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Weeeee!
I don't like your username, but I like your message.
considers things moving at very close to the speed of light uses Newtonian mechanics
It’s an interesting idea but this is a pretty massive oversight.
If it indeed rotates, this raises another question: What does it rotate around, i.e. where is the center of the universe? How does our position in the universe relate to this center, or which (known) structures have we observed there. Could it be the Great Attractor?
spiral ever increasing outward, wouldnt the center represent the big bang
Because time isn't linear or whatever and its still expanding (I have no idea what im talking about)
If it's flat, and not curved, I think the center would be everywhere?
I can't find any flaw in this. I was trying to think of it in any way other than having an actual center somewhere. This can be my model till I understand it better.
Is this maybe related to spin of particles that was considered to be "a kind of rotation momentum how it behaves mathematically but for all we know it does not literally represent any kind of rotation"...and it turns out it does in fact represent the fundamental rotation of the universe ?
If that is true maybe that means that it actually is finite and has a center. And the rotation and light speed put an upper bound on its size.
Then again the expansion of space doesn't care about such mundane things as a cosmic speed limit so the universe rotation probably won't either. Or the extents just slow down.
I think that if space itself is what is rotating, then speed of light limit does not apply. But if it's everything in the universe orbiting, as it were, a central point, then it would.
But if it is space itself rotating, then that would suggest some objective frame of reference outside the universe. Wouldn't it?
But if it is space itself rotating, then that would suggest some objective frame of reference outside the universe. Wouldn't it?
Not necessarily. Just like space is growing without the need for an objective outside frame of reference, it could be rotating - the rotation is just relative to itself.
I don't think something can rotate relevant to itself. If all of reality was the earth, and nothing else, how can you tell if it's spinning or not?
Please use small words if you try to answer this. I know a decent bit of applied physics, but once it turns to pure math, my head starts to swim.
Stuff could move around differently. Rotations have many effects, e.g. rotation curves (the closer you are to the center of the rotation, the faster you go). We could still figure out that the earth is rotating by measuring the effects a rotation has.
Wow, so maybe the universe really is centered around me after all. Take that, 1st grade teacher! j/k.
If that is true maybe that means that it actually is finite and has a center. And the rotation and light speed put an upper bound on its size.
Actually no, that would only be true if the universe was two-dimensional. The universe essentially curves back on itself. Kurzgesagt explained the two options of finite and infinity universes and this timestamp explaines the curving back: https://youtu.be/isdLel273rQ?t=120
Kurzgesagt really like to present scientific speculations as fact.
We simply do not know whether the universe is finite or infinite. And so far no curvature has been observed. As far as we are aware it is flat.
I thought the general consensus was that it IS finite and has a relative center point?
Nah in the past it looked like a pretty homogeneous mass when zoomed out enough. I assume this center of rotation is no more of a "pure center of the universe" than our sun is.
I'd imagine its just a local maximum for gravity.
No, the general consensus is that it seems to be infinite and has no relative center point.
So it's about 3 universe months old? Pfffft, baby.
The headline sounds like scientists are telling us to go live in a slow rotating universe. Jokes aside, what's in the center? A super super massive blackhole?
We're just circling a big drain
I think some might respond that there kinda is no center.. which is... bonkers really.
Another kinda wild theory that some scientists think may be valid is that we're inside a gravistar. If so, maybe the gravistar is spinning, like many black holes do
Everybody pack, we’re moving.
It could be like our galaxy for example where most of the mass is rotating around the center of gravity of the other mass, and not the black hole in the center which isn't as massive in comparison.
How does this manage to bypass the need for a center to the Universe?
Obviously it's spinning in four dimension space. Like living on the 2D surface of an inflating balloon that is rotating, there is no "center" from the perspective of us lower dimensional scrubs.
Ok. So hear me out. What if said 2D universe is spread out on the inside of said balloon and the spinning is happening on two axis? Wouldn’t that make gravity the result of centrifugal force? And what if the balloon is actually flexible, so that the heavier stuff stretches its surface outwards (thus warping time and space around it)?
I’m no scientist but that’s how I’ve often imagined it. Although it’d have to be in an even higher dimension for more degrees of freedom on rotation? No clue there.
No clue haha but that is a neat idea. Also my explanation probably wouldn't really explain centrifugal force to offset the hubble tension.
There was also a scishow or spacetime video about how gravity can be seen as an emergent property of "time / causality is slower the nearer the gravity well", and that is how gravity works. To truly understand it you have to understand the math and how to solve it, afaik our explanations are all rather imaginary. So you could probably interpret the math to mean that this "spacetime bulging" is the result of a spinning universe.
The bigger question is: Where is the rest of the matter that spins in the other direction? It should have perfectly canceld each other out! (like matter and antimatter also didn't)
No clue haha but that is a neat idea. Also my explanation probably wouldn't really explain centrifugal force to offset the hubble tension.
I think Hubble tension could fit into this if the sphere/balloon is also expanding/growing/stretching away from the centre. In this case it would be the fabric of space being stretched though. So not sure how that’d fit into this model exactly.
There was also a scishow or spacetime video about how gravity can be seen as an emergent property of "time / causality is slower the nearer the gravity well", and that is how gravity works. To truly understand it you have to understand the math and how to solve it, afaik our explanations are all rather imaginary. So you could probably interpret the math to mean that this "spacetime bulging" is the result of a spinning universe.
Yeah. I think so too.
The bigger question is: Where is the rest of the matter that spins in the other direction? It should have perfectly canceld each other out! (like matter and antimatter also didn't)
Dunno tbh. Maybe it’s double-sided and it’s on the other side of the balloon/membrane?
(And for some reason my brain associates this spinning sphere analogy with gravastars 🤔)
A center in two dimensions, in three dimensions an axis, in more dimensions...
If you drink enough it won't take 500 billion years to rotate. In fact, you'll have to hold onto the grass to keep from falling off the planet.
Forgive me for strawmanning but you know some idiot is going to say this contradicts "scientists'" claim that the universe is 13.8 billion years old
Actually it's just toilet water. Slow motion flushing.
It's toilets all the way down!
We were ejected from God's brown hole.
Clockwise or counter/anti-clockwise?
...into the giant black hole in the middle!
You wouldn't want to put the universe in a tube
Science is cool.
Cool theory. But should not work if the universe is much larger than what can be seen though? Unless it’s just our visible part of the universe is rotating in a mind boggling large structure? And why not? All matter clumps, and a huge universe should have countless structures that are the size of all we know
I think as telescopes get better we just keep noticing bigger structures. Maybe this is just the biggest one we know right now.
I feel like it'd take some amazing statistics and millions of years of data to detail out structures larger than our observable universe.
Very interesting
I like the theory from the movie Levels :)
this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
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