Dark energy may not actually exist, scientists claim

The concept of dark energy was created by cosmologists to fit Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity into reality after modern space telescopes discovered that the Universe was not behaving as it should.

According to Einstein's work, the speed at which the Universe is expanding following the Big Bang should be slower than it actually is and this unexplained anomaly threatened to turn the whole theory upside down. In order to reconcile this problem the concept of dark energy was invented.

But now Blake Temple and Joel Smoller, mathematicians at the University of California and the University of Michigan, believe they have come up with a whole new set of calculations that allow for all the sums to add up without the need for this controversial substance.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

If this is correct, then what implications will this have on the physics community? I ask because I am not too skilled in that area, but know many of you are. Now from my layman perspective, physicists have relied on this "dark energy" to explain the speed of expansion of the universe. Correct? I was thinking, with all of the trillions of stars, could super novae be responsible for the speed of expansion? I picture it kind of like a universal cluster bomb, where you have many explosions (super novae) packed together in one bomb (the universe). Of course, that is just my wayyy under educated thought. What do my fellow ATSers think?

I THINK atm even science itself dosent really know what the hell is happening. According to theory al galxies are flying away from each other at greater speeds....so why are several clusters of galaxes being pulled together by the strange anamoly of the great attractor. This distance involved is astronomical and I cannot see how dark energy which is supposed to accelerate galaxies away from each other can interact with this great attractor....

I don't think all the Supernova's would create the magnitude of repulsive force working against Gravity that we currently seem to see - but I am no Physicist either...

To me - the most astounding conclusion of this new study is not the explainging away of Dark Energy - but rather the conclusion that our Galaxy is actually at the Center of the Universe!

As a religious man - I must admit - for good or not - if that proves to be true it will certainly be inspirational to Christians like myself!

reply to post by TruthMagnet


If you stand on top of a hill, and look around in all directions - you will be at the center of that view.

When you look at the deep Hubble field pictures, they take only a small portion of the sky and find tons and tons of galaxies and so forth.

I wouldn't put too much stock into the center of the universe thing.

Can't say I'm to surprised after all dark energy was mainly cooked up to protect the big bang theory same as dark matter was.
This new theory is just as bad though in my opinion and I doubt it will take off in anyway physicists are very stuck in their beliefs and they will mostly write this off without even looking into it.

I think we will be seeing dark energy in documentary's for a lot longer and possibly some other new "dark materials" to explain any new flaws that appear in their holy big bang theory.

I think they already know the answer to that question and have for a while now. The problem is nobody dares to contradict Einstein and Newton on the macro level because they have been there for so long unchallenged. Obviously gravity is not a constant and we take the local value we observe for it as a universal constant for modeling the whole universe. Then we need to add dark matter and dark energy to fill the holes in our model, but really we are using patches to save our failing model of cosmology.
Newton never demonstrated gravity, he just found an equation that was a good approximation to be use to explain the orbits of the planets around the sun. And that is a lot different than finding and equation that can explain how the universe unfolds and contracts on a cosmological scale.
Ultimately the only way for us to go forward in our knowledge is to way to the old scientists and their old ideas to die with them. That is the way science has always advanced, new generations and new concepts, demonstrations and discoveries. Remember that Einstein is still known as the greatest mind of the past century, even though by 1940 he was unable to understand (or accept) the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics.

I actually have to believe in some sort of invisible materials because of the detectable nature of the gravity given off by invisible stars. I have always believed that Einsteins' theory is flawed somewhat. I am working on a theory that is somewhat like a string theory, but I am still a sophmore working on a doctorate.

Give me four to six years and I will hopefully present a working theory that will support the Christian belief that sound was instrumental literally in the developement of the Gods' Creation from something I will not reveal yet.

I must surely have all of my ducks in a perfect row in order to do this, so I say give me four to six years and I will have a different perspective to share with the world.

How about a link to the original paper or, failing that, a link to a scientifically literate news article about it?

Anything that violates the Copernican Principle is automatically suspect as far as I'm concerned.

Originally posted by loner007
I THINK atm even science itself dosent really know what the hell is happening. According to theory al galxies are flying away from each other at greater speeds....

Agreed, mr. loner. I do have a question concerning this Dark Matter proposal.

Whenever we hear about some newly discovered galaxy, we're told approximately how many light years away it is. Millions, Billions, etc. On the other hand, on the subject of the existence of Dark Matter, we're told that all the galaxies are rushing away from one another, and the further away the galaxy is the greater the velocity.

Is it only me, or do these two claims oppose each other? I mean, if it took some 7 billion years for light from a certain galaxy to get here, wouldn't that mean that the red-shift we detect today was emitted 7 billion years ago? How can we than say that galaxies ARE moving apart? At best even if The Doppler effect was the only mechanism causing the shift, wouldn't that mean that the WERE moving apart 7 billion years ago, and at this very moment we haven't got a faintest clue of what they are doing?

Or am I stupidly missing the point entirely?


