Posted on 01/27/2020 6:34:00 AM PST by Red Badger
Prof Claudia de Rham’s ‘massive gravity’ theory could explain why universe expansion is accelerating
Cosmologists don’t enter their profession to tackle the easy questions, but there is one paradox that has reached staggering proportions.
Since the big bang, the universe has been expanding, but the known laws of physics suggest that the inward tug of gravity should be slowing down this expansion. In reality, though, the universe is ballooning at an accelerating rate.
Scientists have come up with a name – dark energy – for the mysterious agent that is allowing the cosmos to expand so rapidly and which is estimated to account for 70% of the contents of the universe. But ultimately nobody knows what the stuff actually is.
“It’s the big elephant in the room,” says Prof Claudia de Rham, a theoretical physicist at Imperial College. “It’s very frustrating.”
Change could be afoot. De Rham has pioneered a radical theory that could hold the key to why the universe is expanding faster and faster and explain the nature of dark energy. The theory, known as massive gravity, modifies Einstein’s general relativity, positing that the hypothetical particles (gravitons) that mediate the gravitational force themselves have a mass. In Einstein’s version, gravitons are assumed to be massless.
If gravitons have a mass, then gravity is expected to have a weaker influence on very large distance scales, which could explain why the expansion of the universe has not been reined in.
“One possibility is that you may not need to have dark energy – or rather, gravity itself fulfils that role,” says De Rham.
The work marks a breakthrough in a century-long quest to build a working theory of massive gravity....
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Dark Energy Ping!.......................
Or, a lack thereof if this man’s theory is proven correct.
If Graviton’s do indeed have mass then the Dark Matter Theory is blown up. As it stands now it is merely a construct to attempt to explain what they do not understand.
As it stands now it is merely a construct to attempt to explain what they do not understand”
Also known as “science of the day”
True.
So is Gravity..................
I thought gravity was a distortion in space-time
I was pondering something along these lines a few weeks ago.
If gravity has waves then would gravitational waves ripple back to the center once it reached the edge of the expansion? - similar to when a rock is thrown in a pond and it the wave reaches the edge of the pond and bounces back toward where the rock entered.
If it did would the resulting interference/cancellation result in an approximation of the delta between the current expansion rate and the anticipated rate?
It is, but what causes it to distort?.........
That sounds feasible, but maybe they have not reached ‘The Edge’ yet...................
Not settled science yet.
At least Not until they can blame it on Trump..................
Mass?
I am a banker, not a physicist. Seems to me that explanation would blow a huge hole in the Big Bang theory, because, my understanding was that the Big Bang occurred when the universe collapsed into a very small, tightly compacted mass.
In a related matter, read Hebrews 11:3. Interesting.
As it stands now it is merely a construct to attempt to explain what they do not understand”
Also known as “science of the day”
yes, but WHY?................
Or....if gravitational waves move at the speed of light, maybe gravitational waves have been pulsing back and forth repeatedly since the start both adding to and slowing down expansion.
hmmmm
What are you - some sort of flat universe nutjob? (just kidding, of course...)
Wouldn’t that make the Universe react like an accordion?..............OMG! WE’RE IN A GIANT POLKA RECORD!!!!................
If gravity has waves then would gravitational waves ripple back to the center once it reached the edge of the expansion? - similar to when a rock is thrown in a pond and it the wave reaches the edge of the pond and bounces back toward where the rock entered.
If it did would the resulting interference/cancellation result in an approximation of the delta between the current expansion rate and the anticipated rate?
Awesome thought!
Gravity is by far the weakest fundamental force.
Dark mater/dark energy as an explanation for how the dust and atoms in the universe managed to clump together and form the stars and galaxies ignores the contributions of the far more powerful electromagnetic forces.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.