Has space ever contracted?

Question

We know the universe expands. Has there ever been an event in which space has contracted?

We know that gravity draws objects in. One way of looking at it instead is that it "curves" space-time. And objects really move in a straight line but the curvature of space-time means a "straight line" ends up looking like a circle.

I don't know if "curving" space-time is the same as "expanding" or "contracting" but.. could it be?

Can gravity contract space, at least on a local level? In a way that is the opposite of universe "expansion?"

I guess I'm asking if the fabric os space-time is contracted (pressed in) somehow, in this curvature.

Answer 1

It is thought that there is a (minute) contraction of space as a Black Hole forms - which is why researchers hope to see gravitons/gravity waves coming from a Super Nova. But it is tiny.

Space being curved is demonstrably true - this is the cause of gravity lensing.



Of course the bulk Universe continues to smoothly (and ever quicker) expand.



Within a Black Hole the shrinkage is small because time has stopped within the event horizon.

Answer 2

The only place I could imagine where space might actually contract would be at the singularity of a black hole. Unfortunately, there's really no way to test such a hypothesis. One other (probably unlikely) possibility might somehow be found in a quantum fluctuation, where virtual particles pop into existence and then out again through a mutual annihilation.

Answer 3

Space neither contracts nor expands. The idea that it does comes from the original misinterpretation of galactic redshifts as being a doppler effect when they are actually a scattering effect. The galaxies are not generally receding from each other. Their light simply loses energy through it's interaction with the molecular hydrogen that fills intergalactic space (see source).



If space expanded, as well as stretching out the energy of light radially causing distant galaxies to appear redshifted, it would stretch it out transversely causing a reduction in their surface brightnesses. This is not what we observe:

http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/science-universe-not-expanding-01940.html



Expanding space would also stretch out the light curves of quasars (their oscillation in luminosity). No sign of this either:

http://phys.org/news190027752.html



This documentary may enlighten you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFFl9S39CTM



There never was a Big Bang.

Answer 4

The curvature is only possible in the presence of mass (hence gravity), so a contraction if it exists would not necessarily cause curvature unless mass was present. We don't know about gravity at small scales or what goes on in the middle of a black hole where things may be different.

Answer 5

Dunnow,,could our very recent big bang be the result of a previous contraction like a heartbeat in the infintum of time?

Answer 6

It is indeed possible that the expansion of the universe, and hence the expansion of space, will eventually reverse itself. (Or at least that was one of the "classical" predictions of relativistic cosmology. The discovery that the rate of expansion has varied in unexpected ways in the past, and is still increasing now, has complicated the picture.)

Answer 7

Newtons 3rd law of motion.













ATB.

Answer 8

If the Universe is cyclical yes but no one knows for certain.

Answer 9

No one knows