulate something concrete in my head to explain them and how they get around this Universe of ours and the only thing I can come up with that makes sense to me is that EM does't really "travel" anywhere. It may just vibrate spacetime and so might Gravity. In other words a graviton or a photon doesn't necessarilly have to actually exist as a vehicle. Magnetism apparently does't need one and I feel that perhaps no other kind of force needs one either. It helps me to better understand the double slit experiment that supposedly results in a third area of light due to phasing. Photons vibrate space in all directions and just as one can get multiple sound frequencies out of one speaker then why not multiple frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum in one spacetime fabric in all directions. The different frequencies sometimes phased sometimes not WRT modulations.

Now I know that a lot of cosmology is not intuitive and this idea may well indeed fall into that catagory (hopefully not crackpot!) but maybe I can garnish some credit for trying so the Forum didn't think I was just sitting here in good ole' Maine doin' nuthin'.

Hello Chris,

Chris Peterson wrote:Why is a Big Bang a problem? It seems no less reasonable than an infinitely old Universe.

Certainly reasonable! Like I've said before I only have singularity issues with BB theory. No biggie. I'm not against the idea at all, I was extending an idea that seemed to logocally conclude in an infinte solution as part of an exercise in reasoning out the transfer of EM through space via massless particles.

astrolabe wrote:I've been turning over the concept of massless particles for some time now and trying to formulate something concrete in my head to explain them and how they get around this Universe of ours and the only thing I can come up with that makes sense to me is that EM does't really "travel" anywhere.

You might be making things more complicated by thinking of photons as massless. In fact, they are not massless. A photon has a rest mass of zero, but this is a mathematical concept- a photon is never at rest. A real photon is always moving at c and has a finite energy, meaning it has momentum and behaves in all respects as a particle with mass.

astrolabe wrote:Like I've said before I only have singularity issues with BB theory.

Generally, when you encounter a singularity in a theory, it is a sign that you're operating in a realm where the theory breaks down. It's entirely likely that this is the case with most BB theories. In other words, there need not have been any physical singularity at the beginning, we simply lack the physical theory necessary to describe what the state of the Universe actually was. This shouldn't be surprising, since we already know that our physics breaks down during the first fraction of a second after the BB; it would be odd if the theory were good at t=0, bad for a bit after that, and then good again!

Hello Chris,

Could it be said that a photon vibrates it's energy through the space medium at c? I mean after all, between the point source and target, photons are more like dark energy because like EM in general visibile light is anything BUT visible when between it's moments of emission and absorption. So, for the purposes of discussion only, does "visible" light really travel? I'm not talking about the complexities of String Theory and the vibratory nature of it at the quantum level but more wrt to the physics of space being a more benign and passive environment that responds to energy by occilation as opposed to letting it just "pass through. I think a more homogenous energy wave of whatever frequency is perhaps more likely to emminate in an infinite number of directions from a source through a medium than as a particle-massless or not. It could be the reason that light and other energies are limited to the velocity of c.

Hello Chris,

Extremely well said, thanks for staying with me on this and being patient. I do have more thoughts on the matter but the general concept I believe is fairly formed. I hope this doesn't look like I've fall into the Newtonian "ether" trap.

Hope your Holiday was good.

Hi astrolabe

Are you saying, space time conducts light, just like electrics.

Hello mark swain,

Yes, at the micro cosmic level because as everyone knows a photon is extremely small so billions can come from a lightbulb. The tranfer of energy from one place to another usually incorporates a medium such as sound through air and whale songs through water so why not light energy through a space fabric. All I can say about my thoughts on the matter have already been said to a degree.

For example electrons in an alternating current utilize the electrons already present in a wire so why couldn't photons and Gravity waves along with other electromagnetic frequencies use something like the CMBR to get the wave energy from a star to our eyes or a telescope or some other reflective/absortive object like the Moon. Photons are invisible except at the source of generation or reflection even though they propagate in all directions- so is the fabric of spacetime. The velocity of c would then be determined by the space medium which would have to be an all-pervasive constant. It takes sunlight about eight minutes to get here-why?

AND I could completely wacko for this line of thinking!!!!

astrolabe wrote:Extremely well said, thanks for staying with me on this and being patient. I do have more thoughts on the matter but the general concept I believe is fairly formed. I hope this doesn't look like I've fall into the Newtonian "ether" trap.

