I posted a [Physics Stack Exchange](http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/171077) question about mass being lost in the universe and a possible consequence on the expansion of the universe.
The original question was:
How confident are we that mass is not being lost in the universe?
After reading about the latest super-massive black hole in [Nature 518, 512–515 (26 February 2015)](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v518/n7540/full/nature14241.html), I couldn't help but wonder if the accelerating expansion is a result of mass being lost.
My reasoning is as follows:
1. If the early universe had a particular (greater) mass than at present,
2. Then "space-time" could have had a "momentum" (determined by that mass) [1],
3. And that post-big-bang expansion was being retarded by existing mass [2],
4. But since then mass has been lost to the universe [3]
5. Which reduces the (retarding) due to gravity (less mass) [2]
6. Resulting in the "space-time" of the universe expanding faster [4]
I was never a cosmologist, so please point out which of my assumptions are provably invalid!
[1] Does spacetime have a "mass" value? or What is "Spacetime" made out of?
[2] I'm struggling to remember my undergrad physics - would two particles each with an initial velocity moving away from each other in a gravitational field (relatively) speed up if the gravitational field is reduced?
[3] Major assumption on my part!
[4] Maybe!
So I guess there are two questions here:
A. How confident are we that mass is not being lost in the universe?
and
B. Would such a mass-loss be able to explain the observed accelerating expansion?
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It's been interesting to see how the question was edited down, and the resulting discussion!
@ 07:46 PM on March 19
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