Is dark energy an illusion?

Interesting hypothesis, but I'm a little sceptical. It is the average density that causes a "brake" on average expansion. AFAIK, the observations all measure the average expansion rate. Author Rasanen's counter that "3D maps of galaxies, such as the 2-degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey, show differences much closer to the minimum 20% level needed to account for the cosmic acceleration" may hold some water, but I think he pushes it a bit!

That said, there is also still at least some doubt as to whether the cosmic expansion is actually accelerating - there are other interpretations to some of the observations that may indicate no acceleration...

Jorrie

Dark energy, what causes darkness?. we have seen in dark lot of actions taking place viz development of photos etc.. This shows clearly some chemical action are possible only in dark. Hence darkness have equal potential as light. This needs to be explored more.

We had a little discussion on how to create a dark room for Photograpic use lately. Don't make us start again.

The reason you use a dark room is that certain things don't happen in the dark not because certain chemical reactions only take place in the dark. Developing chemicals work just as well in the light, you just end up with a washed out image because the light causes the film to react.

I had heard somewhere that it was believed that "dark energy" was also responsible for holding galaxies together, or at least in some manner,keeping the faster, outer reaches of a galaxy from simply hurling out in to space, not just causing the universe to expand.

It would seem to me that if the universe were expanding in an accelerating manner, then the energy in the universe would also need to be increasing to achieve this acceleration. Otherwise, you would have an increase in the velocity of mass without an increase in energy. I thought this violated the known laws of physics? So, very simply put, either the universe is "creating energy" or there is not an acceleration in it's expansion. It could quite possible be that the galaxies are just sort of "bouncing" around throughout the universe in a sort of chaotic manner, and always have been.

I don't buy into the big bang theory. 13.7 billion years ago... couldn't have happened. Singularity? Sounds like a fairy tale! if the edge of the "visible" universe is 46.5 billion light years away, how could the universe have only started 13.7 billion years ago? Matter would have had to travel at at least 7 or 8 times the speed of light to the edge of the visible universe, then send the light back at 7 or 8 times the speed of light for us to see it that far away! the math doesn't add up. no big bang!

Again, either the universe is much much older than we think and the galaxies are bouncing around through the universe as they have been for hundreds of billions of years, or there is something out there literally creating energy (and matter as the energy slows down), at an incredible rate! could something in the universe actually be creating this "dark energy"?

Hi David, you wrote: "... that it was believed that "dark energy" was also responsible for holding galaxies together, or at least in some manner, keeping the faster, outer reaches of a galaxy from simply hurling out in to space, not just causing the universe to expand."

There is a difference between the dark matter that keeps galaxies together and dark energy that apparently causes the accelerated expansion of the universe at large. The dark energy is hypothesized to come from the vacuum of space and as space expands, there is more an more dark energy in a linear fashion, i.e., the dark energy density is constant.

Regards, Jorrie

Just one thought. again, if the dark energy is coming from or created by the expansion of the universe, wouldn't it break the law of conservation of energy as it INCREASES its velocity? as in, how could something moving create more energy BY moving than it uses TO move? Or is it hypothesized that the energy is just there by nature of the the universe?

I ask this as I am working on a theory and experiment which would show where this energy does come from and how it is increasing. I am very interested in the various other scientific thoughts on exactly where this energy does come from.

Hi David, you wrote: "... if the dark energy is coming from or created by the expansion of the universe..."

The λCDM (lambda-cold-dark-matter) model does not postulate that the expansion creates the dark energy (vacuum energy). The vacuum of space is thought to have a constant, positive energy density and this works against gravity. If the total vacuum energy is too small, the expansion rate decreases, but the dark energy is still there. It is "only" during the last 6 billion years or so that it appears as if the vacuum energy was large enough to cause an increase in the expansion rate.

Where does the energy come from? Nobody knows, but a "false vacuum", where the random fluctuations do not cancel out, is a good candidate.

Regards, Jorrie

Well yet again we have a blog on dark matter, it is usually the blind leading the deaf; with no hope of communication.

