Fundamental Cosmic Questions

Most recent answer: 07/15/2015

Q:
1. Why are equations in the field of Quantum physics/Mechanics etc , positive based, shouldn't they instead be treated as differential equations?2. Is it possible, that the super nova's seen at the extreme edge of our Universe8820, ie: 12-14 billion yrs (12-14 b light yrs away) distant, is the method the the universe re-creates itself. eg. Galaxies close to the speed of light, bust through & become dark matter/energy, to start the cycle off again???
- Margaret Dal Pozzo (age 69)
vic, australia
A:

1. I'm not sure what you mean by "positive based". One standard way to present the equations (the Schroedinger equation, Dirac equation, etc. ) is as differential equations. That's usually how we first teach them.

2. It isn't really possible that those supernova are doing something so exotic. Everything we see fits with the simple hypothesis that the laws of physics are the same throughout the universe and even that the stuff going on in any big region is about the same as the stuff going in in another region at the same (locally defined) age. So those distance regionsare not really any different from our own region, back in the day. The pattern of redshifts vs. brightness fits the idea that since the end of rapid inflation (or whatever it was) the dark matter and ordinary matter contents of the universe have been conserved, and thus their average densities have been going down. The dark energy density seems to have stayed constant and everywhwere uniform.

Mike W.


(published on 07/15/2015)