Another sort of expansion?

From: Jo Schaper (joschapern4ospam_at_2socketdot.no5net)
Date: 02/17/05 

Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 00:24:21 -0600

Since we are all reading our March Scientific American magazine, may I
direct the group to the article on the Big Bang?

The authors are talking about the expansion of space, not matter, from a
densely filled space to a sparsely filled one. Their analogy is to tape
paper pictures of galaxies on balloons. The balloons expand, but the
galaxies do not.

I am not the smartest turnip on the truck, but can someone explain to me
where the fundamental difference is between so called 'empty space' and
so called dense space or matter? I'm having trouble cogitating on the
concept that space and distance may be expanding, but that matter stays
the same size (trapped, as I think I understand, by gravitation).

This is at the same time of having survived an education where matter
was treated as little more than congealed energy--that is, at the sub-
atomic level, 'space' between protons, neutrons, electrons, and the
other 23 flavors of little charges and forces can be proportionally very
huge, and matter, in one sense, is considered just patterned energy
vibrating very fast to create the illusion of solidity.

Unlike some savants around here, I freely admit this concept of
'differential speeds of expansion' and the 'non-expansion of matter'
coexisiting with an expanding universe causes me trouble.

Or, do the cosmological physicists mean something else by the word
'expansion' than 'increase in linear or volumetric distance'?

So confusing...

TIA

Jo

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