Rule 1) The big bang theory is wrong.

Rule 2) The universe is not expanding at an increasing rate.

Rule 3) The above two rules are correct.

Rule 4) Astronomers only see what they want to; it has to prove their latest theory.

Rule 5) All the above are true.

Rule 6) Einsteins theory of relativity has gaping holes in it.

Rule 7) Things are as simple as you want them to be.

Rule 8) Someone will always disagree never mind how good your own theory is.

Rule 9) No two rules should contradict each other.

Rule 10) Complexity hides errors and shows ignorance.

The universe as we know it now is so out of date as to be meaningless, that is all that we can see outside of our own planet happened so many thousands of years ago that it could all have gone and we would never know about it.

People want to time travel well just look up at the stars because you are going back into prehistory. Aside from the question of whether or not there ever was a big bang, the universe is expanding, have you never thought about a far, far, bigger question?

How does the Earth not simply drop out of orbit from around the Sun and crash down into what ever is technically bellow this planet? What is up what is down? Why is North always up? If we are the only life in the known universe why here and now?

The outer reaches of our universe as we know of them are moving out into what? Is there an infinite amount of emptiness there? The reason the galaxies move faster with distance is easily answered, as the objects get farther distant their gravitational fields get weaker relative one another. Simple is it not. There is no magic required.

Dark matter, dark energy are not required to explain all the facts, just cold logic. Where is Mr Spock when you need him? Simplicity is the answer to all things. Complexity just adds fog to knowledge. Well that has you baffled for now, digest my wisdom, think not how you can muddy the waters, but rather how you can simplify your own thinking.

Oh boy, where to start.

"The universe as we know it now is so out of date as to be meaningless, that is all that we can see outside of our own planet happened so many thousands of years ago that it could all have gone and we would never know about it. "

Yes the further out we look into space the further back in time we look. There are a couple of little details that you seem to overlook.

• Red-Shift Objects moving away from us have the light they emit shifted to the red end of the spectrum while approaching stars have the light shifted towards the blue end of the spectrum. There and many more stars that exhibit a red shift than a blue shift. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that the majority of stars are moving away from each other and that means the universe is expanding.
• Hubble Constant Variations If you take the distance a star is away from us and divide it by the speed it is moving away you get a value that is almost constant regardless of the star and the distance it is away from us. By calculating this ratio you can calculate how fast the universe is expanding. The problem is that as we look further away we are looking back in time and the Hubble Constant appears to be changing over tine. The variations in the Hubble Constant over tine point to the universe expanding faster now than it was in the past. Hence the accelerating rate of expansion and the need to explain it.

"How does the Earth not simply drop out of orbit from around the Sun and crash down into what ever is technically bellow this planet? What is up what is down?"

Up and down are completely relative terms and depend on a whole stack of things. I could sit you in a glider and throw a steep turn with a 60° bank angle. If however you had a spirit level and plum bob down would still point directly and at right angles to the floor of the glider. As far as you are concerned down is still straight through the floor of the glider even though it is inclined at 60° to the horizon.

There is nothing technically below this planet except the core of this planet. Earth is a sphere and no matter where you are standing on the sphere down points towards the center of the sphere.

"Why is North always up?"

Nobody said anything about north being up, it is up but only at the south magnetic pole. North is where it is because the core of the Earth is magnetized and as such acts like a gigantic magnet. This magnet is roughly aligned with the axis that the earth is rotating around and at the moment its north pole is pointed roughly where the north geographic pole. I say roughly because the magnetic poles and the geographic poles are not the same and are a considerable distance apart. The magnetic poles also move by op to 30 Km each year and in the past have reversed polarity on several occasions. The Sun also has a magnetic field that is many times stronger than the earths. The Suns magnetic poles, like the Earths, are not exactly aligned with its axis of rotation. The Suns magnetic poles like Earth's also switch polarity but unlike Earth's they switch every 11 years or so.

" If we are the only life in the known universe why here and now?"

