Here is a crazy thought - well, maybe more radical than crazy. That is to say, here is something I have never heard before. Perhaps it is new. I doubt I am the first to think of it. I am probably also not the first to express this thought. As the Internet has shown all of us, whatever batshit nonsense someone can come up with, there are likely many others out there who have also thought the same thing. So here it is:
Scientists say the Universe is expanding. OK. When I hear that, in my mind's eye I picture an even expansion either two-dimensionally on a plane or in all directions like the Death Star getting destroyed. But what if neither of those is true?
Last night I was lying in bed, scrolling through Twitter while fighting a losing battle against sleep. As I drifted in and out of consciousness I scrolled up to a picture of Yosemite Falls. The picture made me think of aliens. Also, eating toast or watching my grass grow makes me think of aliens but that is a whole other story. In this case, I thought more specifically of the Universe. I pondered the question, is the Universe really expanding or is the Universe falling? What if we were flowing down a waterfall or a Space Falls?
Is the Universe Falling?
We have all heard the the theory that our planet may be an atom in someone else's Universe. Some would even say the Sun is the atom and all the planets in our solar system are electrons flying around it. It is an interesting thought to ponder but you would have to be puffing on some serious stuff to actually believe it. Still, that kind of free thinking opens the mind to entertain new ideas. Humans do not know everything - we barely know how to make popcorn in an office microwave without making the whole building smell like burnt popcorn; how are we supposed to solve the mysteries of the Universe?
Back to my premise, last night I looked at that picture of Yosemite Falls and all sorts of ideas began to swirl in my mind like the swirling drops of water falling from the Falls. My half-asleep mind overlaid the Universe on the Falls. I pictured our planet as a drop of water, swirling around other drops of water, among our galaxy and an infinite number of other galaxies. All these galactic particles were falling at the same rate and in the same general direction and yet they were expanding away from each other at the same time.
In the picture of Yosemite Falls, the water starts in a narrow channel at the top and ends in a wide spray at the bottom. It is like the scatter-shot of a shotgun except the water is not being propelled by an explosive force, it is simply falling due to gravity. As the water falls it expands out in every direction. It goes a little more to the left, right, and straight ahead than it does to the back, and some portions of the water shoot off in an unpredictable manner. This could be due to wind or to the shape of the exit chute above.
If the Universe were the same, to us it would seem like everything was expanding away from an initial source. Perhaps then, the Big Bang was not an explosion after all. Perhaps something is causing the Universe to be drawn in a certain direction like gravity draws water off a cliff. We would not be aware of what is outside the Falls. We would only observe water, like an astronomer observes space.
There would be finite boundaries to our Universe in this scenario. These boundaries are not physical; nothing would constrain us from penetrating the boundaries of the Universe other than Newtonian principles. Occasionally "a drop of space" would drift away from the path on a gust of wind. But for the most part all particles of our Universe would adhere to each other while also expanding away from each other.
In the picture, the water that is farthest from the top is expanding farther than the water at the top. If our Universe were the same, would it seem like the expansion is increasing in velocity the farther we got from The Source? Is our Universe not expanding at a more rapid rate as time goes on? Perhaps this rate is relative.
What would be The Source, in this case? A water source is derived from a weather cycle. Are there similar cycles in space? Perhaps, rather than everything expanding from a single point, the "weather" cycles of space eventually bring everything back to that "mountain stream" where we have perceived the Big Bang to have taken place. My Möbius Universe theory could be adapted to accommodate this new Space Falls theory, congruently.
What happens when the waterfall expands to the point that there are air pockets in the stream? Is this the Dark Matter that Science (whoever that is) has observed in space, pockets of an outside substance seeping into our ever expanding drift from The Source.
We're gonna need a bigger boat
If this were all true, what consequences does this bestow upon space travel? If we wanted to travel away from The Source it would be easy. We would just need a ship. Our ship would be buoyant in the Falls, in a weightless environment similar to that created by a Reduced-Gravity Aircraft, also known as a "Vomit Comet" where there is gravity but its effects are not felt. Perhaps in space, it is not really a zero-gravity environment. Rather, there is a tremendous amount of gravity - we just cannot feel it because everything we know is within the stream, all falling and expanding somewhat in unison (though, not quite).
Traveling towards The Source would be another story. In this case we would need a ship that could in a sense fight gravity. A rocket-propelled ship could travel to other water particles in our Space Falls but there would be extremely low limits on its range. Eventually, the ship would run out of fuel or its occupants would die of old age. Current technology would not ever allow us to reach The Source by traveling towards it.
We could, conceivably, reach The Source by traveling away from it. If we view our Space Falls as part of either a space weather system or as something like a Möbius Strip, traveling in the direction of the fall/flow would eventually transport us back to The Source. But that could literally take forever. There would have to be a better way. After all, aliens can get here and leave here. If they can get from there to here (wherever there is) we know that somebody solved the problem.
If you stand at the top of a waterfall, right near the edge, your face will get wet. How does that happen? As water shoots off the cliff, scattering in every direction, some drops of water get mistified. Gentle winds may then carry these droplets of mist in the opposite direction of gravity, back towards The Source, or even in an entirely different direction. Could similar processes be at work in space? Is there a way to escape the Flow of space expansion and ride a breeze (or preferably a gust of wind) back towards The Source or away from The Flow to a whole other Flow?
I have never been a fan of the Multiverse theory but what if these concepts are related? Yosemite Falls is not the only waterfall in the world, and certainly not the only river. What if these Space Falls were all over the place, all part of a space ecosystem, eventually flowing out to a space sea?
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Thank you for reading and keep an eye on the sky.
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