The Mystery Of Dark Energy
Image: National Geographic
“Dark energy is not only terribly important for astronomy, it’s the central problem for physics. It’s been the bone in our throat for a long time.” – Steven Weinberg, Nobel Laureate, University of Texas at Austin.
More than three years into its quest to solve the nature of dark energy and illuminate the origin, evolution, and fate of our universe, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) project remains on track to complete the largest map of the cosmos ever.
HEDTEX, a project by Penn State University scientists, aims to create a three-dimensional map of 2.5 million galaxies that will yield valuable insights into the byzantine puzzle of why the expansion of the universe is speeding up over time, a property attributed to the so-called dark energy.
But first things first, what exactly is dark energy?
Dark energy in an expanding universe
The observable universe consists of three known components: normal matter, dark matter, and dark energy. Dark energy is the most abundant at 68%, with dark energy making up another 27% of the universe while ordinary matter constitutes just 5%.
Today, there is consensus among astronomers that the universe we inhabit is expanding despite the presence of gravity, and that its expansion is accelerating, giving rise to the notion of a repulsive force that astronomers have dubbed ‘dark energy,’ though the concept has only been around for a little more than 20 years. Generally, astronomers and astrophysicists assign the prefix ‘dark’ to concepts they have little or no clue about.
Dark energy is the name given to the mysterious force that’s causing the rate of expansion of our universe to accelerate, rather than to slow down and go out in a Big Crunch as it ages. That’s contrary to what one might expect from a universe that was birthed by an event like the Big Bang.
Back in 1917 when Albert Einstein came up with the general theory of relativity that laid the foundations of the Big Bang and the universe as a whole, he and most leading scientists were convinced that the cosmos was static and non-expanding. Einstein introduced the Cosmological Constant to help explain why the universe was not collapsing under the attractive force of gravity.
It wasn’t until 12 years later when Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe is in fact expanding, with galaxies farther away from our planet moving away faster than those that are closer. The model of a static universe was finally abandoned, forcing Einstein to quickly modify his theories and come up with two new distinct models of the expanding universe, both of them without the cosmological constant, just a year later.
However, it would be decades later–1998 to be precise–before astronomers discovered that the universe was dominated by dark energy and not normal matter as earlier thought.
Solving dark energy
More than two decades after the discovery of dark energy, astronomers remain in the dark regarding what it’s all about.
However, several theories have been advanced to attempt to explain dark energy.
Ironically, Einstein’s previously abandoned cosmological constant is one of the frontrunners, which modern-day physicists describe as vacuum energy.
“The vacuum in physics is not a state of nothing. It’s a place where particles and antiparticles are continuously created and destroyed. The energy produced in this perpetual cycle could exert an outward-pushing force on space itself, causing its expansion, initiated in the big bang, to accelerate,” says Penn State University Associate Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Donghui Jeong.
But here’s the rub with the concept of vacuum energy: The theoretical calculations of vacuum energy diverge from actual observations by a factor of as much as ten thousand.
Clearly this is a massive discrepancy that could necessitate a reworking of the current theory.
Another possibility: Einstein’s theory of gravity is wrong from the get-go hence leading to erroneous conclusions.
Nonetheless, the cosmological constant in the form of vacuum energy remains the leading candidate that explains dark energy.
HETDEX ambition
Obviously, mapping 2.5 million galaxies is no mean undertaking and requires quite a bit of elbow grease. This is not made any easier by the fact that whereas other comparable studies measure the universe’s expansion using distant supernovae or a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, HETDEX is focused on sound waves from the big bang, called baryonic acoustic oscillations.
Luckily, HETDEX has secured more than $40 million in funding and a set of more than 150 spectrographs called VIRUS (Visible Integral-Field Replicable Unit Spectrographs), that gathers light from far-away galaxies into an array of some 35,000 optical fibers where it is split into its component wavelengths.
Another perk: HETDEX is the first probe to try to do a whole lot of spectroscopy and then figure out what they will see by observing broad swaths of sky instead of specific, predetermined objects, meaning they will end up collecting an insane amount of data. Who knows, that treasure trove might yield unexpected insights that might help mankind in its quest to eventually colonize the universe.
See more here: zerohedge.com
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MattH
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“The energy produced in this perpetual cycle could exert an outward-pushing force on space itself, causing its expansion, initiated in the big bang, to accelerate,” says Penn State University Associate Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Donghui Jeong.”
Alternatively, an expanding universe could be the result of an attracting force on the other side. This concept would require the dismissal of the big bang theory which is a modified version of “on the seventh day God rested”.
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Allan Shelton
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BBT and AGW = FRAUD
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
““Dark energy is not only terribly important for astronomy, it’s the central problem for physics. It’s been the bone in our throat for a long time.” – Steven Weinberg, Nobel Laureate, University of Texas at Austin.”
Yesterday, I called an Emeritus Physical Chemistry Professor at the university where I attended graduate school. This former chemistry professor told me he retired from his chemistry studies ten years ago and that now his Scientific interests involved the study of Dark whatever.
No sure what my comment was but he promptly hung up.
So I didn’t have a chance to review what I consider a fundamental fact of SCIENCE. Which is that a SCIENTIFIC IDEA requires a possible testable prediction of something which has not yet been observed. Plus the fact that it must be based on some observable facts.
Except, having just written the previous, I must admit that the idea of dark energy is that it has never been seen. But this implies that any idea about this dark energy can never be tested. Hence, by fundamental definition, the study of dark energy, dark matter, black holes is NOT SCIENCE. Because any ideas about these topics can never be tested.
