Quote:
Originally Posted by sjastro
A rotating Universe where Hubble expansion is replaced by centrifugal forces?
I can see Cosmologists jumping all over this idle thought. 
One question, since galaxies do not all lie in the same orbital plane how do they explain the rotation for galaxies where the plane of the galaxy is "parallel" to the "rotational axis" of the Universe?
Regards
Steven |
You can say that again!!!. Not only does it mean there has to be a preferential frame of reference (the frame of rotation...i.e. the rotational axis of the universe), it also means that there must be a constant of centrifugal force which mirrors the Hubble constant. It would also mean that any one galaxy could be shown to have an unique set of positional parameters w.r.t. every other galaxy because of the defined rotational axis. What it would mean is that it could be possible to observe the axis of rotation in space, by looking at the ways the galaxies behaved.
However, all that could be discarded if you look at the universe as being a spherical 4D surface of a higher dimensional object, where the poles of rotation lie outside the surface of the shell, as well as its rotational axis. The rotational axis would essentially exist in the higher dimensional state. The surface of the shell could keep expanding in the same manner as it has always been theorised, only that the galaxies which lie within that shell (the observable universe) could exhibit this handedness asymmetry which might be due to some sort of "universal coriolis effect" on the contents of the shell due to the rotation. This could also explain the anomalous flow in the superclusters of galaxies that they have seen out near the Hubble Wall.
A galaxy whose plane was parallel to the rotational axis of the Universe could exhibit an "ambidextrous" nature, when it comes to its own axis of rotation, depending on the relative positions of the galaxy and any observer of that galaxy. A galaxy might exhibit counterclockwise rotation on one side of the rotational axis and clockwise on the other, due to its own rotational axis being perpendicular to the overall universal rotation. It could also mean weird effects would be exhibited by the spectrum of any such object, depending on the geometrical relationship between the universal rotational axis and its own position in w.r.t. that axis at any given time of observation.
Though, it could all be moot if you consider that any "handedness" in the rotation of galaxies maybe nothing more than a "mirage" of observation. That is, a galaxy or a group of galaxies which seem to exhibit a sinistral rotational handedness (left handed) can just as easily be dextral if you observe those galaxies from the diametrically opposite direction. That being the case, the overall handed condition of the galaxies within the Universe maybe random, no matter which direction you observe from.