> I know about "dark matter" though
> I don't know the details of the latest
> theories.... It's an attempt to try to find
> out where's the missing mass in the
> universe. We can see the galaxies
> "spinning around", but with just
> the mass we can see, they should fly apart.
> There must be more mass there helping to
> hold galaxies together (since with more
> mass, the gravitational attraction would be
> stronger)....

> Some theorize the "missing mass"
> could simply be lots of non-luminous matter
> (like lots of burned out stars or something)
> floating around which we can't see, since
> it's not emitting light the way
> "living" stars do.... These are
> the MACHOS (MAssive Compact Halo
> Objects)....

> Another theory is that there is some new
> type of particle which doesn't react the way
> normal particles do, only through
> gravity.... These are WIMPS (Weakly
> Interacting Massive Particles)....

> Yes, this is no joke! :)

I got my Bubble idea from the idea that dark matter must exist because of the difference between the way things in a galaxy revolve around each other - in particular their relevant speeds and distances from the center when compared to the speeds at which items in a solar system revolve.

If the dark matter was like a halo, then galaxies would be flat. So it must be all around, a bubble.

Anyway. What I like about WIMPS is their "shyness"... or reluctance to be seen. I find it fascinating that to locate one... or know whether it has mass, you've got to detect the recoil from a normal-atom/wimp encounter - the normal atom recoils when encountering a wimp. Assuming a wimp has mass, of course. :o)

> I'd agree.... Quantum mechanics is my
> specialty. :)

> It's a strange world where things can, in a
> sense, be in multiple places at once....

> Where a particle can seem to show
> "knowledge" about a place it has
> never been!

> Where one part of the world can affect
> another part of the world faster than light
> -- but NOT in a way which allows us to send
> a faster-than-light signal (nature seems to
> conspire against allowing this)....

That's an interesting point. Why is it so?

Could it in fact be based on something as simple as the reason why there's a set speed at which anything can travel through our atmosphere? Why there seems to be an upper limit to how fast a wind-powered water vessle can go, and so on.

Could it be something like the relationship between water and air?

Water, to a fish, is just right for moving about, for them. Air, to a fish would surely feel like space does to a bird. No leverage.

What I'm saying is, even though space is a vacuum, maybe a vacumm still exerts resistance - like our air does - and that is why there seems to be an upper speed limit.

And if that's the case, and if our galaxy is in a bubble with a see-through skin, how do we determine the speed of an object outside of our bubble when all our measurements can only be calculated from within our bubble?

It's like gravity down here. It can't be measured so the results match the formula because of air-friction. Projectiiles do no travel in a perfect arc because of air-friction, etc. Remove air and all equations work.

But with the speed of light, it could be that its calculation and maximum possible velocity is based on observation from within an environment which has friction - the vacuum of space within our galaxy bubble.

Outside of this bubble, could travel be faster and in fact instantaneous?

If it was, bob oh boy. We look at an item far away, and based on how fast we think light travels, the object is say four billion light years away. BUT, if we are, for the sake of the arguement, only 100 light years from the edge of our bubble, then the light we think took four billion years to reach us only took 100 years - the time taken to travel from the edge of our bubble to us. The rest of its journey was instant.

So when we see this thing happening which we think happened four billion years ago, we're really seeing something which only happened 100 years ago.

It'd be like when we speak to people on a phone. The sound we make travels at the speed of sound, leaves the air then travels much much faster, then re-enters the air and travels at the speed of sound again.

In a sense, we have sound travelling faster than sound.

What if our bubbles were like that?

Light travels at the known speed of light in our bubble, leaves the bubble and travels much much faster maybe instant, then re-enters another bubble and travels at the known speed of light again.

> Where an observer ALWAYS affects the outcome
> of what's observed!

> Quantum mechanics shows that nature truly is
> holistic.... One part affects the other
> parts, no matter how far away they are from
> each other. It shows that
> "reductionism" -- that
> understanding something by reducing it to
> its parts -- has only limited
> applicability....

> I love it's strangeness.... And the best
> part is, it's all true....

> Quantum mechanics is a case of something
> where truth is stranger than fiction! :)

Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb here. IF what I just explained with the bubble were applied here, as far as I can see, it fits.

That is, objects affect each other in a way they apparantly shouldn't, exhibiting faster than light abilities.

If each of these objects were a small-scale version of my "light travels faster outside of our bubble galaxy" idea, and each object was inside of it's own little bubble, then you'd expect the same effect. And it wouldn't seem so odd, would it?

> I've come across a theory of multiple big
> bangs.... The name Andrei Linde comes to
> mind, and his theory of inflationary
> cosmology....

> On his web page, Prof. Andrei Linde
> writes....

> Recent versions of inflationary theory
> assert that instead of being a single,
> expanding ball of fire described by the big
> bang theory, the universe looks like a huge
> growing fractal. It consists of many
> inflating balls that produce new balls,
> which in turn produce more new balls, ad
> infinitum.

My idea isn't so much as an inflationary theory more a variation of what already is except with bubbles.

Think of it like this...

Each galaxy is in its own bubble and always was. Now imagine these bubbles all huddled together in a very big bunch. Infact, for the sake of this, lets apply normal gravity.

So these bubbles are all huddled together. As the mass of bubbles increases they exert more gravity and draw mmore bubbles into the mass - like a singularity.

However, unlike a singularity, the pressure does create an explosion. The bubble in the middle of the massive ball of bubbles explodes as would be expected from the pressure and heat.

This explosion (the first initial bang) does a few things. First, it scatters the bubbles which surround it, as you'd expect. Second, the heat from that exploding bubble is absorbed by the other bubbles. As they move against each other being expelled from being a mass, they rub and create more heat.

So now they've warmed up from rubbing and from absorbing heat from the first bubble's explosion.

The heat inside of each of these bubbles isn't enough to make them blow up, but is enough to partially ignite what's inside.

So as the bubbles fly apart in all directions they have their own little explosions going on inside - galaxies begin to form.

These bubbles fly apart like shrapnel from a grenade. And just as shrapnel is hot, these bubbles are hot. As they contain material which can ignite, the heat and explosion shockwave (pressure) from the initial explosion ignite those materials.

Hmmm.... I wonder how Stephen Hawking would rip this apart. HA!

How could I prove/disprove that light travels faster outside of a bubble when all we know is based from living in our bubble?