I admit this came to me last night, after writing my last post. It is therefore a little raw, but it does not surprise me that more and more thoughts about this whole thing are coming to me.
The quick background is that the theory of the big bang, as mentioned, relies on a few things: the speed of light being constant (therefore red-shift can only be a Doppler Effect of the source moving away from us), and the discovery of background radiation in the universe (they were specifically trying to find it and when they did, they claimed it was exactly what they were looking for - kind of like assuming someone is a pessimist because they said "no" to your first question) are the two that seem to me the biggest claims.
The assumption, therefore, is that the universe itself is expanding. The reasoning behind this is that if the galaxies are all moving away from each other, and the further galaxies are from each other, the faster they are moving away, there can be no "center point" from which they are moving - every point in the universe would appear to be the center from its own perspective. The illustration (which evolved into another "interesting" assumption) is that what we perceived as three-dimensional space was like the surface of a balloon. A picture (the galaxies) is painted on the balloon. You blow the balloon up, and the picture expands. Not from some central point, but (basically) at all points somewhat evenly. The claim is that space is therefore curved like the surface of that balloon and expanding just like that balloon does. Some creature that lived exclusively on the surface of the balloon and had no knowledge of the inside or the outside - only the surface - would think that space was simply expanding and would not be able to explain where it all came from.
The only way this makes sense (and therefore that I don't contradict much more accepted theories and brains than my own) is if the universe is actually four-dimensional. Just like the creature on the balloon, who thought the universe was two-dimensional and expanding, the expansion was actually due to a third-dimension - the "inside" of the balloon being exchanged for some of the outside of the balloon. Three dimensional space did not change or expand, it simply moved from the outside to the inside, pushing the surface of the balloon out.
This is why I thought the universe must be four-dimensional, something that I am beginning to argue myself out of (though I am a stubborn hold out simply because I like the concept).
However, in order for this to be supportable, everything inside the three-dimensional universe must be contracting or collapsing at exactly the rate of expansion of space itself. Why is this? What did I just say? Huh? Can he stop typing now and let your dumbfounded head implode? Guess that was a bad choice of words considering what I'm saying... let's return to the balloon illustration.
The picture on the balloon expands at the same rate at all points. It appears to get bigger, right along with all the empty surface of the balloon. This does not happen in our universe. The galaxies move further apart from each other, but the individual parts of the galaxies - stars, solar systems, planets, mountains, houses, people, atoms - are not growing larger. Remember, the analogy of the balloon will break down because I chose a material object to be expanding. The claim in relativity and Big Bang is that space itself is expanding. This would mean the space between planets, the stars, and even between electrons and protons would be expanding. The suggestion that local forces hold local pieces together seems a lame afterthought. They would all have to be balanced perfectly against the force of expansion - all atoms, all planets, all solar systems, all galaxies all acting identically against this force of expansion - or some of them would shrink and some of them would expand as one force or another proved the stronger. Either that or the expansion of the universe would have to be uneven, miraculously choosing only (and evenly) the space between the galaxies.
Oh, and by the way, that bit about all galaxies moving away from each other based on how far apart they are? We have pictures from the Hubble (ironically) telescope that show galaxies colliding. And, I believe, there is some talk that our own galaxy is headed for a collision (or at least near miss) with Andromeda. So much for all of them moving away from each other. Again, what seems to me a lame, quiet afterthought, we are told there are exceptions to this "Hubble's Law" (Is it therefore really a law of nature? Sounds more like a law of politics!) and that sometimes local forces (just how local is Andromeda??) overcome this "law".
The contradictions between these theories come from observed and observable phenomenon. The problem is not with the observation, it is with the assumptions. As near as I can tell (again, rank amateur that I am) if you remove one assumption from the pile, that the speed of light is constant, the contradictory theories must be discarded and something resembling logic returns to the galaxy.
Wouldn't it be ironic if after all this study we found out "You know what? The universe just sorta makes common sense." How many times has that happened? A simple concept is totally messed up by people who want (because they make a handy living doing it) to make it more complex only to find out that no, it really is a simple concept and easy enough to understand.
Perhaps, as Einstein theorized, if you travel far enough in a straight line, you'll eventually go through the entire universe and come back to exactly where you started.
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