This research page starts with all the times space respiration is used. It is expanded beyond specific paragraphs to include the section by this name and some contextualizing paragraphs when used elsewhere. The quotes are followed by supportive research reports.
From The Urantia Book:
(11:6.1) We do not know the actual mechanism of space respiration; we merely observe that all space alternately contracts and expands. This respiration affects both the horizontal extension of pervaded space and the vertical extensions of unpervaded space which exist in the vast space reservoirs above and below Paradise. In attempting to imagine the volume outlines of these space reservoirs, you might think of an hourglass.
(11:6.2) As the universes of the horizontal extension of pervaded space expand, the reservoirs of the vertical extension of unpervaded space contract and vice versa. There is a confluence of pervaded and unpervaded space just underneath nether Paradise. Both types of space there flow through the transmuting regulation channels, where changes are wrought making pervadable space nonpervadable and vice versa in the contraction and expansion cycles of the cosmos.
(11:6.3) “Unpervaded” space means: unpervaded by those forces, energies, powers, and presences known to exist in pervaded space. We do not know whether vertical (reservoir) space is destined always to function as the equipoise of horizontal (universe) space; we do not know whether there is a creative intent concerning unpervaded space; we really know very little about the space reservoirs, merely that they exist, and that they seem to counterbalance the space-expansion-contraction cycles of the universe of universes.
(11:6.4) The cycles of space respiration extend in each phase for a little more than one billion Urantia years. During one phase the universes expand; during the next they contract. Pervaded space is now approaching the mid-point of the expanding phase, while unpervaded space nears the mid-point of the contracting phase, and we are informed that the outermost limits of both space extensions are, theoretically, now approximately equidistant from Paradise. The unpervaded-space reservoirs now extend vertically above upper Paradise and below nether Paradise just as far as the pervaded space of the universe extends horizontally outward from peripheral Paradise to and even beyond the fourth outer space level.
(11:6.5) For a billion years of Urantia time the space reservoirs contract while the master universe and the force activities of all horizontal space expand. It thus requires a little over two billion Urantia years to complete the entire expansion-contraction cycle.
(12:4.7) Space is, from the human viewpoint, nothing—negative; it exists only as related to something positive and nonspatial. Space is, however, real. It contains and conditions motion. It even moves. Space motions may be roughly classified as follows:
(12:4.8) 1. Primary motion—space respiration, the motion of space itself.
(12:4.9) 2. Secondary motion—the alternate directional swings of the successive space levels.
(12:4.10) 3. Relative motions—relative in the sense that they are not evaluated with Paradise as a base point. Primary and secondary motions are absolute, motion in relation to unmoving Paradise.
(12:4.11) 4. Compensatory or correlating movement designed to co-ordinate all other motions.
(12:5.1) Like space, time is a bestowal of Paradise, but not in the same sense, only indirectly. Time comes by virtue of motion and because mind is inherently aware of sequentiality. From a practical viewpoint, motion is essential to time, but there is no universal time unit based on motion except in so far as the Paradise-Havona standard day is arbitrarily so recognized. The totality of space respiration destroys its local value as a time source.
Supportive Research:
See phys.org article from 2015:
“The new finding suggests that the universe has slowed down and speeded up, not just once, but 7 times in the last 13.8 billion years, on average emulating dark matter in the process.” See original research paper for the physics.org article.
Physics Astronomy article from October 2016:
“Despite being infinite in size our universe is cyclical and has always existed in one of four stages. The universe is expanding, and the expansion is speeding up, but the team believes that certain modification motivated by quantum mechanics will ultimately halt the expansion and pull the whole lot back to a near infinite point – at which stage the universe will start expanding again.”
Abstract from original study: “In this paper, we investigate the effects of a new version of the generalized uncertainty principle (modified GUP) on the dynamics of the Universe. As the modified GUP will modify the relation between the entropy and area of the apparent horizon, it will also deform the Friedmann equations within Jacobson’s approach. We explicitly find these deformed Friedmann equations governing the modified GUP-corrected dynamics of such a Universe. It is shown that the modified GUP-deformed Jacobson’s approach implies an upper bound for the density of such a Universe. The Big Bang singularity can therefore also be avoided using the modified GUP-corrections to horizons’ thermodynamics. In fact, we are able to analyze the pre Big Bang state of the Universe. Furthermore, the equations imply that the expansion of the Universe will come to a halt and then will immediately be followed by a contracting phase. When the equations are extrapolated beyond the maximum rate of contraction, a cyclic Universe scenario emerges.”
Wikipedia Big Bounce:
“The Big Bounce is a hypothetical cosmological model for the origin of the known universe. It was originally suggested as a phase of the cyclic model or oscillatory universe interpretation of the Big Bang, where the first cosmological event was the result of the collapse of a previous universe. It receded from serious consideration in the early 1980s after inflation theory emerged as a solution to the horizon problem, which had arisen from advances in observations revealing the large-scale structure of the universe. In the early 2000s, inflation was found by some theorists to be problematic and unfalsifiable in that its various parameters could be adjusted to fit any observations, so that the properties of the observable universe are a matter of chance. An alternative picture including a Big Bounce was conceived as a predictive and falsifiable possible solution to the horizon problem, and is under active investigation as of 2017.[1]