How Do We Know We're Not Shrinking?

What if a property of all matter in the universe is that it shrinks at an exponential rate? How would we ever be able to tell that that wasn't happening instead of the universe expanding? We've never shrunken anything ala "Honey I Shrunk The Kids" so we don't really know what the tell-tale signs of shrinkage are. All of the galaxies seem to be flying apart, but what if they're just shrinking so it appears the space in-between them is growing? I know there's technically no such thing as "empty space", but all things must occupy a space that is empty, right? But what if the empty part of the universe, or even dark matter, doesn't shrink? And just all ordinary matter shrinks, so it appears that galaxies are flying apart? And like, you see the light of the stars, but that's just how close the stars were once upon a time, before they shrunk. I don't know. There may be a perfectly good reason why everything can't be shrinking that I'm not aware of.

 

Well if we are going by sciences point of view the reason planets and stuff stay relatively equal distance from one another is because of gravity pulling and pushing everything. Maybe because of see invisible barrier we cant see keeping every thing relative to one another. But the answer to your question is for all of our human wisdom I don't think we would realize it until we shrank out of existence.

 

It's not normal...

I was cold and wet---really...

...there is shrinkage when its cold...

I'm not making this up...

 

Well I think it's different for men and women, but I like to think my son's are just having another growth spurt!

They can start growing again in their 30,s...right?

 

OP, I made a similar post a long time ago. Just a fun thought experiment and thinking outside the box. If I was space expanding from all points then I think matter would look to me like it was shrinking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th_9ZR2I0_w