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I'm hoping this whole "dark energy" and "dark matter" thing will go away entirely. I highly suspect that both theories are the result of an "error cascade" - i

I'm hoping this whole "dark energy" and "dark matter" thing will go away entirely. I highly suspect that both theories are the result of an "error cascade" - i.e. erroneous but at the time quite legitimate assumptions/thought/theory made early on, subsequently create errors in later assumptions/thought/theory. The article mentioned is a case in point. I'm a layman when it comes to astronomy and maths with no formal qualifications in astronomy - but I do like reading articles on the subject - and to me, Something Is Not Quite Right about the concepts of dark energy or dark matter

stephenwinter2 12y ago
Since 'gravity of the universe' doesn't exist (because there is no center of mass of the universe) also its alleged counterpart 'dark energy' makes no sense. I described it in my article http://goo.gl/uQNo5L http://goo.gl/uQNo5L and in two PDF (links in the subtitle there).
- ehvatum 12y ago
  Space itself expanding, ie inflation, doesn't require the universe to have a center of mass.
  - stephenwinter2 12y ago
    Exactly. Thanks for your affirmation. .. And space itself expanding doesn't require 'dark energy' and has nothing to do with momentum, acceleration etc.
    - spdustin 12y ago
      Can you expand on why you believe that the expansion of space itself requires no energy?
    - stephenwinter2 12y ago
      > spdustin That's the uncertain part of the question. It's the same when you ask Does time require a force that drives it forward? The answer is We don't know yet. -- The certain part of the question is: scaling of space (in cosmic scale) can't be accelerated by 'dark energy' nor slowed down by gravity. It's not about mass, energy, momentum etc. - I really described it in my paper (see post above).
      - spdustin 12y ago
        I had understood that time is a side effect of entropy.
Jach 12y ago
I'm hopeful too, though I don't have any theories myself about how both ideas could be wrong, as I'm also just a layman. I do justify my hopes by pointing to Luca Lusanna's work[0], though, because I don't believe in using "Something Is Not Quite Right" feelings when it comes to physics, as quantum electrodynamics can initially have that feeling too but it's very well supported experimentally and I think one can get used to it. [0] I've been vaguely aware of Lusanna (http://arxiv.org/find/all/1/au:+Lusanna_L/0/1/0/all/0/1 http://arxiv.org/find/all/1/au:+Lusanna_L/0/1/0/all/0/1) for some number of years now, who has an interesting (and mostly unintelligible to me as I'm sadly not familiar enough with conformal geometry nor most of the relevant physics) set of papers suggesting dark matter be thought of as a Relativistic Inertial Effect.
antognini 12y ago
I'm a graduate student in astronomy and I think it's extremely unlikely that dark energy or dark matter will go away. The concern of an "error cascade" was legitimate when these ideas were first proposed and many astronomers were skeptical of both dark matter and dark energy for long while. But over time there have been a number of independent lines of evidence pointing to the existence of both dark matter and dark energy. It's possible some comedy of errors could have lead to the spurious detection of dark matter or energy through one of these measurements, but very unlikely that it would be mimicked in other, independent measurements.
- GravityWell 12y ago
  Care to share some examples of dark energy evidence? If the evidence is a measurement of expansion, then it doesn't necessarily support the existence of dark energy.
  - antognini 12y ago
    One of the other major pieces of evidence for the existence of dark energy is the observation of baryon acoustic oscillations. The basic idea is that as the universe was forming, there were concentrations of dark matter. Standing sound waves of photons and baryons (ordinary matter) formed around these concentrations. After decoupling, the photons streamed away, but the baryons remained and eventually formed galaxies. This results in a characteristic pattern seen on the sky, where there are clusters of galaxies observed, and then rings of galaxies around them. It is possible to calculate the physical size of these rings from first principles. Since you observe how big these rings appear on the sky, you can figure out how far away they are, and from this determine the expansion history of the universe.
    - vorg 12y ago
      > as the universe was forming, there were concentrations of dark matter. Standing sound waves of photons and baryons (ordinary matter) formed around these concentrations You make it sound like "dark matter" is normal matter and the "ordinary matter" is the abnormal stuff, since ordinary matter formed afterwards and has more complex interactions in that it supplements gravitation with electromagnetism and what not. And of course there's far more dark matter than ordinary.