Kind regards, M.

Oxford scientist say we exist in a Void and there's no such thing as Dark Matter/Energy.

The problem facing astrophysicists is that they have to explain why the universe appears to be expanding at an ever increasing rate. The most popular explanation is that some sort of force is pushing the accelerating the universe's expansion. That force is generally attributed to a mysterious dark energy.

Although dark energy may seem a bit contrived to some, the Oxford theorists are proposing an even more outrageous alternative. They point out that it's possible that we simply live in a very special place in the universe - specifically, we're in a huge void where the density of matter is particularly low. The suggestion flies in the face of the Copernican Principle, which is one of the most useful and widely held tenets in physics.

www.sciencedaily.com...

What's also interesting is that there's another theory that says the void is the signature of a parallel universe.

IN AUGUST, radio astronomers announced that they had found an enormous hole in the universe. Nearly a billion light years across, the void lies in the constellation Eridanus and has far fewer stars, gas and galaxies than usual. It is bigger than anyone imagined possible and is beyond the present understanding of cosmology. What could cause such a gaping hole? One team of physicists has a breathtaking explanation: "It is the unmistakable imprint of another universe beyond the edge of our own," says Laura Mersini-Houghton of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

It is a staggering claim. If Mersini-Houghton's team is right, the giant void is the first experimental evidence for another universe. It would also vindicate string theory, our most promising understanding of how the universe works at its most fundamental level.

Mersini-Houghton and Holton say their dynamical theory can describe the form of the imprint too. The vacuums of neighbouring patches effectively push on our universe, they say. According to relativity, such squeezing produces repulsive gravity. Where we can see the squeezing act - on scales comparable with the size of the universe - the repulsive gravity should dramatically thin out matter and make it harder for galaxies to form. "We predict the existence of a giant void about 500 million light years across," says Mersini-Houghton. By cosmology's standards this forecast ties in pretty well with astronomers' observations of a void 900 million light years across at a red shift of 1. "We are amazed that the void is there just as we predicted," she says.

www.newscientist.com...

This is interesting stuff.

reply to post by Matrix Rising


Ive never really bought into the dark matter theory for a couple of reasons one its a fudge the universe needed more mass to hep explain why are gravitational equations were wrong.Second Ive argued if this dark matter existed should be able to find it by looking at other galaxies.This matter would have to get in the way of visible light somewhere?

I think the reason why is were looking at this the wrong way i think space is expanding between the galaxies. Best example i can think of is a blueberry muffin. In an oven the blueberries don't expand but the dough between them does.This also explains why it looks like were at the center of the Galaxy.From are perspective every Galaxy is moving away but this would happen no matter which galaxy you were in.This also explains why the universe is accelerating as the space between galaxies get greater the expansion of the space between them becomes more noticeable.Just a thought but i think I'm right of course.

This is the real problem:

after modern space telescopes discovered that the Universe was not behaving as it should.

Its the modern science mindset of: "We're right until information comes along that says otherwise". Theories are being made and accepted without the data to back them up. Someone comes up with an idea, a couple people jump on the bandwagon, then TADA "This is how the universe works". The only problem with that is, Reality isn't a democracy. The popular theory needs to be tested to the highest possible extent before it becomes the popular theory and I don't mean paper testing.

You can "rig" an equation as long as you fix the left to equal what you already concluded on the right. No doubt, a lot of modern theories have rigged equations that aren't accounting for one thing or are adding an unnecessary variable. The Universe acts as it does which means it cannot be wrong, only we can be wrong about it with inaccurate equations.

Dark Energy is certainly in that category. Instead of reviewing the stuff we already know about to find if we missed something, we just plugged in a new item which is almost unfalsifiable. This is increasingly tough to prove, when theoretically, it must account for almost 3/4ths of the entire universe. 73% I believe but I'll say with confidence that it is atleast 60%, at any rate, its supposed to be the majority component of the universe.

Who is to say what we see is actually whats happening? What if the universe isn't doing anything or moving at a uniform rate but some kind of force interaction is messing with the light as it gets to us? This is all just speculation of which I have no proof of so I'll do the responsible thing and NOT name it a theory. On a side note, if they discover the Higgs Boson, I will put forth the motion to filibuster said discovery.

Originally posted by badmedia

If you stand on top of a hill, and look around in all directions - you will be at the center of that view.

When you look at the deep Hubble field pictures, they take only a small portion of the sky and find tons and tons of galaxies and so forth.

I wouldn't put too much stock into the center of the universe thing.

True - but that's just the thing - we could be so biased against the thought of our Galaxy being in the near exact center of our Universe - that we may have missed the possibility that we are.

If that turns out to be true - that we have been so biased against that result despite the evidence - then that will certainly be an interesting result!

And - of course - that is these researchers claims - not mine - I have no bias as the Bible does not imply that our planet or galaxy is any more important than any other planet or galaxy which has sentient life.

In all aspects of science and religion we must watch our bias in both directions...