I was reading a Reddit Q&A from MilkWay@Home and came across this... https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/3rr7pd/science_ama_series_we_are_milkywayathome_and_prof/cwr3p1s

It turns out that matter and space are intertwined, as proposed by Albert Einstein (who seems to never have had a good hair day) in his theory of General Relativity. Matter bends space. The curvature of space and the density of matter are related to the expansion rate of space. If that seems too complicated, then I guess you could say that gravity is holding the space in place.

Prof. Heidi Jo Newberg

For something like going on 15 years I've had the notion that dark energy and gravity are really the same thing, ever since around the time it was discovered and made public that the observable universe is not only expanding, but expanding at an accelerating rate. The reason I've thought this was somewhat related to the well known analogy and conceptualization of balls being placed on a sheet and the curves creating indentations in the sheet with the balls being "pulled" and rolling toward the indentations of each other. Of course in space this is in 3D instead of on a plane, but that's kind of beside the point. In the analogy the sheet is pushing back against the balls, and basically so that the balls aren't displacing it as much, pushes the balls together.

Maybe space operates in a similar manner, seeing as how gravity is observably the curvature of space-time as it relates to and interacts with mass. So maybe on the smaller scale where masses are relatively close, this force (in effect) appears to be pulling objects together, when it could be that it's really how the objects are interacting with space-time dilation. On the larger scale, maybe this appears as though very distant objects are being pushed away from each other.

I of course don't have the kind of data and resources at my disposal to investigate these things further really, so I'm just kind of throwing the notion out there to see what sticks.

Cheers.

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So to clarify this a little, the idea is basically that space-time is pushing mass away to form some kind of uniformity or equilibrium, non-displacement (if you will).

Space-time pushing mass away in this way may need some kind of "extradimensional" component to make more sense, perhaps related to the multidimensional geometry and size, age, or even rate of the universe in some way.

Then again, maybe it is just ripples on the surface of a pond pushing things apart, some kind of space-time quantum pressure effect. Who can say for sure? Either way, I'll be glad when we find out. :)

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