Thread: Photons in flight

As intergalactic space expands with the universe, photons take longer to travel between galaxies. The average flight time is in the billions of years as the chance of hitting anything decreases as the universe expands.
This would seem to be a net transfer of energy from matter to intergalactic space as the universe ages.

Could this in someway be linked to dark energy?

Originally Posted by PetTastic

As intergalactic space expands with the universe, photons take longer to travel between galaxies. The average flight time is in the billions of years as the chance of hitting anything decreases as the universe expands.
This would seem to be a net transfer of energy from matter to intergalactic space as the universe ages.

Could this in someway be linked to dark energy?

In a word, no.

It is interesting to think that, almost all of the energy that has ever been created from matter since the big bang, is now in the form of photons in inter-galactic space.
Very little got converted back into matter. The rest got or will get re-radiated into space.
If the universe ever contracted again, all of these photons would start to hit matter again, warming the universe up a bit!

Eddington back in 1926 quoted a temperature of 3.K for interstellar space based on "starlight" alone, from these photons.

Dark energy was made up to explain an apparent increase in speed of expansion several billion years ago, so a fairly sudden event rather than a progressive effect like photons.

Originally Posted by PetTastic

It is interesting to think that, almost all of the energy that has ever been created from matter since the big bang, is now in the form of photons in inter-galactic space.
Very little got converted back into matter. The rest got or will get re-radiated into space.
If the universe ever contracted again, all of these photons would start to hit matter again, warming the universe up a bit!

There's no evidence that blackholes can compress "SPACE". If the universe could contract, we would be able to observe it around blackholes. (and surrounding galaxies near blackholes even with considerable light year distances)

Since the expansion of SPACE, involves the "CREATION OF SPACE", unless we could prove that DARKMATTER can DUPLICATE OR REGENERATE. There's no real basis for theories involving the expansion of space or its contraction.

Other then our misunderstandings of the PHOTON. The PHOTON is our only means of determing if "SPACE" is expanding or contracting. According to modern science that is. So our understanding of te PHOTON has given us these conclusions, what if our understanding of the PHOTON is WRONG?

I never ruled out the possibility of SPACE FLUXUATING, but SPACE FLUXUATING and SPACE EXPANSION/CONTRACTION are not the same practical concepts.

EDIT

A PHOTON can only interact with substances containing MASS. Substances which do not contain mass, a photon would be unable to interact with. For example some expressions of DARKMATTER, could contain no mass at all, but some relational gravity force.

Hot Dark Matter (HDM), Warm Dark Matter (WDM), and Cold Dark Matter (CDM); some combination of these is also possible. The most widely discussed models for nonbaryonic dark matter are based on the Cold Dark Matter hypothesis, and the corresponding particle is most commonly assumed to be a neutralino. Hot dark matter might consist of (massive) neutrinos. Cold dark matter would lead to a "bottom-up" formation of structure in the universe while hot dark matter would result in a "top-down" formation scenario

Its like describing a cut of HOT COFFEE. Cold coffee is not really coffee, but its distinguishable by its other 2 parent expressions. technically.