stephenwinter2 12y ago

Since 'gravity of the universe' doesn't exist (because there is no center of mass of the universe) also its alleged counterpart 'dark energy' makes no sense. I described it in my article http://goo.gl/uQNo5L http://goo.gl/uQNo5L and in two PDF (links in the subtitle there).

ehvatum 12y ago
Space itself expanding, ie inflation, doesn't require the universe to have a center of mass.
- stephenwinter2 12y ago
  Exactly. Thanks for your affirmation. .. And space itself expanding doesn't require 'dark energy' and has nothing to do with momentum, acceleration etc.
  - spdustin 12y ago
    Can you expand on why you believe that the expansion of space itself requires no energy?
  - stephenwinter2 12y ago
    > spdustin That's the uncertain part of the question. It's the same when you ask Does time require a force that drives it forward? The answer is We don't know yet. -- The certain part of the question is: scaling of space (in cosmic scale) can't be accelerated by 'dark energy' nor slowed down by gravity. It's not about mass, energy, momentum etc. - I really described it in my paper (see post above).
    - spdustin 12y ago
      I had understood that time is a side effect of entropy.

Jach 12y ago

I'm hopeful too, though I don't have any theories myself about how both ideas could be wrong, as I'm also just a layman. I do justify my hopes by pointing to Luca Lusanna's work[0], though, because I don't believe in using "Something Is Not Quite Right" feelings when it comes to physics, as quantum electrodynamics can initially have that feeling too but it's very well supported experimentally and I think one can get used to it. [0] I've been vaguely aware of Lusanna (http://arxiv.org/find/all/1/au:+Lusanna_L/0/1/0/all/0/1 http://arxiv.org/find/all/1/au:+Lusanna_L/0/1/0/all/0/1) for some number of years now, who has an interesting (and mostly unintelligible to me as I'm sadly not familiar enough with conformal geometry nor most of the relevant physics) set of papers suggesting dark matter be thought of as a Relativistic Inertial Effect.

antognini 12y ago

I'm a graduate student in astronomy and I think it's extremely unlikely that dark energy or dark matter will go away. The concern of an "error cascade" was legitimate when these ideas were first proposed and many astronomers were skeptical of both dark matter and dark energy for long while. But over time there have been a number of independent lines of evidence pointing to the existence of both dark matter and dark energy. It's possible some comedy of errors could have lead to the spurious detection of dark matter or energy through one of these measurements, but very unlikely that it would be mimicked in other, independent measurements.

GravityWell 12y ago
Care to share some examples of dark energy evidence? If the evidence is a measurement of expansion, then it doesn't necessarily support the existence of dark energy.
- antognini 12y ago
  One of the other major pieces of evidence for the existence of dark energy is the observation of baryon acoustic oscillations. The basic idea is that as the universe was forming, there were concentrations of dark matter. Standing sound waves of photons and baryons (ordinary matter) formed around these concentrations. After decoupling, the photons streamed away, but the baryons remained and eventually formed galaxies. This results in a characteristic pattern seen on the sky, where there are clusters of galaxies observed, and then rings of galaxies around them. It is possible to calculate the physical size of these rings from first principles. Since you observe how big these rings appear on the sky, you can figure out how far away they are, and from this determine the expansion history of the universe.
  - vorg 12y ago
    > as the universe was forming, there were concentrations of dark matter. Standing sound waves of photons and baryons (ordinary matter) formed around these concentrations You make it sound like "dark matter" is normal matter and the "ordinary matter" is the abnormal stuff, since ordinary matter formed afterwards and has more complex interactions in that it supplements gravitation with electromagnetism and what not. And of course there's far more dark matter than ordinary.