Milne Model - Differences Between Milne Model and Other Models

Differences Between Milne Model and Other Models

In order to explain the existence of matter in the universe, Milne proposed a physical explosion of matter which would not affect the universe's geometry. This is in contrast to the metric expansion of space that is the hallmark feature of many of the more famous cosmological models including the Big Bang and Steady State models. Milne's universe shares a superficial similarity to Einstein's static universe in that the metric of space is not time-dependent. Unlike Einstein's initial cosmology, Milne's proposal directly contradicts the Einstein equations for cosmological scales. Special relativity becomes a global property of Milne's universe while general relativity is confined to a local property. The reverse is true for standard cosmological models, and most scientists and mathematicians agree that the latter is self-consistent while the former is mathematically impossible.

Edward Arthur Milne predicted a kind of event horizon through the use of this model: "The particles near the boundary tend towards invisibility as seen by the central observer, and fade into a continuous background of finite intensity." The horizon arises naturally from length contraction seen in special relativity which is a consequence of the speed of light upper bound for physical objects. In Milne's universe, the velocities of objects approach this upper bound while the distance to these objects approaches the speed of light multiplied by the time since the event of the initial explosion of material. Beyond this distance, objects do not lie in the observable part of the Milne universe.

At the time Milne proposed his model, observations of the universe did not appear to be in a homogeneous form. This, to Milne, was a deficiency inherent in the competing cosmological models which relied on the cosmological principle that demanded a homogeneous universe. “This conventional homogeneity is only definite when the motion of the particles is first prescribed.” With present observations of the homogeneity of the universe on the largest scales seen in the cosmic microwave background and in the so-called "End of Greatness", questions about the homogeneity of the universe have been settled in the minds of most observational cosmologists.