[Stonius (Markus)]

I was thinking of this explanation for the expansion of the universe. I'm sure there is either a big reason why it's not possible, or someone else has thought of it first, but here goes.

Let's say I throw a ball at 60km/hr. That falls back to earth some tens of meters away.

Now say I had a magic box that could 'turn down' the earth's gravity. I throw the ball as before. Then while it's in flight, I turn the earth's gravity down. That same ball with the same momentum sails high into the sky. If I turn it down again it *seems to accelerate until it leaves the gravitational pull of the earth altogether. *Seems to, only it's just the gravity of the earth that is being reduced.

Then consider the fact that at some point as the universe expanded, the size of the *observable universe diverged from the size of the *total universe.

From any one point in space, it would appear that the observable universe was losing mass - you can't be gravitationally linked to something that is not in your observable universe. Essentially, the universe you are in becomes less massive, like turning down the gravity. The more matter that is lost, the more the expansion seems to be accelerating, when in effect, the momentum is the same. Only the gravitational force acting on the universe as a whole is decreasing (like with my magic 'turn down the gravity' box).

In fact, the cause of the big bang could ultimately be explained by a divergence between the observable and total universes in the primordial 'atom' in a similar way to which the weak nuclear force is involved in nuclear decay. All you need is a force that doesn't quite have enough range to keep a glob of matter together, so some of it escapes, in this case, releasing energy and leading to rapid and accelerating expansion.

It's interesting to ponder, anyway.

Markus