The universe is expanding at an accelerating rate – or is it?

Interesting article discussing the potential demise of dark matter as a kludge in physics:

Professor Sarkar, who also holds a position at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, said: 'The discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe won the Nobel Prize, the Gruber Cosmology Prize, and the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. It led to the widespread acceptance of the idea that the universe is dominated by "dark energy" that behaves like a cosmological constant – this is now the "standard model" of cosmology.

'However, there now exists a much bigger database of supernovae on which to perform rigorous and detailed statistical analyses. We analysed the latest catalogue of 740 Type Ia supernovae – over ten times bigger than the original samples on which the discovery claim was based – and found that the evidence for accelerated expansion is, at most, what physicists call "3 sigma". This is far short of the 5 sigma standard required to claim a discovery of fundamental significance.

'So it is quite possible that we are being misled and that the apparent manifestation of dark energy is a consequence of analysing the data in an oversimplified theoretical model – one that was in fact constructed in the 1930s, long before there was any real data. A more sophisticated theoretical framework accounting for the observation that the universe is not exactly homogeneous and that its matter content may not behave as an ideal gas – two key assumptions of standard cosmology – may well be able to account for all observations without requiring dark energy. Indeed, vacuum energy is something of which we have absolutely no understanding in fundamental theory.'

Source

The world of physics has been incredibly interesting over the last 15 years. Even if you don't fully understand the science behind the claims, watching everyone scramble is interesting. With increased technology, we are seeing exponentially increasing flows of data. Compounding this as a problem is the fact that peer review is resulting in an alarming number of papers resulting in errors that result in just flat out wrong assessments.

This particular article is less about bad science, and more about following fads. I remember when the physics world lost their collective minds over string theory. Of course, now string theory really only lives on as a series of mathematical formula that are used to give insight into questions that standard cosmological mathematics don't seem to really be up to the task for.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Phage will be here in a sec to discount me, but I do believe the universe is energy contained in the universe itself. Once the energy ends, it retracts.

So basically :

pssttt... If you can't explain it use 'Darkmatter'.

In the 20's they used Aether (classical element) for that.Mikelson and morley disproved Aether.
To be honest for me it looks like Science (public known science) is dabbling along lines that they should have left a long time ago. By creating mathematical models that might have nothing to do with the real world. A mathematical model can correctly predict events and still be very wrong. For me the sudden popularity of 'Darkmatter' patches is a sign that the is something wrong in the fundamental understanding of our universe.

a reply to: frenchfries

The real issue is, the mathematics work. It may break down on the 1% outer fringes....but the mathematics works well enough that we have GPS, and can land rockets on Pluto.

When something works, folks arent compelled to find something else that works better.

originally posted by: frenchfries
So basically :

pssttt... If you can't explain it use 'Darkmatter'.

Dark matter has nothing to do with the expanding universe, it's dark energy. I think it's fairly obvious the universe is expanding but this research shows it's still important not to accept everything in the standard model as gospel truth because nothing in science is 100% certain.

What if its staying the same size and everything else is getting smaller?

a reply to: Vector99

but I do believe the universe is energy contained in the universe itself. Once the energy ends, it retracts.

Energy does not end or retract.

The law of conservation of energy states; Energy is neither created nor destroyed.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Dark matter has nothing to do with the expanding universe, it's dark energy.

E=MC^2 or has that changed? Darkmatter is just Darkenergy with a mass.
Well If you look deep into the standard gospel it's full of holes. Hawking wrote a book to disprove Blackholes and another to prove they exist. P-Brane theory and alternative universes is another explanation of the big bang. In a way I think science is more advanced than the general public knows.


Kinda wierd that anything that comes out of science always ends up as a consumer product. Makes me wonder ? At what knowledge level is science really at.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: frenchfries

The real issue is, the mathematics work. It may break down on the 1% outer fringes....but the mathematics works well enough that we have GPS, and can land rockets on Pluto.

When something works, folks arent compelled to find something else that works better.

Unless there are folks that have a real good reason to find something better.... like a better bomb or so.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I think the Universe goes through phases like a human breathes, it expands or exhales and holds it breath or inhales.

originally posted by: muSSang
a reply to: Vector99

but I do believe the universe is energy contained in the universe itself. Once the energy ends, it retracts.

Energy does not end or retract.

The law of conservation of energy states; Energy is neither created nor destroyed.

Yep I'm quite aware of that law. And you are mistaken about energy. It does indeed retract once it is expended, see a nuclear explosion to get a direct example. How much energy does the universe have? What will happen once all of the energy has exerted itself?

Kinda crunchy.

a reply to: frenchfries

pssttt... If you can't explain it use 'Darkmatter'.

