Expansion Train: Calling at Quintessence, Big Bang Theory, Dark Energy, Neutrinos

I read an article in the telegraph that talked about Prof Wetterichs research into how the universe may not be expanding. He says that is it is not necessary that the universe should grow to make the maths work out, growing mass could also work.

The main evidence for the growth of the universe are the red shifted measurements of light by Hubble, this was always explained by the doppler shift by which waves bunch up in front of a moving object and disperse behind which changes the frequency by an amount depending on the speed. By these measurements the speed of the universe expansion was calculated and theories of a time when the universe was all concentrated at one point, a singularity at the beginning of the universe, were formed. This is the big bang theory and it is widely accepted now.

When we look at police cars driving past us we can hear the change in frequencies which is a demonstration of the doppler shift. Apparently light is emmited by atoms and the frequency emmited depends on the mass of the particles. When we look at light from a great distance away, because the light has taken time to reach us this is light from the past. The lower frequencies than expected (we know what is expected by comparing to things we know in that area, like a supernova usually has a certain light pattern) could be due to the mass being lower in the past.

I feel like the higgs boson discoveries would be involved in either proving or disproving this theory. When I tried to research I came accross 'Quintessence' which is to do with dark matter and is considered to be a fifth fundamental force by some physicists which is both attractive and repulsive in different situations depending on the ratio of kinetic to potential energy. All I know about dark energy and matter is that it makes up all the stuff we don't know because there is less mass than there should be according to the expansion models.Neutrino's seem important in all this.

Another article described the size of things shrinking. And plays around with a shrinking gravitational feild. It's possible I'm more confused now than I originally was but it is important that these ideas don't stay to fixed in my mind. But if it isn't expanding, if there was no beginning, is there an end and were we created and if not, why are we here. It causes a whole new way of thinking. I can't help but feel insignificant again...

On the 11th of Septemer 11.30 to 12.30 Prof Wetterich is giving a talk about his theory at CERN, yup you guessed it the imaginary World Trip is making a return to CERN for that... Apologies for the train of thought style of this post.