The following ideas are primarily mine alone, the good, the bad and the ugly, albeit based on and influenced by reading multi volumes of tomes in modern cosmology. However, I’m also quite sure that numerous others have quite independently thought somewhat similar, if not exact, thoughts as well. Therefore, I’ll take no credit for being right, if I don’t get blamed for being wrong!
THE EVER EXPANDING YOU
Nearly all cosmologists now give their firm acceptance to the existence of a Big Bang which created our Universe some 13.7 billion years ago. That same Big Bang started off the expansion of the Universe, as evidenced by the red-shifting of light from distant galaxies and clusters of galaxies, from an initial tiny size through to the massive volume observed today. Now what we are told is expanding is space itself. Galaxies and clusters of galaxies, floating in this sea of expanding space, are moving apart from one another. The common illustration is to paint dots (representing the galaxies) on the surface of a balloon (representing space) and inflate the balloon. The dots move further apart as the balloon grows bigger. [A keen observer will note however that while the dots get further apart, they too are expanding!] Apart from the original expansionary force of the Big Bang, two other expansionary forces have been, and are, at work. Respectively, there was inflation, which lasted for a split second at the time of the Big Bang and contributed more to the expansion than the original ‘bang’ did; the second, the concept of dark energy which exists currently, a sort of little understood anti-gravity, which is ever accelerating the rate of expansion of the Universe. Ok, so far so good. Space is expanding due to all of the above mentioned forces – Big Bang, inflation, and dark energy. But now for the fly in the expanding space ointment…
Space doesn’t stop at the border of a galaxy or cluster of galaxies. Space doesn’t stop at the outer boundary of our solar system. Space is everywhere. It’s inside galaxies as well as between galaxies. Space exists inside our solar system as well as between stars. Space, as far as I can determine, is everywhere. Space exists inside you. You and everything else ‘solid’ is mainly empty space. It’s the strong nuclear force that prevents you sinking right through the ‘solid’ earth down to the core, or prevents your ‘solid’ backside from sliding through the ‘solid’ seat of your chair when you sit down.
If space is expanding inside a galaxy, because there is space inside a galaxy and all space is expanding, then stars in that galaxy should be getting farther apart. In a similar sort of argument, Earth should be expanding away from the sun and other planets, because expanding space is part and parcel of our solar system. But then space pervades the sun, so the sun should be expanding. You know where this is leading – you too should be expanding as you are a part of space. The upshot from all that is that everything is expanding since expanding space is everywhere.
But, if that were so, you’d never be aware of it. If you doubled your size overnight (albeit with no increase in body mass), but everything else did as well, how would you notice? You wouldn’t. But clearly we do notice an expansion of the Universe as measured by the various galactic red-shifts as noted above. Conclusion, not all things are expanding at the same rate!
There is one attractive force that’s the opposite to the forces of expansion – gravity. Gravity will be strongest where mass is thickest, so that it is reasonable to assume that expansion of space between galaxies will be greater than that within a galaxy (lots of stars, lots of mass, lots of gravity), and that the expansion of space will be greater between stars than right up close to one (within a solar system).
The question is, is gravity alone sufficient to stop our galaxy expanding (we know it’s not sufficient to stop our Universe from expanding)? It must be as I’ve seen no mention of any expanding galaxy (ours included) that’s due to expanding space in any astronomical literature, far less a mention of an expanding solar system. If various regions of the Universe are expanding at different rates, presumably that would be obvious to astronomers, even though the amount of expansion, be it in the void, or within a galaxy, or our solar system, wouldn’t have been all that much since sophisticated astronomical observations with exacting precision instruments have been in place.
And no doubt the strong nuclear and electromagnetic forces are strong enough to resist dark energy and collectively hold together individual objects. Thus there’s no expanding sun, expanding Earth or an expanding me.
I suspect the calculations have been done; the numbers crunched – the Universe (space) expands; objects inside the Universe don’t.
Still, I find it curious that outside a galaxy space is ever expanding, but cross that boundary and space immediately ceases to expand (or at least does so at a rate undetectable by astronomers).
An alternative reason, and the one I prefer, is that you’re not expanding because space is not expanding, contrary to the common cosmological model. However, IMHO, space isn’t expanding, only the Universe (matter/energy) is expanding, but expanding in pre-existing space, because space (and time) have always existed. That space is static (or at least as static as the vacuum energy (quantum fluctuations or quantum jitters) allows.
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