Re: Dark Matter, dark eneggy, & conservation

From: Ron McFarland <RonMcF.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2003 18:46:34 -0800

Greetings, Brent. Thanks for joining the conversation!

On 8 Nov 2003 at 14:37, Brent Meeker wrote:
> I think you are misinterpreting inflation. The cosmological
>constant produces an inflationary pressure that's proportional to
>volume, so over large distances it dominates over gravity. But over
>shorter distances, i.e. galaxy clusters, gravity dominates. Since
>gravity dominates, the matter in the cluster doesn't move apart and
>gravity continues to dominate. Other clusters that are moving away
>experience greater expansion force and move away faster as gravity
>weakens due to distance. Of course it is not known whether the
>acceleration observed is due to a cosmological *constant* or due to
>some field that may dynamically depend on other variables and so
>change or go to zero.

I think that's the same viewpoint that Joao is putting forth? Then
the counter to my argument is that their can be no inflation within
regions of the universe where the force of gravity is above a
threshold value? That is a strong counter argument.

I am not convinced that any value of gravity can stop inflation. Slow
it locally, yes, and even slow it dramatically. I can not argue
against that unless dark energy suddenly came into being everywhere
and all at once when the universe was something around 5 billion
years old. But I think it was there all along and from the moment of
creation of the universe. It's just a matter of how it gets expressed
when mitigating circumstances are specified.

Instead I again think of the balloon model. Place one dot on the
surface of a balloon that is being inflated. Place another dot 90
degrees away from it, also on the surface. As the balloon continues
to inflate, the dots move away from each other. Although very
primitive in description, this pretty much mirrors what seems to
actually be happening to our universe. For simplicity of argument,
I'm ignoring the dimensional movement of the individual dots relative
to each other and which is not accounted for by inflation. However, I
will consider the two individual dots, for the sake of argument,
relative to what is happening to the balloon.

As the balloon inflates the dots move away from each other. So do the
subatomic components of an individual dot. But the dots are moving
away from each other at a very much faster rate than are the
subatomic components of an individual dot moving away from each
other. It is, as you pointed out, a phenomenon that is relative to
volume. There is more volume involved between the 2 dots than there
is between the components that make up one dot. It is easy to measure
the apparent inflation velocity of the 2 dots relative to each other
due to the huge amount of volume involved. But the volume difference
is so great between the 2 dots as compared to the components that
make up just one dot that we simply have not observed the
drastically slowed but still occurring inflation being experienced
within 1 dot.

Someone better than I am will have to do the calculations! But I am
suggesting, based upon what I think is logic, that the amount of
inflation occurring within one “dot” in the universe, relative to the
amount of inflation assumed to be current for the entire universe, is
going to result in a number that looks very familiar at the quantum
level. And I’m suggesting that the value for it changes over time
because it is dependant upon how much inflation has occurred. And, I
suggest that this changing value is what describes the inflationary
rate of the universe as it continues to speed up. At some finite time
in the future it will make itself obvious at the quantum level. But
for now entire galaxies are just too small in of themselves to fall
apart, much less atomic particles! Not enough space/time volume
involved! But given a distant yet finite time, in each case there
will be, rather suddenly, enough volume involved. But it won't happen
everywhere at the same time.

Ron McFarland
Received on Sat Nov 08 2003 - 21:48:40 PST