Hence, it is a safe topic for people who like to argue because any arguments can never be proven to be wrong.
Have a good day, Jerry
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LLOYD
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If he hung up on you, I think you might take that as a clue that your opinion was not all that important. Or you insulted him. Those are clues.
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Binra
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If you ask a real question of anyone invested in a lack of substance running as a marketised and weaponised narrative dictate. They will hang up on you in one way or another for they cannot Reason outside the parameter of the Model’s dictate.
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Herb Rose
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Dark energy, dark matter, Big Bang Theory, and all of modern physics is based on the unsupported theory of the particle nature of light (photon) and a constant speed of light. It is not the universe that is expanding but the illusions necessary to preserve these delusions.How long and what will it take to show physicist that they have descended in lunacy.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb and hopefully PSI Readers,
Herb: “all of modern physics is based on the unsupported theory of the particle nature of light (photon) and a constant speed of light.”
The speed of light has been measured by various methods and various people many times. And every measurement has been within the experimental error (EE) of measurement. Which experimental error of measurement can never be avoided. It (EE) can be reduced by better experiments but never reduced to ZERO.
You frequently refer to the ELECTRICAL NATURE of MATTER but you seem to ignore the light emitted from a hydrogen filled gas discharge (electrical) tube which, when viewed with a simple diffraction grating one simply sees four lines of ‘pure’ colors.
Which, the four specific colors, Bohr could explain by assuming an electron was circling (orbiting) the proton of a hydrogen atom as planets orbit at certain distances from the Sun. However, when tried the same reasoning with the Helium (He) atom his reasoning, relative to the colors observed, do not work. Plus, as I often told my chemistry students, the Bohr planetary model could never explain a snow flake. Which has a well defined geometrical structure of somewhat random directions.
Hence, Herb, I ask you: How long and what will it take to show YOU that YOU have descended inTO lunacy???
Have a good day, Jerry
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Ken Hughes
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“Dark Energy” is the speeding up of time.
Both Special and General Relativity show that the “size” of space, (volume of space), is dependent on the rate at which time passes. On the event horizon of a black hole, time has stopped and so space has “shrunk” to zero volume, a spherical hologram around the surface of the horizon (with zero height). Slow down time and space gets smaller. Increase the rate of time and space gets “bigger”.
Applying this to Hubble’s observations, we start to understand that if space is “expanding”, (i.e. getting bigger), then the time rate must be increasing. Accepting this, gives us a quickening clock, rather than just an expanding space with no apparent causation. The causation IS the quickening clock.
Ultimately, this leads us to a different understanding of the beginning of everything. THE BEGINING OF TIME.
Everything else we observe stems naturally from this concept, i.e. the fundamental nature of the process of time and the emergence of space from this process. Inflation was the period when time increased from zero rate, to something like today’s rate and the continuing slow expansion of space is due to the residual increasing of time, left over from the begining.
It doesn’t matter a damn that time ran slower in the past or that space was smaller back then, since the speed of time, and therefore the speed of light is what determines the laws of nature. If I existed ten billion years ago and measured some particular distance in the universe, then I was transported to today and measured the same distance, I would actually have measured the SAME distance, since the the speed of time has “kept pace” with the size of space.
Only when I look into the past, (a billion years ago) by looking at something a billion light years away, will I measure a different distance. I will observe red shift and cosmic expansion, but due to the quickening of time.
Read my book, The Binary Universe – A Theory of Time, https://uppbooks.com/shop/product/the-binary-universe-a-theory-of-time/
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Ken Hughes
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All this talk of “forces”, is naive in the face of general relativity. It’s just so,…. er,…. well,…..NEWTONIAN!
It’s about time we grew up and emerged from Newtonian thinking and entered the temporal age of physics.
This view, incidentally explains most of today’s conundrums in physics.
Which is the better theory?
1. Today’s theories with today’s conundrums, (Cosmic expansion, vacuum catastrophe, wave nature of light, antimatter imbalance, CPT Symmetry, something from nothing, quantum entanglement, causation for inertial time dilation, causation of gravitational time dilation, the preferred reference frame (field), Newton’s bucket/Mach’s principle, supersymmetry, double slit results, and the beginning of everything.
or
2. Today’s theories with a subtly different understanding of them that answers all the above ?
Answers on a postcard please.
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Binra
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Invested Model becomes the unwillingness to question, or look except as it dictates.
The modelling of science as a mathematically modelled ‘realignment’ of fragments and partialities, becomes the protected disease – set in seeking ‘solutions’ that is compelled to lock down and distance from empirical fact and relational honesty in masking models that can be constantly mutated or extended to variants that keep the funding and support for a too big to fail invested self-illusion.
That the fudge is dark is curiously revealing.
Anything withheld or denied light will take on a dark aspect that then runs the mind unseen.
If the Physical Universe is – as often stated – anything near 99% plasma – then the electrical charge patterning with its magnetic counterpoint are fudged over as if what we loosely call flu isn’t there because a super nova virus is modelled to replace it as a launch of a new theoretical platform of biotech modelling solutions ™ .
The photo of a full spectrum representation of the neural net of our Cosmos offers integral insight.
Artefacts of the Model can keep us in the dark.
Light can undermine our face as a sense of control.
But resonant alignment is a basis for Field Communication as a whole in all its parts.
The private controller is then released from service. Thankyou.
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