The Evolution of the Universe According to Me

The theory of the evolution of the universe is properly known as the LAMDA-CDM theory. More commonly among cosmologists and physicists it is referred to as the Standard Model. To those of us outside of the scientific community it is simply the Big Bang Theory. Notice that I wrote that the theory deals with the evolution of the universe, not the origin. There are no theories on the origin, only a few wild guesses based on nothing. It is entirely possible that a million generations from now there will still be no understanding of the origin. 

To understand and be conversant with the Standard Model requires a phd in both physics and math, and several years of study. That excludes most of us. To complicate matters even more, those who do understand the theory say that it cannot be conveyed in common language; that it can only be explained mathematically. Albert Einstein once said that, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough", but I guess that doesn't count anymore.

There is much about the Standard Model (henceforth I'm going to use SM to save typing) that defies common sense, reasoning and experience. Many scientists say that those things including intuition have to be put aside, that we must follow where the math leads us. When I think about the universe, I can't put those things aside. Common sense, reasoning, intuition and experience are all I have. Which is why my universe is much more simple than the SM. 

For example, in my universe the sun rises in the east. An astronomer would tell me that is not what's happening. He/she would say that the earth is orbiting the sun at a specific rate and while doing so is spinning on an axis, and that the declination of that axis....yeah, yeah, yeah. The sun rises in the east. Good enough. 

Okay...enough prelude. On to the universe according to me. Well, wait a minute. I just had a thought that maybe I should put an asterisk at the end of every sentence I write that disagrees with the SM. But now I'm thinking that if I do that, there will be asterisks following nearly every sentence. Not a good idea. 

The SM says that in the beginning there was an extremely hot, dense glob of material. This material encompassed everything, including the ingredients for mass, and space itself. And because space was inside the glob, there was no outside. The glob had no boundaries, no edges or ends. That's hard to conceptualize. So is what comes next. The glob was just sitting there when suddenly something triggered it to inflate rapidly. We're talking about going from the size of a pea to the size of the earth in a tiny fraction of a second. Don't take the size references literally, it's just an analogy to suggest the magnitude of change. This part of the SM theory is called Inflation. Not all scientists agree that it happened. There are bits and pieces of evidence that suggest that it did. 

If you've followed this so far, you may be asking, "If the glob was everything; if there was no outside, what did the glob inflate into?" I can't answer that question as far as the SM model deals with it, and I have never come close to understanding the scientists who have voiced an answer. I have my own explanation, one that satisfies me. 

Space was not enclosed in that glob. Space is nothing, as in no-thing. Nothing can not be confined. Space is infinite and eternal. Those are concepts that are hard to deal with. Everything we know of, organic and inorganic, people, mountains and planets have dimensions, come into existence and cease to exist. But space is nothing. It is not subject to any laws, rules or regulations of nature or physics. It's just one big, endless parking lot for things with mass. I have no problem imagining space being eternal and endless. If everything in the universe suddenly and completely disappeared, space would still be there waiting for its next tenants. 

Anyway, the glob had hardly recovered from inflation when a fraction of a second later the Big Bang hit it. The Big Bang was not an explosion. Let me resort to another analogy to explain it. You're at a party, holding your margarita (that frozen concoction that helps you hang on) in your hand when someone bumps into you. You hold on to the glass but the drink hits the floor. The ice, tequila, lime juice and lime slice scatter all over. There was no explosion, boom, flash or fire. The drink simply kind of got pulled apart when it hit the floor. That's what the Big Bang did to the glob. 

The drink ingredients quickly stopped moving and dried up. The glob ingredients cooled and coalesced, forming all of the objects we see today. A difference is that the spilled glob ingredients never stopped moving. Supposedly they are moving faster now than they did when the Big Bang occurred, but that's not something I want to get into. It involves dark matter and dark energy, things that are still unproven and being debated.

One curious concept of the SM is that all objects, except for those gravitationally bound are moving away from each other. An observer on earth will see everything in the night sky moving away from the planet except for those objects in our solar system. An observer in a far distant planet will see the same thing. How is that possible? It would seem that someone would have to see something moving toward them. This phenomenon would seem to imply that each object; every star and planet is the center of the universe. It's something I don't understand. There are some analogizes that attempt to explain the issue, chief among them the Balloon and Raisin Bread analogies but their premise is that the Big Bang happened everywhere, which contradicts my position that space is infinite and that the glob was located in a specific location.
But not all objects are moving away from each other. For example our own Milky Way galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy are on a collision course. Which is why it's always a good idea to wear seat belts. 

I can sort of buy most of the SM theory, though I and many scientists hold out that it may someday be proven wrong and replaced. I don't agree with the SM treatment of space, as already stated, nor do I agree with the model's concept of time. To me the SM presents time in so many exotic ways that my mind spins trying to take it all in. I like my version of time better.

Time is nothing more than change. More precisely, change is time. Everything in this universe changes, changes in size, speed, color, location, age, etc. Time is a measurement of those changes. If there were no change there would be no time. Both change and time are not observer dependent. No one has to see those things for them to take place. If suddenly everything in the universe disappeared except for one tiny atom, and one single electron continued to orbit the nucleus of that atom, time would still exist. Eliminate that one remaining atom and you eliminate time. To me it is that simple.

If it hasn't occurred to you by now, there is still one big, huge, monstrous question remaining. Where did that original glob come from? I can think of only two answers. Either the glob always existed, or it came from nothing. Neither answer is acceptable. Both violate all know laws of physics, and all knowledge and experience gathered throughout history. Maybe someday there will be an answer...maybe not. There is a theory called the Big Crunch that postulates that the expansion of the universe will reverse, collapsing in on itself until nothing is left. I don't know how many billions of years away that is projected to occur, but hopefully not before we've discovered the origin of the glob that started it all.