Could motion be space-time expanding and contracting?

Abstract

Abstract The author William Stukeley of Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton’s Life published in 1752 wrote: “…After dinner, the weather being warm, we went into the garden and drank thea, under the shade of some apple trees…he told me, he was just in the same situation, as when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasion’d by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself….” Newton seeing this apple fall formulated gravity and went on to show that the movement of the moon and planets and other heavenly bodies is due to the same force. What if Newton had instead seen Galaxies moving due to an expanding universe, would he have then wondered if the apple falling, and all movement is due to an expanding universe? This short essay introduces a simple thought experiment to analyze this possibility. It concludes that if such is the case the passage of time and the expansion of the universe is the one and the same.