Re: Dark Energy Debunked
O.K. Suppose the expansion of the universe is accelerating against all previous hypotheses that it should be decelerating. How could it be?
Well, Dark Energy is one explanation. Dark Energy is supposed to act, physically and mathematically, like negative pressure. It is as if the universe was immersed in a big vacuum, except that it is already a vacuum. But, it may be what is called a "false vacuum" with many more quantum entities seething just below the level of detectability (without huge accelerators probing muon decay, that is).
The true vacuum would act on our false vacuum universe the same way that a vacuum would act on a balloon, and, as the membrane got thinner, it would weaken. This is because the tension or overall force had surpassed the elastic limit and the expansion rate of the balloon would therefore accelerate. The tension seems to have surpassed the elastic limit of our universe about 9 billion years ago, it is said.
But this is just analogy. It is meaningless if it does not lead to a testable result or deduction. We cannot apply a force to the universe as a whole nor to spacetime. We cannot stretch spacetime in an experimental apparatus.
Perhaps spacetime stretches naturally as a result of the expansion that has already gone before. Then, as the receding galaxies recede faster from one another depending on their distance, it constitutes increased stretching of spacetime. As a matter of fact, the relativistic redshift is said to result from a "stretching" of spacetime.
But, I am only restating my analogy in different words (dodging or begging the question). This is not experimental or observational proof.
We need to put spactime in a sort of tensiometer to stretch it until it deforms more rapidly or else breaks. We need to find a way to rip spacetime. And hope that we do not tear a hole in the universe that will swallow us up!
This is all unproductive speculation. It would be more productive to follow the lead that this Dark Energy conclusion, reached by reductio ad absurdum, has given us. Carrying an argument to its extreme this way, to the point where an absurd contradiction occurs, is a standard method of proving logical falsehood.
Dark Energy proves itself false.
Let's work on this!
Then the calculations that indicate that the theoretic prevalence of heavier nuclei in the early universe are wrong, and the premises leading to this conclusion of too few heavy nuclei, need to be revised. Furthermore, the premises behind the interpretations of observations of too little "grey dust" that is made of such heavy nuclei (Be, B, C, N and O with traces of Mg, Al and Si) must also be wrong. There is a goldmine of research opportunity here!
Yes, scientists have made an 180 on the deceleration/acceleration trajectory of their thinking. And, yes, there could indeed be 1,000 million big bangs and other even weirder local parcels in a truly infinite universe. So, what is so special about it, even if our packet of the universe's expansion rate is accelerating. Who gives a rat's ass?
Well, we do, because we are here. And we do indeed live in a universe that just happens to have physical constants that support its existence and the existence of intelligent life. Presuming that we are indeed intelligent, that is. So, it matters to us because such conundrums fascinate. The irony is irresistible.
Another explanation of accelerating expansion is that spacetime is exploding. The negative pressure that shows up in relativistical equations is itself only relative. From the outside, looking in - even with an explosion - the pressure is negative. Just as energy is negative if it is released from the inside to the outside. The result is the same as before.
Except it is more like the original "phase change" that the "false vacuum" underwent at the time of the Big Bang. When water begins to boil, the expanding bubble drinks in more vapor at an accelerating rate because its surface area is increasing so rapidly that it ensnares more and more liquid, allowing it to turn into vapor. The false vacuum returns to its ground state, the true vacuum state, releasing energy that goes to accelerate the expansion rate. The bubble of spacetime that is our universe increases in size at an exponentially increasing rate, like a bubble of steam that grows larger so fast that it almost explodes out of the tea kettle.
These two scenarios are called the "quintessence" hypothesis and the "cosmological constant" hypothesis, respectively. Not only do we have to prove Dark Energy exists, but we have to distinguish between these two alternatives!
It would be much simpler to suppose that the premises underlying theoretical calculations and observational interpretations about the disparity between luminosity distances and redshift distances to far off type 1a supernovae are wrong.
Another alternative would be that the universe is growing. Spacetime may be reproducing itself and it is doing so at the usual exponentially increasing rate typical of a population of living organisms. The spacetime population underwent an initial accelerating increase initially (the BB), slowed down when waste products (like neutrinos) accumulated and sped up again when the volume increased sufficiently (and neutrino density decreased enough) for a new growth spurt to begin. Perhaps the conclusion should be, from this if it is true, that the universe is alive!
Gary Kent
Monday, April 30, 2007
Dark Energy Debunked Some More
Re: Dark Energy Debunked
There is always some emotional component in our effort to think. Humans are never perfectly logical. When we unconsciously perceive that a concept may be beyond comprehension, we cough it up, like a snake that has swallowed an oversize egg. And we recoil from it.
The visceral reaction against it is like a reflex that protects our emotional hearts from choking.This business about dark energy and dark matter involves concepts of immense numbers, "curved" space and such long periods of time that we cannot fully comprehend them.
It is what the author meant when he complained of people's incurable "innumeracy". We do not and can not fully acknowledge how ignorant we are of the ultimate implications of the enormously large or incredibly small aspects of reality. It makes me uncomfortable too.
But, at the same time, I experience a fascinating addiction to it! This is why I bother with this blog in the first place.
