Posted on 03/22/2005 12:53:13 PM PST by faq
ROME (Reuters) - A small group of physicists are battling what they see as the cosmological equivalent to the bogeyman: an enormous dark force, that nobody has ever seen, driving galaxies apart.
Conventional wisdom holds that the mysterious force, called "dark energy," may make up 70 percent of the universe, and could be the determining factor in whether it is eventually destroyed billions of years from now. But Italian and American cosmologists are offering a controversial alternative to explain the accelerating expansion of the universe. They say it's not dark energy, but an overlooked after-effect of the "Big Bang" -- which cosmologists believe gave birth to the universe.
"No mysterious dark energy is required," said Antonio Riotto at Italy's National Nuclear Physics Institute in Padova.
"If dark energy were the size that theories predict ... it would have prevented the existence of everything we know in our cosmos," he told Reuters.
- snip -
Kolb and the Italians say the universe's accelerating expansion is the result of long ripples in the fabric of space-time created by the big bang, during an "inflation" phase of rapid expansion of the universe, which have not been properly accounted for since they stretch beyond the observable universe.
"These long wavelength swells grow with time and give an extra expansion to the universe," Kolb said.
Not all cosmologists are buying into the theory, which will be poured-over following its submission this month to the journal Physical Review Letters.
"Their paper is going to get enormous scrutiny, and my own guess is that in the end, they'll be wrong," said cosmologist Michael Turner at the University of Chicago, who coined the term "dark energy," and published a paper with Kolb in 1990.
(Excerpt) Read more at story.news.yahoo.com ...
Interestin. What Einstein once called "the greatest blunder of my life".. (his 'cosmological constant') ..is now being seriously looked at as the reason for the accelerating expansion.
Even when Einstein screw up he's the man.
Bones
One of God's favorite passtimes is to play eternal games with cosmologists. He is forever providing unfathomable data that destroys the neat theories we humans provide to explain the Infinite.
That would explain, at least; where Liberals came from. . .
On the other hand, if this new idea is right, then the runaway expansion of the universe actually bolsters the inflationary model.
Why do you think the Creator hid His works from us? Why let us understand anything at all, if the fundamentals were to remain forever hidden?
"The most difficult thing to understand about the universe is that it is understandable." --Albert Einstein
hee hee
What an AWESOME GOD! I always tell my daughter the only thing evolving here is science. I wonder if He chuckles when we discover something we think is new data?
Clearly their head were influenced by the expansionary phase of the universe.
Seems we have other models as well. . .could we think of this as the 'pregnant' universe?
Expanding. . .then contracting. . .delivering life. . .et al. . .
Think the 'models'. . .and some answers; are found right here. . .under our noses. . .or navels; whatever the case. . .
(LOL) . . .
. . .and yes, arrogantly expanding their own darkness; it is what they do. . .always have; and by this model. . .'always will' . . .(post contraction. . . begin again, of course)
I have decided to push my own notion that the universe has already reached its limit of expansion and has begun contracting again. The accelerated expansion that we're seeing as we look further out is simply the light from an earlier time, when the universe was expanding at a faster pace, that is just now reaching us. Since we are now in contraction, we're moving away from it even more rapidly, hence, the appearance of faster expansion the farther out one looks.
I am not a cosmologist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Suites... once.
LOL, Yes, not only are their heads extraordinarily expanded, but they often appear to have them up a black hole.
Oh, and as we accelerate in toward the center, our rate of acceleration is higher than that of stars and galaxies further out, so it will appear they are receding more rapidly than those closer in. Another factor in the apparent paradox.
Hey, this is fun!
It explains where we are headed if we don't give Terri food and water.
I figure this is as good a plce as any to ask. This being a thread that would involve such thinkers and observers.
Hawkins Radiation. Any details aside from it escaping black holes?
! Agree and for sure. . .
My bad, "Hawking"
Just sorta kept typing.
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