Is there any theoretical basis for thinking that, given a chunk of the universe, laws and/or constants may vary in some way depending on what the local rate of expansion is?
because the outer edges of the universe are expanding faster, right? and the more you go ‘in’, the lesser the rate?
if I’m wrong, just stop there. but if that’s holds true, then what if like planck’s constant or Dirac’s large number changes? an interesting idea that popped up here was that some things could change, so that your given reference frame in an outer area would be bigger than in the middle, and the middle bigger than the inside.
So that, no matter how far out you go in the universe, the size of the universe you can see looking in is always a constant.
Since no one else has replied to this, I’ll try to elaborate a little on my first overly terse response. But I’m sure there are people here who know a hell of a lot more than I do about cosmology.
When I say there are no inside or outside edges to the universe, that means that every point in the universe is equivalent to every other point. There is no special point that is at the middle of everything. The Big Bang happened everywhere around us. Also, the expansion rate is thought to be the same everywhere you go, as are all the laws of physics. As far as I know, there’s no place in our universe where the results of physical experiments or cosmological observations would be substantially different from what they are here. (Unless you were in the middle of a dust cloud and couldn’t see other galaxies.)
The key word here is “thought”. There’s no experimental evidence that, for example, the gravitational constant, or Plancks constant are the same 12 billion light years away as they are here, or that they are truly time invariant constants.
There are theories in which the gravitational constant varies with time (getting smaller inversely with the age of the universe).
For the others, I don’t know. I would think that changes in at least some of the constants, maybe Planck’s constant, would cause changes in the emmision spectra of elements, and so would show up in observations.
I agree. I have serious doubts that the values of physical constants could change very much and allow galaxies and atomic nuclei to hold together and stars to shine with the same spectra. Anyone who wants us to believe that physical constants are different far away (not counting soon after the Big Bang) should be able to come up with an observation we could make to falsify their theory.