Re: Why?
"The question should rather be: why are the oscillations contributing more to expansion than to contraction?"
If I've understood everything, it's because the system has positive feedback.The author's explicit answer is "...the expansion outweighs the contraction a little bit due to the weak parametric resonance effect."
Apparently all (harmonically) oscillating systems have a net expansion when the frequency changes (?increases?) slowly. And iff I'm reading the paper right, the change in frequency is due to a change in the distribution of matter and radiation in the universe -- that's the feedback. So it may be the universe has a net expansion because there's a net expansion. But don't quote me on any of that.
They also say the net expansion would be zero if a cutoff related to the "micro structure of spacetime" reached infinity but they don't relate that cutoff to oscillations. However cutoffs are physicist speak for the "answer is in the unified theory of quantum gravity but won't bother us if we steer clear of black holes and big bangs".
Biting the hand that feeds IT
