Oscillating Universe Fuel

[pheonix561 2080]

EDIT: As a disclaimer, I should mention this is stuff I thought of as a philosophy student, and don't know anything about physics and science.

So I've had this idea for a while that I never bothered mentioning to anyone, but the other day a topic came up in conversation that I contributed this idea to, and they insisted I write it down and show it to some one. The main reason I haven't really mentioned this is because I think it's supposed to be obvious, or if not, then someone has already thought of this. But, in order to humour a friend, I am posting an idea or two I came up with during Philosophy 101. I'll keep this short.

One popular and widely accepted theory is the oscillating universe theory - The idea that the universe is rapidly expanding, and actually accelerating in doing so. After it expands to a point, Matter attracting to matter via gravity will eventually pull itself back together, and move backwards from rapidly expanding to rapidly imploding, until it becomes one giant black hole. It's called the oscillating theory because this process repeats itself infinitely, uninterrupted.

The thing about this theory is that it suggests an action is being performed infinitely. I find this difficult to believe on it's own, and the fact that it is explained with gravity as the deciding factor makes it only more difficult for me to accept. Think of a bouncing Tennis Ball. No matter what height you drop it from, It's never going to bounce just as high the second time around. It will keep bouncing less and less until it stops for good. If you want to keep the ball bouncing, you need to continue to apply force to it.

What I'm saying is, Gravity alone cannot make the universe oscillate; There must be a force acting upon it. Now, before we jump to conclusions, I want to lay out what these conclusions would rely on.

1. Time is infinite/an illusion

2. Matter is finite (And therefore the Universe is finite)

So if there's any theory you're consciously comparing this to that does not meet the listed criteria, or if you can prove these points to be false, then this is all moot, got it? Okay, so knowing Time is infinite, and knowing the universe is going to implode, only to explode into a new one, We can deduce either

1. The universe is not really oscillating, and will one day stop producing Big Bangs

2. The universe is oscillating, and gravity is doing it all by itself in perpetual motion

3. The universe is oscillating, and is being acted on with a force other than gravity

Perpetual motion, as it stands, has yet to be proven possible. Because of this, we can immediately rule out 2. Now, it's tempting to say The only possible conclusion, then, would be conclusion 1, the idea that the universe will one day die, because 3 just sounds ridiculous. Personally, I don't want to rule out 3 just yet. I like the idea that there is a force outside of our universe that acts on it, allowing it to loop indefinitely. Can 3 be proven? Well, the only way to accept 3 at all is to deny the idea that the universe will die, and deny the existence of perpetual motion, at least any kind of motion based around gravity.

This was the theory I was asked to write down and show to someone; That an oscillating universe is either doomed to die, or is being acted upon. I like the idea of this extra universal force, anyways. What is it? How is it doing what it does? What causes it? Was it me?

Was it me?!

Is this the "Pheo Force?"

Discuss.

Bonus thought: The universe is rapidly expanding, right? Albert Einstein said so, right? If something is expanding, then it must have had somewhere to expand from, and somewhere to retract to right? In other words, there is, somewhere, a definite center of the universe. It's probably related to whatever is making the universe rapidly expand or decrease, and whatever is making it do it infinitely. I suggested this idea once to Ganny, that if anywhere, that's where god is. It's a really agnostic theory, yeah(Or whatever Christian religion says God is out there in space somewhere). I'm also thumbing through a wikipedia page that implies the center of the universe would be loaded with "dark matter," so hey.

oscil·la·tory adj.

Word History: The rather dry word oscillate may become a bit less dry when we learn its story. It is possible that it goes back to the Latin word oscillum, a diminutive of os, "mouth," meaning "small mouth." In a passage in the Georgics, Virgil applies the word to a small mask of Bacchus hung from trees to move back and forth in the breeze. From this word oscillum may have come another word oscillum, meaning "something, such as a swing, that moves up and down or back and forth." And this oscillum was the source of the verb oscillare, "to ride in a swing," and the noun (from the verb) oscillatio, "the action of swinging or oscillating." The words have given us, respectively, our verb oscillate, first recorded in 1726, and our noun oscillation, first recorded in 1658. The next time one sees something oscillating, one might think of that small mask of Bacchus swinging from a pine tree in the Roman countryside.

[Teto 2609]

Why would anybody need to know.

This is my problem with a lot of physics. After a point it's just trivial.

Believing in the oscillating universe theory is a stupid as believing in god. HOW CAN YOU PROVE IT? You can't, because if you do, then you're dead anyway.

[pheonix561 2080]

But Teto! What if there's a whole nother zone out there past the universe? A new frontier! What if!

[Teto 2609]

if the universe is always expanding and we can't see some of the sky because the light hasn't reached us yet

then why isn't one side of the night sky brighter than the other???

[pheonix561 2080]

kuz the stars are like everywhere around us instead of just on one side

[Chimetals 344]

Is this the "Pheo Force?"

*Pheo Phorce.

if "god" closed his eyes......

idk, i cant see it going on forever. the human lifespan is just too short to prove either theory, though.

