Bill Sumner
Bill Sumner |
Hello, I'm Bill Sumner. I'm going to explain my view of the Universe. I'm a mathematical physicist, which means I love to use math to understand nature. If you know math, you know its intrinsic beauty. You know the rigor of its logic. You know the surprising insights it can give you.
I want to tell you why the Universe is collapsing and will end in about 15 billion years. This conclusion has nothing to do with philosophy or religion. It comes directly from interpreting the most precise astronomical observations using well-established physics.
One important observation made by astronomers is that light from distant stars has a different color than light from stars nearby. The further away a star is, the more its light appears red. This change, commonly called redshift, is measured by comparing characteristic color patterns of light photons emitted by atoms in stars far away to patterns emitted by similar atoms in our laboratories.
The astronomer Edwin Hubble extensively studied these color changes 80 years ago. He described how redshift uniformly increases with the distance to the light source. Using modern telescopes, astronomers have greatly extended the range and precision of Hubble's measurements.
How can these redshifts be explained?
A short answer is that the Universe is constantly changing. The Universe is different today than it was yesterday. Atoms are different. Photons are different. Taken together the changes in atoms and photons precisely explain the redshift measurements and predict the collapse of the Universe.
A longer answer begins with the fact that space is not precisely flat as Euclid assumed. The physics and math of energy and curved geometry were studied by Albert Einstein. Geometry and energy are bound together. Change one and the other must follow. The structure of the Universe, its curved geometry and evolution are described in a math solution to Einstein's equations found by Alexander Friedmann. His solution begins with a Big Bang, expands to a maximum size, and then collapses.
Erwin Schrödinger studied how atoms and photons are tied to the curvature of this Friedmann geometry. Schrödinger's conclusion was that atoms, photons, and the Universe change size in exactly the same way. Change in size changes energy. Bigger photons (which are redder) and bigger atoms both have less energy. Smaller photons (which are bluer) and smaller atoms both have more energy. While the energy changes in atoms and in photons are in the same direction, the rates they change are not the same. Atoms change energy about twice as fast as photons do.
When these evolutionary changes are examined together, the redshifts observed require a collapsing Universe. During expansion measured color shifts would have been blue.
Hubble, the consummate astronomer, and Schrödinger, the consummate theoretician, published their seminal papers in the 1920's and 1930's. Taken together, their results are sufficient to confirm the most modern redshift measurements and prove that the Universe is collapsing.
Thank you for listening.