It is said that even if all the dark matter in the universe is accounted for, there would still not be enough matter and/or energy in the universe to "close" it. I guess that astrophysicists can apply statistical analysis to the pattern found in the cosmic microwave background to extract a mathematical "power law" that describes the distribution of high and low intensity areas in the sky. That power law is consistent with the pattern's being projected onto the sky from a flat source, I think.
This means that space is flat to within a very small percentage. So, the universe is, in fact, closed or at least it is poised delicately on the borderline between open, or ever expanding, and completely closed, eventually to contract.
But very distant type 1a supernovae SEEM to be more distant, by luminosity measurements, than they SEEM to be by redshift measurements. So, the universe should be older by luminosity than it is by redshift.
If one extrapolates redshift versus distance or time back toward zero, one obtains an intersection with the ordinate axis that is short of the origin (as determined by luminosity). The only way that this could occur is if the radial velocity of expansion line is curved upward, is concave rather than convex. This is the same as saying the universe expansion rate is accelerating.
But, then it is not closed or poised on the borderline. If it is poised, it would show a leveling off, an asymptotic approach to a plateau. So CMB data show a picture that is at odds with the supernova data.
It is not all consistent, in other words. And the rush to a conclusion is surely premature.
There is much evidence in support of the inflationary model of the evolution of the universe. Alan Guth's inflation says that the universe should have a flat curvature to within an exceedingly small percentage. But, again, an accelerating universe is not flat.
Cosmologists seem to want to have it both ways and the alternatives are mutually contradictory. And, they insist on referring to a Hubble CONSTANT. If the universe is doing anything but expanding at a constant rate, if it is slowing down or speeding up, we have a Hubble parameter, not a constant. And then one cannot use linear regression analysis to determine H naught.
That the the latter point is missed may be due to sloppy journalism. The way these issues are discussed in the popular press is confusing. When journalists do not know that an overturned tanker of liquid nitrogen cannot explode like liquid hydrogen or promote an exposion like liquid oxygen, we cannot trust their scientific judgement.
Your visceral reaction against all of this is just a reaction to reality. It is all really very disgusting! Let us continue to watch the soap opera. Maybe there will be some kind of conclusion after all.
Gary Kent
There is always some emotional component in our effort to think. Humans are never perfectly logical. When we unconsciously perceive that a concept may be beyond comprehension, we cough it up, like a snake that has swallowed an oversize egg. And we recoil from it.
The visceral reaction against it is like a reflex that protects our emotional hearts from choking.This business about dark energy and dark matter involves concepts of immense numbers, "curved" space and such long periods of time that we cannot fully comprehend them.
It is what the author meant when he complained of people's incurable "innumeracy". We do not and can not fully acknowledge how ignorant we are of the ultimate implications of the enormously large or incredibly small aspects of reality. It makes me uncomfortable too.
But, at the same time, I experience a fascinating addiction to it! This is why I bother with this blog in the first place.
It is said that even if all the dark matter in the universe is accounted for, there would still not be enough matter and/or energy in the universe to "close" it. I guess that astrophysicists can apply statistical analysis to the pattern found in the cosmic microwave background to extract a mathematical "power law" that describes the distribution of high and low intensity areas in the sky. That power law is consistent with the pattern's being projected onto the sky from a flat source, I think.
This means that space is flat to within a very small percentage. So, the universe is, in fact, closed or at least it is poised delicately on the borderline between open, or ever expanding, and completely closed, eventually to contract.
But very distant type 1a supernovae SEEM to be more distant, by luminosity measurements, than they SEEM to be by redshift measurements. So, the universe should be older by luminosity than it is by redshift.
If one extrapolates redshift versus distance or time back toward zero, one obtains an intersection with the ordinate axis that is short of the origin (as determined by luminosity). The only way that this could occur is if the radial velocity of expansion line is curved upward, is concave rather than convex. This is the same as saying the universe expansion rate is accelerating.
But, then it is not closed or poised on the borderline. If it is poised, it would show a leveling off, an asymptotic approach to a plateau. So CMB data show a picture that is at odds with the supernova data.
It is not all consistent, in other words. And the rush to a conclusion is surely premature.
There is much evidence in support of the inflationary model of the evolution of the universe. Alan Guth's inflation says that the universe should have a flat curvature to within an exceedingly small percentage. But, again, an accelerating universe is not flat.
Cosmologists seem to want to have it both ways and the alternatives are mutually contradictory. And, they insist on referring to a Hubble CONSTANT. If the universe is doing anything but expanding at a constant rate, if it is slowing down or speeding up, we have a Hubble parameter, not a constant. And then one cannot use linear regression analysis to determine H naught.
That the the latter point is missed may be due to sloppy journalism. The way these issues are discussed in the popular press is confusing. When journalists do not know that an overturned tanker of liquid nitrogen cannot explode like liquid hydrogen or promote an exposion like liquid oxygen, we cannot trust their scientific judgement.
Your visceral reaction against all of this is just a reaction to reality. It is all really very disgusting! Let us continue to watch the soap opera. Maybe there will be some kind of conclusion after all.
Gary Kent
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