Quote:
Originally Posted by Atmos
The latest theory I read (which was a few years ago) was that the Big Bang Theory had the universe starting the size of a watermelon before going through it's great expansion where it increase in volume some crazy amount in some fraction of a fraction of a nanosecond before slowing down to the speed at which it is expanding today.
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Hi Colin nice to have your input but I expected you to be the man with some very solid specifics...
The " understanding" I have is that the Universe started at the size of an atom ( without being very specific... even a big one will do I guess), it then experienced a period referred to as " inflation" where the size went from the size of the atom to the size of a basket ball in, and here I quote Neil Dr Grasse Tyson..."in a zillionth of a zillionth of a zillionth of a second" and thereafter expanded at more or less the current rate although there is a paper that tells us the rate of expansion is speeding up....
As I understand things the Big Bang Theory was in peril of being discarded until the Theory of Inflation was presented by Mr Allan Guth...when..I don't recall...which was basically a math fix concluding the inflation could occur by a rapid doubling but as far as I am aware there was no observation that offerred any basis. I can only assume that my ignorance hides from me stuff that would make the proposition seem more reasonable.
I guess what is going on in my head after looking at the various images we are now very lucky to have is..."How the heck could you extrapolate the observed expansion of the Universe such that the proposal has billions of gallaxies rewond to fit in the volume of an atom...or even a watermelon".... At the time of the floating of the Big Bang Theory the entire Universe was considered to consist of the Milky Way so squeezing that back down somehow seemed doable but we now know the observable Universe is billions of times bigger..that is the observable Universe..that which we can somehow " observe" add in what is past the limits of our observation can't be done as we have no idea...although I have read one model suggests 250 times and others say infinite...does anyone other than me wonder how it Al came down to an atom or watermelon size?.
My poor little brain can't accept that such could be possible and I know the idea is there is heaps of "emptyiness" in an atom even taking into account the electrons and nucleus...
My thoughts would be that past the CBR the theory is unsupported speculation...
Thanks again I hope all is good in your world.
Alex