Who said anything about us being the only intelligence in the universe. More than likely there are other intelligent life forms out there. The trouble the universe is a really, really big place and it takes a very, very, very long time to get places. If somebody were out there looking for us they would need to be within about 80 light years of earth. That's an almost completely insignificant part of the universe so the chances are if there is intelligence out there then we would more than likely have a lot of trouble finding it.

As to why we are here, that is a philosophical problem not an astronomical problem and something that is open to debate.

The big bang may be wrong but it is the best explanation we have to date for the current observations. If you have a better explanation the put it forward. Just saying something is wrong because you don't like it is not very scientific, you need to show why it is wrong and present a theory that explains observations more exactly and succinctly.

If you truly don't understand why something like the Earth can remain in orbit around the Sun then you are in no way qualified to make the statements you have in you post.

just curiously, what is your take on singularity of the universe? I believe it was some researchers in Sweden who recently made a claim that the big bang didn't occur, but that the universe still started out in singularity, is expanding and will eventually collapse back into singularity. So basically, dark energy is causing the universe to expand, at an accelerating pace, the energy will eventually run out, and the universe will reverse and go back into singularity, only to start the process again.

Personally I don't believe this or the big bang. yes I do have my own theory but it will take alot more time until I have all the facts, evidence and experiments put together to present it.

Hi David,

"just curiously, what is your take on singularity of the universe?"

The current data seems to point to the universe expanding from something close to a point is space and time some 15 billion years ago. First off I think the way everybody gets hung up is with the way they define the dimensions. Length width and depth only describe half of the universe, they leave out matter and energy.

If we look a it from the point that the four fundamental dimensions are space, time, mass and energy then we can get a better picture of the universe as a whole. We also know that energy and matter are tied together with E = mc². If the universe is expanding from a singularity or something similar we can also say that since we can not travel faster than the speed of light.

Space = 4/3 π(c x time)³

All we need to do now, to complete Einstein's grand unity concept, is to tie the two equations together and you can show that all four are really different manifestations of the same thing.

The thing is, at a fundamental level the universe is elegantly simple. This is clearly shown by the energy mass relationship and it's not that much of a stretch to think that everything must be tied together in a similarly simple and elegant way.

Hi Masu, there are a couple of things in your reply to David that I disagree with.

You wrote: "The current data seems to point to the universe expanding from something close to a point is space and time some 15 billion years ago."

The current data point more to a singularity in terms of infinite energy density that started out infinitely large in spatial dimensions! The reason for this is that data indicate that the universe is flat or slightly open, not closed. Only a closed universe, with Ω < 1 could presumably have started as a spatial singularity.

Secondly, on your: "If the universe is expanding from a singularity or something similar we can also say that since we can not travel faster than the speed of light. Space = 4/3 π(c x time)³"

Even if the universe was expanding from a spatial singularity, it is now much, much larger than that. The expansion rate at the end of the inflation epoch, if measured by the increase in distance between particles on opposite sides of the (baby) universe, was at least 10²⁴c. This is possible because it was space that expanded, not the particles moving through space.

What you have worked out above is the Hubble volume, i.e., the volume of our observable space, measured in light travel time. The real or proper volume of our observable space is at least 10 times that, because the space that we now observe from the horizon has been moving farther all the time. Then, there are probably space, galaxies, etc. outside of what we can observe today...

Regards, Jorrie

Hi Jorrie,

Most of what I said was sort of tongue in cheek to see what sort of response it would elicit.

The thing that I am however certain of is that at a fundamental level the universe is elegantly simple. Whenever we break everything down to its ultimate driving concepts it nearly always turns out to be beautifully and elegantly simple. Einstein's famous E = mc² is a classic example of how simple it is at a fundamental level.

I have been meaning to read your e-book but I seem to keep getting distracted by CR4 threads. I really should make the time to read it thoroughly, I am certain that is will answer the many questions I have and trigger a floury of new threads.

I, too, am skeptical, but I welcome any new ideas. I have come to like the term 'dark energy' because it indicates that we are in the dark about something. Our ignorance is huge in this field. If the universe started out as a singularity (and it is an if), then we need to solve the quantum mysteries in order to explain what is happening.

S