LadyButterfly she/herNov 17
Confirmed
Show threadicylobsterNov 17

I think this is the article: the-independent.com/…/hubble-space-telescope-nasa…

Issue seems to continue to be with discrepancies in the rate of the universe’s expansion.

“There is a key difference between the rate of the expansion of the universe as it is around us, when compared with observations from right after the Big Bang”.

“Scientists are unable to explain that discrepancy. But it suggests there is “something weird” going in our universe, that could be the result of unknown, new physics, Nasa says”.

New Hubble Space Telescope data suggests ‘something weird’ is going with our universe, Nasa says

Astronomers remain unclear about how the cosmos is expanding

The Independent
Show threadMultiplexerNov 17
More recent most promising theory, that could explain it, seems to be that the universe is just spinning somewhat.
There go the “unknown, new physics”, if this proves to be correct…
Show threadvorticNov 17

Two questions:

  • Why would we think otherwise considering that everything in the universe seems to rotate from galactic clusters to galaxies to black holes to stars to planets to the brains of physicists trying to reconcile relativity and quantum?
  • Does the math actually work out? If so, is there a known constant for the angular momentum of the universe that would explain what we’re seeing?
    • Show threadSmokeyDopeNov 17
  • Rotation is meaningless without an external reference frame to compare against. Consider that right now the planet were on is rotating at ~1000km/h but to us it feels stationary. We only know the planet rotates because we observe the sun,moon,stars rotate around us (which ancient peoples misunderstood as earth-centerism thinking everything rotates around us)
  • Rotation requires a center axis to rotate around. There is no true center to our observable universe, only subjective perspective reference frames. wherever you are is the center from your perspective. There is no definitive geometric center axis of our universe to rotate around.
    • Show threadapplebusch

  • No it’s not. You can tell you’re rotating using internal sensors alone, unlike linear velocity. Just because the magnitude of the earth’s rotation is small compared to our biological sense of rotation doesn’t mean rotation is relative the same way linear motion is. You’re drawing a false connection between the fact that you can’t tell if you’re accelerating under gravity or not to rotation, which is fundamentally different. Also you don’t rotate with units of linear velocity, but with units of angular velocity. The earth rotates at about 0.0042 deg/s, which is very slow. You rotate many orders of magnitude faster than that rolling over in bed or turning your head.

  • The universe having a nonzero total angular momentum does indeed imply an axis of rotation, but our theories don’t explicitly rule that out. Given the size of the universe, the rate of rotation would be inconceivably small compared to the earth, and extremely difficult to measure. Most of my problem with your statements on this point is you’re assuming current hypotheses to be confirmed fact set in stone, which is not true.

    • Nov 17 at 5:45pmWeb