Dark matter works for a reason and usually is constant.

It's like saying 2 + something equals 4. We don't know what "something" is, but we know it is there and added to 2 it makes 4.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I am glad to see that scientists are stepping away from (or daring to challenge) rote,both in theory and mathematical application. We are truly gifted to live in these times of cosmological exploration.

physics.stackexchange.com...

a reply to: InTheLight

What is best is they are understanding that expansion eventually will stop. Not anytime soon, but a few thousand-trillion years from now it probably will. Or it might not. The age of cosmological discovery is new to us humans, and every break-through also contains a crap load of challenges we didn't know existed prior.

a reply to: Vector99

Yes, therefore boldly going into this exploration with an open (unpolluted) and imaginative mind is a must.



Is this a simultaneous push-pull, then push situation?

a reply to: Vector99

Dark matter works for a reason and usually is constant. It's like saying 2 + something equals 4. We don't know what "something" is, but we know it is there and added to 2 it makes 4.

... nah just until they 'discover' something new.
It's kinda 'hot' to be in 'Darkmatter' research right now. in the 90's it was antimatter before that it was something else the point that I'm trying to make here is that the standard model is way to complex.By that I mean the number of parameters and constants. Btw Einstein never explained WHY C was a constant. Getting rid of parameters and constants is a must. For me Darkmatter/energy/trousers is just another way to introduce hidden variables.

a reply to: frenchfries

The name of the substance matters little, how it's applied to calculations means everything. Dark matter isn't used to just fill in the blanks so to speak. It's used as a precise calculation to explain a lot of things.

the standard model is way to complex.

Yea, I guess it is, if you're not into math.

Btw Einstein never explained WHY C was a constant

Why would an explanation be necessary? It's an observation that can be measured and verified.

Getting rid of parameters and constants is a must

That sounds like we might end up with some really funky calculations regarding the universe. Constants are our friends in that sense.

For me Darkmatter/energy/trousers is just another way to introduce hidden variables.

Yea, but the variables used are constant, not made up to suit individual circumstances. The math seems to check out every time btw.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan
Thanks for posting that, it's interesting. They don't say what sigma they actually got but say "at most 3 sigma". If it's 3 sigma that's not so bad. Sure it's not 5 sigma, and some small number of 3 sigma claims will turn out to be wrong which depends on whether they are using one or two-tailed statistics, but if using 2 tails it means something like 3 out of every 1000 papers reporting 3 sigma results will turn out to be wrong.

If you flip that around it means that a 3 sigma claim has 997 chances out of 1000, or 99.7% chance of being right, so if that's the case, it seems a bit early to be claiming "dark energy is dead" if the statistics are saying the model is 99.7% likely to be right.

There's a lot of variability in astronomical phenomena and observations so I suspect that's a constraint that might make it hard to get 5 sigma even for valid effects if we haven't been able to identify and account for all the various sources of variability. Astronomical observations aren't as controlled as the experiments at CERN the article refers to, where the experimenters control the experimental conditions.

What isn't in question is that we always knew the 1998 papers on dark energy were written with a limited data set so we fully expected to refine the science once more observations were considered.

originally posted by: InTheLight
a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I am glad to see that scientists are stepping away from (or daring to challenge) rote,both in theory and mathematical application. We are truly gifted to live in these times of cosmological exploration.

physics.stackexchange.com...

Actually the authors of the dark energy papers stepped away from rote when they wrote them in 1998, and other scientists reading the papers were skeptical at first but found the data convincing. They also found that dark energy fit quite nicely into existing models so it wasn't that hard to accept. So if they dismiss dark energy they will be "returning to the rote" to use your language, that existed before 1997 when dark energy hadn't yet been discovered.

I don't see what the link you posted has to do with the topic of this thread, it has nothing to do with dark energy and is just some random comments by people who haven't tried very hard to understand physics pontificating about what they don't understand.

If you want to know what physicists don't understand, ask them and they will tell you. They don't think they know everything, but it seems rather silly to link to comments by non-physicists who haven't even tried to understand.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Brainstorming, stepping out of the rote box, and theorizing among thinking people is never a silly endeavour and it is wrong to assume that non-physicists have nothing worthwhile to contribute. The link I posted is specifically related to physics, with physics students and other scientific researchers contributing their thoughts and expertise in their fields. We need more of this type of exchange between disciplines to foster 'rethinking'.

Additionally, the topic of this thread is acknowledging that existing theories and mathematical models are not giving the answers or even clues needed to help further our understanding of these forces at work, and are, in fact, in error. With dark matter/energy being another unknown variable.