A radical new hypothesis claims to have a simple explanation for dark energy

For decades, scientists have puzzled over the fact that our Universe is expanding. Logically, gravity should be pulling our galaxies closer together, but observations in the 1990s revealed that the Universe isn’t just expanding, it’s expanding at a seemingly accelerating rate, something scientists put down to dark energy.

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Tau.Neutrino said:

A radical new hypothesis claims to have a simple explanation for dark energy

For decades, scientists have puzzled over the fact that our Universe is expanding. Logically, gravity should be pulling our galaxies closer together, but observations in the 1990s revealed that the Universe isn’t just expanding, it’s expanding at a seemingly accelerating rate, something scientists put down to dark energy.

More…

> Dark energy is the hypothetical force

Delete the word “hypothetical”. It’s real.

> We know that empty space is filled with quantum particles and energy popping in and out of existence, and one of those strange particles could carry a repulsive force, aka dark energy. The only problem is that the amount of ‘dark energy’ we predict should arise through that process is far more than can be explained by the observed expansion of the Universe – up to 120 orders of magnitude more, to be precise.

Yeah yeah. That joke has been done to death.

> What if the Universe was subtly leaking energy in its early days, and that lost energy set the value of dark energy?

I’m listening.

> unimodular gravity

I know a heck of a lot about alternative models of gravity, I wrote the Wikipedia article on it, but I haven’t come across this one before. Looking through references (and my own Wikipedia article). Interesting, it’s definitely not one on my Wikipedia page, but perhaps it should be there. It doesn’t look impossible.

Might be worth keeping an eye on in future.

mollwollfumble said:

> Dark energy is the hypothetical force

Delete the word “hypothetical”. It’s real.

Things can be both hypothetical and real. “Dark energy” looks like a hypothesis to me.

mollwollfumble said:

> We know that empty space is filled with quantum particles and energy popping in and out of existence, and one of those strange particles could carry a repulsive force, aka dark energy. The only problem is that the amount of ‘dark energy’ we predict should arise through that process is far more than can be explained by the observed expansion of the Universe – up to 120 orders of magnitude more, to be precise.

Yeah yeah. That joke has been done to death.

? What joke?

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

> Dark energy is the hypothetical force

Delete the word “hypothetical”. It’s real.

Things can be both hypothetical and real. “Dark energy” looks like a hypothesis to me.

mollwollfumble said:

> We know that empty space is filled with quantum particles and energy popping in and out of existence, and one of those strange particles could carry a repulsive force, aka dark energy. The only problem is that the amount of ‘dark energy’ we predict should arise through that process is far more than can be explained by the observed expansion of the Universe – up to 120 orders of magnitude more, to be precise.

Yeah yeah. That joke has been done to death.

? What joke?

Very soon after the discovery of dark energy, some quantum physicist calculated what the cosmological constant would be if it was derived from the energy of the quantum vacuum. He got an answer that was out by a factor of 10^120. After picking himself up from this ROFL moment he told a colleague and the news quickly spread. The discrepancy soon became officially known as “the worst theoretical prediction in the history of physics”. Now you can find thousands of references to it everywhere.

If the discrepancy hadn’t been so huge, nobody would have taken the slightest notice.

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

> Dark energy is the hypothetical force

Delete the word “hypothetical”. It’s real.

Things can be both hypothetical and real. “Dark energy” looks like a hypothesis to me.

mollwollfumble said:

> We know that empty space is filled with quantum particles and energy popping in and out of existence, and one of those strange particles could carry a repulsive force, aka dark energy. The only problem is that the amount of ‘dark energy’ we predict should arise through that process is far more than can be explained by the observed expansion of the Universe – up to 120 orders of magnitude more, to be precise.

Yeah yeah. That joke has been done to death.

? What joke?

Very soon after the discovery of dark energy, some quantum physicist calculated what the cosmological constant would be if it was derived from the energy of the quantum vacuum. He got an answer that was out by a factor of 10^120. After picking himself up from this ROFL moment he told a colleague and the news quickly spread. The discrepancy soon became officially known as “the worst theoretical prediction in the history of physics”. Now you can find thousands of references to it everywhere.

If the discrepancy hadn’t been so huge, nobody would have taken the slightest notice.

Why wouldn’t they? Why wouldn’t this discrepancy still be significant if it was 10^12 or even 10^1?

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

? What joke?

Very soon after the discovery of dark energy, some quantum physicist calculated what the cosmological constant would be if it was derived from the energy of the quantum vacuum. He got an answer that was out by a factor of 10^120. After picking himself up from this ROFL moment he told a colleague and the news quickly spread. The discrepancy soon became officially known as “the worst theoretical prediction in the history of physics”. Now you can find thousands of references to it everywhere.

If the discrepancy hadn’t been so huge, nobody would have taken the slightest notice.

Why wouldn’t they? Why wouldn’t this discrepancy still be significant if it was 10^12 or even 10^1?

Because a failed hypothesis is not worth publishing. It’s only the hilarity of the failure that made it newsworthy.

It’s not even correct. Within a few days that 10^120 had been reduced to 10^30. And with the addition of supersymmetry could be reduced to 10^15. But so what. It’s wrong.

• It’s only the hilarity of the failure that made it newsworthy.

Oh, how we laughed and laughed…

mollwollfumble said:

Because a failed hypothesis is not worth publishing. It’s only the hilarity of the failure that made it newsworthy.

Eh?

There are lots of failed hypotheses worth publishing.

furious said:

• It’s only the hilarity of the failure that made it newsworthy.

Oh, how we laughed and laughed…

Jerry Seinfeld “What is it with scientists, they make hypothesis that are out by 10^120 and still get published”

Crowd “Guffaw”