Recent content by CutterMcCool

Consider this a thought experiment. Suppose the Earth had a stable hole through it to its center wide enough to drop a golf ball down. Assuming that golf ball freefalls (no friction with hole wall), would its acceleration rate continually increase as it fell to the center? If it increases...

See above for formula.

@Drakkith, If the number I found is off by orders of magnitude that would explain the discrepancy--in that 10^-16% doesn't generate any noticeable expansion. What I'm trying to do is calculate the rate of expansion by using a simpler formula, that for calculating compound interest, than...

rate of expansion? @Marcus & Cepheid, What I can't seem to find is an accurate number on the measured rate of expansion of the universe. There's 70km per second per megaparsec (which I take to be close to the Hubble Constant?) which is (oddly) given in one-dimensional terms rather than...

@Marcus, Thanks for your thorough answers. If space is expanding exponentially, shouldn't it be possible to follow the "leading edge" of space (the outer edge of the observable universe) and describe its acceleration in m/s^2? Much as the gravitational acceleration of a falling body on Earth...

Yes that's correct, energy must be input to initiate this. But (disordered) energy also comes out on the backside after energy is put in.

I'm thinking about the thermodynamics of electron capture: p + e --- n + v(e) + energy (That is, proton absorbs electron to give neutron, electron neutrino and energetic photons.) This is thermodynamically disfavored given the substantial energy barrier to fusion to a neutron...