Could the Universe Be Expanding as Wave Fronts?

[marlowgs]

Could the universe be expanding wave fronts and the fundamental particles of matter be the particle manifestation of the waves? The wave front surface being the 3 dimensions of space and the radius of the front being the time dimension - similar to a wave front of light but one extra dimension at the front.

 

[mfb]

Those questions do not make sense at all, so the answer is probably "no".

 

[Chalnoth]

Could the universe be expanding wave fronts and the fundamental particles of matter be the particle manifestation of the waves? The wave front surface being the 3 dimensions of space and the radius of the front being the time dimension - similar to a wave front of light but one extra dimension at the front.

No, for a few reasons.

First, while time is a dimension, it doesn't behave quite the same as the spatial dimensions. As a result, it doesn't make sense to describe time as a spatial dimension too literally.

Second, there is no unique notion of a global "now": different observers will consider different sets of far-away events to have occurred at the same time. This means that the universe *cannot* simply be a wavefront moving forward in time. In fact, in General Relativity, all of space-time is described as a single entity (called a manifold), with the past and future existing in the same way that the present exists. In this picture, the passage of time is a sort of illusion created by increasing entropy.