<p>[Not that I can say what causes dark matter or energy either, mind you.]</p><p> </p><p>I know! We're just here on earth, swinging for the rafters. </p><p> </p><p>[And I do not see how your model actually explains the differing rates of expansion either. A spheroid has a "face" that is homogeneous - you find translational invariance whichever direction you move across it, however many dimensions the sphere has.]</p><p> </p><p>It's not really important to my theory that the object be spheroid or even regular. I mentioned this in one of my initial posts but have probably confused the issue by referring to the object as a "spheroid" ever since. Whatever the object's regularity, differing rates of expansion would still result from the gravitational pull of galaxies upon each other. Uniformy differing rates of expansion simply indicate that the underlying object isn't a sphere - that the degree of its slope changes. Unless... </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>And the initial force of the Big Bang is... fully accountable?</p><p> </p><p>By "accountable," I don't mean I'm accounting for its cause, but assuming we have measured its explosive power.</p><p>To restate, assuming a sphere for the sake of argument. At the true north pole of the sphere, the Big Bang occurs in a compacted liquid. The liquid spreads on all sides, the spread being fueled by the power of the Big Bang. Because I am hypothesizing a gravitational force acting upon the universe (the liquid) as a whole, this initial spread will slow down in time during the early period, before the liquid universe gets very far from the North Pole. Just as explosions on Earth slow down eventually. This is the <strong>deceleration</strong> we see, looking backward into the universe's early history. The Big Ban's force abates.</p><p>However, at some point, the slowly spreading liquid universe has spread so wide across the sphere that the sphere's arc becomes much steeper, and the liquid universe <strong>accelerates</strong> as it falls down toward...who knows what. Hence the acceleration we now observe, no longer driven by the force of the Big Bang, but by the "fact" that gravity has taken over, and the universe is falling.</p><p> </p><p>[Ahh so now your idea that the universe is "falling" down the face of a hyperdimensional spheroid (made of what?) accounts for Dark Matter too, does it? How does that work?...Nor do I see how your model can go any way to explaining why the stars at the outside of galaxies can orbit that galaxy so fast and not fly out of the galaxy (i.e. dark matter)]</p><p> </p><p>I have no idea what the spheroid is made of. Pigskin perhaps! More troubling, since it bears directly upon my hypothesis, I can't account for the fast-rotating stars, which do seem to suggest some sort of dark matter .</p><p>However, stars aside - an awful big aside! - dark matter is easily enough explained. Our universe is the liquid. We can't perceive the object we're flowing down. But the shape - spheroid or otherwise - has 360 degrees. On Earth, no matter how good my eyes are, I in Las Vegas can't see London, because it is <em>beneath the horizon</em> of the curving Earth. Nor can I see Yellow Knife, nor can I see Lima, Peru, nor Hawaii. Same reason. </p><p>Now, if our universe were a liquid on the surface of a sphere, at some point the sphere will arc away from us, producing horizons. The rest of our universe - 96%? - is the same sort of universe we perceive but beyond the horizons of our perception. The rest of the universe is behind us, and otherwise <em>beyond the horizon</em>. </p><p> </p><p>[Instead of using invented dark energy and matter, you have invented a hyperdimensional spheroid and a supposed model where the geometry of the universe somehow interacts with unseen extra dimensions. . <br /> Posted by SpeedFreek</DIV></p><p> </p><p>Guilty as charged! But extra dimensions aren't news, and the spheroid is simply another heavenly body. It's still much simpler than the proposed notion of strange new types of energy and strange new types of matter. Everything is restored to geometry. </p><p>Not bad for an MA in English, huh? </p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>He who isn't busy being born is busy dyin'.</p><p> </p> </div>