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I thought of a hypothetical explanation of cosmological redshift. Namely, the light's reference frame (space) is expanding but the distance between objects, galaxies, for instance, is not.

It's just a thought I had. I'd like to know if anyone has explored or refuted the idea. I've never heard it mentioned before.

To re-summarize the idea: Space is expanding but the universe is not, i.e., space expands without changing the distance between objects.

EDIT. To avoid causing confusion, I thought I'd point out, it might seem strange to have expanding space that does not cause objects to move apart, there are, however, at least two ways that this might happen:

  1. As space expands, all objects move towards one another in just such a way that expansion does not cause an increase in distance. Inward motion/contraction cancels out the increase in distance.

  2. Matter and light have two distinct reference frames.

NOTE. Also please note, I'm not talking about the past expansion of the universe from extreme density after the big bang. This is about the macroscopic recession of large objects long, long after the big bang. In other words, the cosmological redshift we see today.

Remember, this is just a fun thought exercise.

Dale
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SR999
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The universe is measurably much colder and less dense than it was in the very early universe. Things have to have gotten farther apart at some point - that is, diffused and cooled by adiabatic expansion against the gravitational field, because we can infer without recourse to cosmic expansion that the early universe must have been filled with an incandescent plasma. There's not enough mass in our own comparatively ultra-dense solar system to fill it with gas dense enough to ignite; and there's not enough energy in our own comparatively ultra-hot solar system to ignite the gas into incandescent plasma. Forget about the unimaginable emptiness that is our comparatively dense galaxy, or the brain-smashingly huge nothingness that is intergalactic space.

Matter is conserved, matter density is much smaller, therefore space is much bigger. Energy is conserved, energy density is much smaller, therefore space is much bigger.

g s
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