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Why Does the Universe Expand?

cosmicave.org48 points38 comments
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This argues that modern cosmology has become a patchwork built to force a universe that fundamentally should not expand into one that does. The baseline Einstein-de Sitter picture predicts deceleration because radiation, matter and light gravitationally oppose expansion, so explaining an expanding cosmos has required ad hoc add-ons: an inflationary burst to fix horizon and flatness issues, and dark energy to drive recent acceleration. Neither fixes the root problem - inflation presumes an already expanding background and dark energy is negligible at the Big Bang - while emerging problems (the Hubble tension between early- and late-universe expansion measurements and hints from large surveys that dark energy evolves) show the patches multiplying and conflicting.

The proposed corrective is Copernican in spirit: question which assumed symmetries are truly fundamental and which are broken by our perspective, since physics is principally about recognizing symmetry breaking. Using the heliocentric vs geocentric analogy, the heliocentric view explains many apparent complexities with fewer arbitrary adjustments because it acknowledges a broken symmetry (our off-centre vantage). Similarly, cosmology should seek a framework in which expansion arises naturally from broken symmetries or different foundational assumptions, rather than continually tacking on new knobs to a model that intrinsically resists the phenomenon it must explain.

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