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Dark energy may not actually exist, scientists claim - Telegraph
Dark energy - the mysterious substance thought to make up three-quarters of the universe - may not actually exist, claims new research.
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.
SPACE.com -- 'Big Wave' Theory Offers Alternative to Dark Energy
Mathematicians have proposed an alternative explanation for the accelerating expansion of the universe that does not rely on the mystifying idea of dark energy.
According to the new proposition, the universe is not accelerating, as observations suggest. Instead, an expanding wave flowing through space-time has caused distant galaxies to appear to be accelerating away from us. This big wave, initiated after the Big Bang that is thought to have sparked the universe, could explain why objects today appear to be farther away from us than they should be according to the Standard Model of cosmology.
"We're saying that maybe the resulting expanding wave is actually causing the anomalous acceleration," said Blake Temple of the University of California, Davis. "We're saying that dark energy may not really be the correct explanation."
The researchers derived a set of equations describing expanding waves that fit Einstein's theory of general relativity, and which could also account for the apparent acceleration. Temple outlines the new idea with Joel Smoller of the University of Michigan in the Aug. 17 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Mystery solved: Dark energy isn't there - Science Fair - USATODAY.com
Mathematicians have come up with an answer Monday for the mystery of "dark energy" tearing the universe apart at an accelerating rate. It ain't there.
Discovered in 1998 with the finding that exploding stars in distant galaxies are spreading away from us at an increasing speed, dark energy has puzzled cosmologists for a decade, unable to understand a force that acts across vast distances to push stars apart. Physicist Michael Turner of the University of Chicago famously said that the only thing really known about dark energy is its name.
What's the answer? It doesn't exist, suggest mathematicians Blake Temple and Joel Smoller, in a study released Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.
Instead, "expanding waves" from the Big Bang, 13.7 Billion years ago, are propelling the trillions of galaxies filling the universe apart, suggests the study. Dark energy is an illusion if their equations are right, and the universe, at least 27.2 billion light years across, is spreading at an increasing rate into an even bigger vacuum empty of any matter, propelled by the energy of the Big Bang.
Dark Energy's Demise? New Theory Doesn't Use the Force
Dark energy, a mysterious force proposed more than a decade ago to explain why the universe is flying apart at an increasingly faster clip, is no longer necessary.
That's the conclusion of a controversial new theory that shows how the accelerated expansion of the universe could be just an illusion.
In a new study, two mathematicians present their solutions to Einstein's field equations of general relativity, which describe the relationship between gravity and matter.
Thinking About Time Before the Big Bang | Universe Today
What happened before the Big Bang? The conventional answer to that question is usually, "There is no such thing as 'before the Big Bang.'" That's the event that started it all. But the right answer, says physicist Sean Carroll, is, "We just don't know." Carroll, as well as many other physicists and cosmologists have begun to consider the possibility of time before the Big Bang, as well as alternative theories of how our universe came to be. Carroll discussed this type of "speculative research" during a talk at the American Astronomical Society Meeting last week in St. Louis, Missouri.
Hints of 'time before Big Bang' - BBC NEWS | Science/Nature
A team of physicists has claimed that our view of the early Universe may contain the signature of a time before the Big Bang.
The discovery comes from studying the cosmic microwave background (CMB), light emitted when the Universe was just 400,000 years old.
What Happened Before the Big Bang? : Paul Davies
Well, what did happen before the big bang?
Few schoolchildren have failed to frustrate their parents with questions of this sort. It often starts with puzzlement over whether space "goes on forever," or where humans came from, or how the planet Earth formed. In the end, the line of questioning always seems to get back to the ultimate origin of things: the big bang. "But what caused that?"
Big Bang Theory
The Big Bang theory is an effort to explain what happened at the very beginning of our universe. Discoveries in astronomy and physics have shown beyond a reasonable doubt that our universe did in fact have a beginning. Prior to that moment there was nothing; during and after that moment there was something: our universe. The big bang theory is an effort to explain what happened during and after that moment.
What happened before the Big Bang
A team of astrophysicists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has said that their new theoretical interpretation of an imprint from the earliest stages of the universe may also shed light on what came before the Big Bang.
Its no longer completely crazy to ask what happened before the Big Bang, said Marc Kamionkowski, Caltechs Robinson Professor of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics.
Shrinking star puzzles scientists - CNN.com
Almost the brightest star in the Orion constellation and visible to the naked eye, Betelgeuse (pronounced "beetle juice") has shrunk 15 percent over 15 years, and scientists have said they have no idea why.
"We really don't know," said Nobel Prize-winning physicist Charles Townes. "It's a puzzle."
Physical cosmology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Physical cosmology, as a branch of astronomy, is the study of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of our universe and is concerned with fundamental questions about its formation and evolution.[1] Cosmology involves itself with studying the motions of the celestial bodies and the first cause. For most of human history, it has been a branch of metaphysics and religion. Cosmology as a science originates with the Copernican principle, which implies that celestial bodies obey identical physical laws to those on earth, and Newtonian mechanics, which first allowed us to understand those motions. This is now called celestial mechanics. Physical cosmology, as it is now understood, began with the twentieth century development of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity and better astronomical observations of extremely distant objects.
Academic Earth - Introduction to Astrophysics
This course focuses on three particularly interesting areas of astronomy that are advancing very rapidly: Extra-Solar Planets, Black Holes, and Dark Energy. Particular attention is paid to current projects that promise to improve our understanding significantly over the next few years. The course explores not just what is known, but what is currently not known, and how astronomers are going about trying to find out.
James Hartle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
American physicist and cosmologist
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