The super attractive force at the border (not outside the border) is one laws of nature such as inertia and gravity, etc.. Like inertia it needs no mechanism to justify its existence. We know it exists only by the effects it produces. The astronomers recently discovered evidence that the galaxies are accelerating (falling) outward either because of the expansion of space or by an attractive force located at the edge of the universe.

I feel the falling galaxies make more sense then an ever expanding universe. The non-expanding universe is a perpetual universe with the falling galaxies being absorbed at the border and replaced by new matter toward the central region. This process would go on forever with no end. Both theories require a creation process, either space or matter is constantly being created. In both theories the universe is finite, one is expanding and one is not.

In the finite non-expanding universe no beginning or end is required, it just goes on forever. It is a complete perpetual system. The Big Bang theory is an evolutionary system starting with an explosive expansion from a singularity (what ever that is?) and evolving through different stages throughout its lifetime, finally ending in cold chaos.

One of the features of the falling galaxies is: as galaxies accelerate they become more massive, they are creating more and more mass as they accelerate toward the border. (A proton becomes more massive as it accelerates in a cyclotron. As the proton approaches the speed of light it keeps emitting synchronous radiation which reduces its mass. This is just what the stars are doing, this is why they shine). They are giving off tremendous amounts of radiation to keep from reaching the speed of light.) The stars are not in danger of running out of fuel, their nucleons are constantly becoming more massive as they accelerate toward the border and they are radiating this energy off into space to get rid of the excess mass.

Donald Hamilton

Ref: "The MIND of Mankind", Chapter 17 - The Falling Galaxies
http://novan.com/mind.htm

Fred wrote: "I still wonder whether we are making an incorrect assumption about treating the measurements of the distant supernovas as "standard candles." If I remember correctly, there have been one or two recent observations of supernova events that didn't follow the rule because of some peculiarity in the star system involved. "

The supernovae used for determining the acceleration parameter are of type SN1a. There may be two subtypes of SN1a, but that should be easy to detect. The other point is that there are many other observations, including WMAP, that do not use SN1a for determining the expansion curve and they tend to agree on the matter/dark energy mix. All methods are however somewhat model dependent. So if the Lambda-Cold-Dark-Matter (LCDM) model is wrong, who knows?

There are rival ideas that try to eliminate dark energy totally, or at least partially, but they have a difficult time fitting all observations to their models.

Regards,

Burt Jordaan (www.Relativity-4-Engineers.com)

Although I don't dispute the viability of the proposal that dark energy exists, I still have not bought into the idea completely.

I still wonder whether we are making an incorrect assumption about treating the measurements of the distant supernovas as "standard candles." If I remember correctly, there have been one or two recent observations of supernova events that didn't follow the rule because of some peculiarity in the star system involved.

Could it be that it much earlier times, that peculiarity was more the rule, and so the calculated distance based on brightness is wrong and the expansion is actually uniform and probably decelerating (not accelerated by dark energy) as Hubble conjectured?

By the way, Einstein introduced the cosmological constant to make a non-expanding, non-contracting universe possible. But then Hubble's observations showed an apparently uniformly expanding universe, and Einstein declared the cosmological constant his greatest mistake.

With the discovery of dark energy, Einstein probably would have called his greatest mistake the rejection of the cosmological constant.

I discuss this in my book Physics: Decade by Decade, part of the Facts on File Twentieth-Century Science set.

Like Burt, I am inclined to attribute the acceleration, if it exists, to something within the observable universe rather than something external. The cosmological constant is certainly a reasonable possibility.

Don usually ends up connecting things like this to a supernatural entity in some form. Thus I am wary about where he will take us if we ride along. Because I tend to waste too much time with threads like this, I will now move to the sidelines and let others go further (barring questions/comments specifically address to me).

Fred Bortz -- Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)

Don, you may actually be right! Why? Because there is little difference between a mysterious repulse force 'within' and a mysterious attractive force 'on the outside'.

I said "little difference", but not "no difference", e.g., there are at least some plausible theories for the mechanism behind the repulse force within. Do you have a plausible theory for the mechanism behind the attractive force on the outside?

Regards,

Burt Jordaan (www.Relativity-4-Engineers.com)