3 ms·
That wouldn't explain the redshift, would it?
by Tepix 8y ago
That wouldn't explain the redshift, would it?
- ben_w 8y agoIf we’re shrinking too, I think that we’d perceive a given photon getting longer and hence redder. (This leads to another problem: why don’t the photons shrink too?)
- snowwrestler 8y agoThe amount of space for us to shrink into is absolutely miniscule compared to the space available to expand between us and distant galaxies. The metric expansion of space appears to be an extremely weak, small effect. It just adds up to something measurable in the vast gulfs between galaxies. Furthermore the amount of acceleration away from us is proportional to the distance from us (farther things are accelerating away faster). The shrinking hypothesis only makes sense of that data if it posits that we are the center of the universe.
- ben_w 8y agoAtoms can’t shrink because they’re already (ish) in their quantum mechanically minimal state. I think that minimum state depends on the value of the Plank constant. Humour me for the sake of the thought experiment: what would we observe if it wasn’t constant, and changed in a way which allowed atoms to shrink very slowly? (I’m really tired right now, forgive me if this is a dumb question)
- snowwrestler 8y agoI don't know. And this has nothing to do with the metric expansion of space, since we don't observe it between atoms or even between stars in a galaxy. It's only between galaxies that we observe expansion.