The real trap I think you're falling into is what I call the "billiard ball fallacy". It's what happens when you try to align parts of nature with what we grasp intuitively (the behavior of billiard balls colliding on a table). At the quantum level, which is where we are when discussing photons, these kinds of rules simply don't apply. You can reasonably say that a photon is a carrier of energy, but you can't say it oscillates, or vibrates, or requires some sort of carrier. All you can do is apply the well understood rules of QM to describe and predict its behavior. Trying to relate its physicality to something we experience in our daily life is going to be problematic.

Hello Chris,

Yes I fully understand what you're saying. But to set the record straight I wasn't really saying that photons occillate or vibrate. I was saying that the transfer of energy was through the space fabric which does occillate or vibrate according to whatever frequency across the EM spectrum contacts it. In any case it's a moot point because in reality it probably doen't occur in this manner but it was fun while it lasted or maybe I'm just giving up on the argument to easily. Ya think?

Anyway I'm on to the time travel thread for the time being. I will, however, be giving this idea more thought. BTW the idea of time travel to me is stupid. I mean, when one thinks seriously about it, what would be the point?

In parting I can leave you with this thought: Because photons (in the classic particle sense) are invisible between points of departure and arrival the Universe will never be "lit up" as some might suppose it would be, even given enough time for all the light to reach us. All the sources will still be well-defined points. Although in the trillions the relative sizes of those points sources would be the main factor in keeping space dark. Thanks again for your input here.

astrolabe wrote:In parting I can leave you with this thought: Because photons (in the classic particle sense) are invisible between points of departure and arrival the Universe will never be "lit up" as some might suppose it would be, even given enough time for all the light to reach us.

That sounds like a truism: we can't observe a photon until we observe it. What isn't "invisible" when it isn't observed? Like any particle- or even any macroscopic object- we observe it when it interacts in some way with our senses, directly or indirectly.

astrolabe wrote:Yes, at the micro cosmic level because as everyone knows a photon is extremely small so billions can come from a lightbulb. The tranfer of energy from one place to another usually incorporates a medium such as sound through air and whale songs through water so why not light energy through a space fabric. All I can say about my thoughts on the matter have already been said to a degree.

In the morning, the sun comes up. your whole world is bathed in light. Light every where.

When the sun goes down, your whole world is bathed in dark.

A billion billion billion billion stars does not scare the dark away. Why?

I doubt photons work like electric, astrolabe, unless something undiscovered is at work.

mark swain wrote:A billion billion billion billion stars does not scare the dark away. Why?

Olber's Paradox

Rob

rstevenson wrote:

mark swain wrote:A billion billion billion billion stars does not scare the dark away. Why?

Olber's Paradox

Rob

Mainly because photons travel in a straight line and disperse as they leave their source (Their density becomes 1/2 as their distance doubles)
And there is so much empty space between stars.

Hello mark swain,

BMAONE23 wrote:And there is so much empty space between stars.

This is true so there's not a whole lot out there to reflect photons.

astrolabe wrote: Oscillation

Could it be said that a photon vibrates it's energy through the space medium at c? I mean after all, between the point source and target, photons are more like dark energy because like EM in general visibile light is anything BUT visible when between it's moments of emission and absorption. So, for the purposes of discussion only, does "visible" light really travel?

This is an interesting thought. That light actually does not move but egnites a passage as a light pulse or any wave energy is transmitted.
It is revealing the mind, real creative. In that moment of wave creation from an Atom, you will already read the algorithm infront of your eyes, hence forsee its destination, frequency, and energy, or plan it out.

The light wave can not be seen from beside, unless it refracts in molecules, a lightstream on a backdrop of smoke.
In vacuum, light is invisible unless it hits your eye. But it does travel, if not fixed to a Higgs grid, the signal uses animate time to cover distances. Light is invisible when you don see it.

Sea waves that tip over, is a real interesting idea. I do not think one single wave can tip, but I think it can be modulated into clever shapes. To bend the spacetime fabric so that the EM currence is superresonating. On another axis of distortion. If you spacetime bend a Electromagnetic sound or light currence into a helix loop and see what happens. A galactic generator of supersymmetry.