[Fierce Muffin 490]

Pheonix, why do you suck at all other times. But, then you come on here and start writing about all these deep things.

[pheonix561 2080]

on the topic of deep things, having free will is REALLY hard to prove but that is entirely unrelated to the topic at hand OR IS IT I dunno

anyways she wants me to send this to somebody but I have no idea who to send it to so I think I'd just send it to my school newspaper or something

[Teto 2609]

send it to a physics teacher so he can tell you why you're wrong

[Chase 390]

I'd honestly rather talk about free will. At least I have some sort of relevant opinion on that.

On this...not so much. Um, yeah, sure. I have absolutely no problem believing in an infinite, all-powerful being, so nothing really surprises me. The fact that the universe is expanding lines up/doesn't contradict what I believe, so it doesn't matter to me whether it expands. If it does, great. If it doesn't, great. I'd be cool with a flat or round world, a sun revolving around the earth and vice versa. None of it contradicts what I believe. It's all simply how it is. The earth is round. Great. The earth revolves around the sun. Great. But unless you answer the "why" question, none of it really has a point. Why is the earth round? Who made it? If the universe is expanding, why is it expanding? Who/what is at the center? Those kinds of questions always lead to a higher power, a.k.a. God. Or random chance, depending on who you ask. Because random chance is above all things, and has always existed for all time ever.

[pheonix561 2080]

send it to a physics teacher so he can tell you why you're wrong

Yeah see I was thinking if I posted this here someone could help me figure out why this is wrong

[Sahaqiel 1232]

There are other theories, too. Can't remember the names of the theories, but there's the frozen universe theory, in which the center of the universe spews matter out too hard, and the matter is unable to produce another "big pinch", described as the act of the universe imploding upon itself. Therefore, since matter and energy only keep traveling until acted upon by some external force, everything would just start flying apart, getting farther and farther away from other matter that it can produce heat with via friction or infrared radiation. Eventually, the universe would be consistently absolute zero, or close to it, traveling in one direction, away from the center, for the rest of eternity.

Matter on a macro scale doesn't work on the same level as Earth-bound physics. The tennis ball slows to a stop because of friction with the air and the ground upon impact, and even if it managed to bounce indefinitely, the ball would eventually flatten, because of loss of energy in its physical bond to itself. And if there wasn't gravity or air to begin with, it would just bounce once and fly off in one direction until something felt like stopping it.

The thing about the universe collapsing into itself is that there is no energy or matter lost, even if one is converted to the other. The universe is one consistent mass. If the universe collapsed into itself, it wouldn't matter if there was friction amongst the galaxy clusters or not, all the energy and matter would be concentrated into one point.You can't lose energy if the definition of what is happening is that all the energy and mass in the whole universe is being concentrated into one singularity.

The methods required for the universe eventually tuckering itself out are

1) If the multiverse theory is correct, and somehow, energy was leaking out from the singularity (or the universe when it's not a singularity) into another universe. But even then, it's likely that the adjacent universe would likewise return the energy.

2) If the law of conservation of mass-energy was incorrect, which can be possible since we don't understand everything about the universe, especially how it came into being. On a macro scale, mass or energy could be lost steadily, in large or small amounts, but we can't tell.

3) If physics don't work in an expected way on a macro scale, and something totally undefined happens during the event that we as humans have no grasp on yet.

4) If the theory of antimatter/matter warring previous to a big bang is correct, concurrent with antimatter "winning". Even then, antimatter/matter collisions may wipe out the involved matter and antimatter, but it also produces massive amounts of energy, keeping some sort of balance.

As for free will, every time I think about it, it just looks more to me like our actions are mechanical from a very small to a very large scale. Chemically, reactions are predictable due to changes in light, heat, sound, etc. Just, external output in general. They're just very complicated to try to pinpoint a motive out of. On a larger scale, how your organs, hormones, and cells react to everything. On a similar scale, the electrical patterns in the brain. A computer does everything, specifically, that it's asked, as a result of external input, its hardware, and how the electrical signals pass through it. On an even larger scale is society as a whole, which dictates trends, actions, influences, opportunities, etc.

As bleak as all this sounds for free will, I hope that it's a real thing. My rationalization of believing in free will stems from something called Laplace's Demon, which is something I philosophized about when I was younger. Rather, the arguments against it. I would always ask myself, if the universe operated on strict laws, then that would mean the universe is kind of like clockwork, so you'd be able to know what happens next by looking at the physics involved, and all the mass and energy interacting under these principles.

Apparently, this conflicts with the nature of quantum mechanics, which decides things upon chances rather than definitives. I can only hope that things on a micro scale behave in a truly unpredictable way. As for social free will, there are definitely restrictions. You are a combination of your past experiences, which are determined by setting, genetics, and the people around you. You have the option to interfere with the process, but due to things like conditioning, most don't think about rebelling until realizing they have the capacity to do so, and by then, they've already been affected by their needs up until that point, their guardians, what they've read, seen, or thought previous to that, etc.

And that's another thing. The conflict with social free will not many people think about. Freedom from how even you have affected you. Free will, being the ability to decide what you want to do, sometimes can't escape what you previously decided with your free will. Like the inability to change how you feel about something, even if you want to.

so idk

Sahaqiel

[Chimetals 344]

didnt think of this till now, but if the initial exploasion is too great, some of the matter might get projected too far out, and the force of gravity would be too weak (and getting weaker) to bring it back to the initial center. in other words, even if it is oscillating to some degree, youd lose some matter with each explosion.

[pheonix561 2080]

The thing about the universe collapsing into itself is that there is no energy or matter lost, even if one is converted to the other. The universe is one consistent mass. If the universe collapsed into itself, it wouldn't matter if there was friction amongst the galaxy clusters or not, all the energy and matter would be concentrated into one point.You can't lose energy if the definition of what is happening is that all the energy and mass in the whole universe is being concentrated into one singularity.

The methods required for the universe eventually tuckering itself out are

1) If the multiverse theory is correct, and somehow, energy was leaking out from the singularity (or the universe when it's not a singularity) into another universe. But even then, it's likely that the adjacent universe would likewise return the energy.

2) If the law of conservation of mass-energy was incorrect, which can be possible since we don't understand everything about the universe, especially how it came into being. On a macro scale, mass or energy could be lost steadily, in large or small amounts, but we can't tell.

3) If physics don't work in an expected way on a macro scale, and something totally undefined happens during the event that we as humans have no grasp on yet.

4) If the theory of antimatter/matter warring previous to a big bang is correct, concurrent with antimatter "winning". Even then, antimatter/matter collisions may wipe out the involved matter and antimatter, but it also produces massive amounts of energy, keeping some sort of balance.

See, thats the question I'm essentially arguing here, or as LL phrased it, "whatever was launched will be pulled back. I mean, this is all of the gravity in the universe. all of it." Basically, could a big bang create an explosion so immense it would send mass out of it's own gravitational pull, that wouldn't come back, thereby losing it's own momentum and throwing itself off balance? The only reason I haven't dismissed everything suggested in this theory is because this is perpetual motion, which as I stated, I find hard to believe is possible.

On the topic of free will, you've got to satisfy two different conditions; Causal determination and the options principle. Causal determination means you caused what happened on purpose, instead of by accident/without choice. Options just says you chose to do that, as opposed to only having one option to go with. If you chose one of two or more options, and you did it on your own, then you've got free will.

A philosopher named Sartre once theorized that inside everyone is a "bare self," or, part of you that has no features or principles. I'm not going to go into the bare self itself, because it's probably more difficult to prove than free will alone,(If something has no features whatsoever, how does it even exist?). It's role is to help you make a decision in situations where you can't. He provides the example of a young man who is receiving food for living in Paris with his mother during the first world war. He could go to the front lines to help fight for his country, but then they would stop sending food to his mother, who would die of starvation(That kind of thing actually happened). So which does he do? Does he go to fight for his country and leave his mother to die, or does he stay in paris and leave his country to everyone else while he keeps his mother alive?

He said because you struggle between two choices, then you must have two choices, and you must be the one who is choosing what happens. Since that fulfills causal determination and the options principle, then it proves you've got free will. The bare self is what helps you finally make a decision there.

Of course, you could argue on a micro scale that the decision was already written in stone even before you were met with it,(ala laplace's demon) and the idea that you could have done something else was just an illusion, but it's nice to think about.

We had to write a paper on the bareself in philosophy class, and we were permitted to use our own example of a struggle, so I did. Mine was as copy pasted:

For an example, assume Barney the dinosaur has stolen both your ability to identify your children and your ability to love them. However, he has offered you the ability to have one of those abilities back. But which do you choose? Do you choose to love your children, and have them be forever lost to you? Or do you recognize them, yet raise them cold and disassociated, keeping your distance and leaving them to their own devices?

[Sahaqiel 1232]

Like I said, physics are different depending on what kind of scale you put them on, which is why we have quantum mechanics, Newtonian physics, and whatever we call physics on a grander scale.

Perpetual motion may be hard to believe, but so would, I believe, a universe that isn't perpetual. After all, the universe it the closest thing there is to eternity.

It makes sense that an object, a series of objects, or even a whole world would be unable to produce something that is perpetually moving, because even the Earth cannot sustain energy enough for anything without a constant supply of energy from the sun, which uses a perfectly exhaustible resource: Hydrogen fusion; even in places with a constant supply of sun, say, the northern arctic circle, are negative temperatures because it gets just slightly less sun than the sun belt. A perfect perpetual motion machine would actually have to create energy from nothing, because all the resources around it are exhaustible.

But the universe doesn't have to create energy if all the energy is within balance to itself. No weakening in physical bonds. No gravity or friction slowing it down. Because it is any and everything. Literally. I don't know if the math has been done for this, or if there's something inexplicable that goes on, but from my understanding of the universe, (which, just like everyone else's, is wholly incomplete) there is probably some kind of way the universe balances itself out in terms of blast radius to gravitational pull. I have read somewhere that gravity from every atom in the universe has an effect on every other atom in the entire universe. So if that's true in even the slightest, then eventually, everything would indeed come into contact with all other matter once again.

Sahaqiel