Alternative theory to dark energy

Originally posted by woadman
The inflationary period has not ended....it has dissipated to almost zero....but not completely ...

Either you gravely misunderstand the model, or you're just playing linguistic tricks; but either way, you're simply wrong.

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Either you gravely misunderstand the model, or you're just playing linguistic tricks; but either way, you're simply wrong.

What I mean is the "after effects" are still lingering...like gravitational waves...

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Either you gravely misunderstand the model, or you're just playing linguistic tricks; but either way, you're simply wrong.

The universe as a whole is still expanding and at a rate faster than the speed of light. Space does not obey the speed of light rule, only matter. I think they say we are expanding about 3X the speed of light.

Originally posted by humy
http://phys.org/news/2014-12-alternative-explanation-dark-energy.html

So perhaps dark energy doesn't exist?
If no dark energy exists, what are the implications of that for the chances of dark matter existing? I do not pretend to understand the theoretical relationship between the two.

Dark matter is just a bandaid or patch to keep a failing gravitational cosmological theory alive. Take a peek at The Thunderbolts Project and compare an electrical universe to a gravitational universe.

Originally posted by sonhouse
I think they say we are expanding about 3X the speed of light.

Whoever 'they' is, doesn't understand basic physics. The expansion of the universe does not have a 'speed'. One can measure the resulting speed between any two points in the universe, and the further away the two points are, the higher the resulting speed. If the universe is finite (not a known fact), then the highest speed will be between opposite 'edges' - actually the universe does have edges, so maybe its better to say between two points that are as far away from each other as currently possible.
To know what that highest speed is, you have to know the size of the universe, which is currently unknown.

Originally posted by joe beyser
Dark matter is just a bandaid or patch to keep a failing gravitational cosmological theory alive.

No, it isn't. It is based on a number of fairly definite observations. Any alternative must explain satisfactorily most of those observations.

I don't pretend to understand this latest reported theory:

http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html

Credibility? anyone?
It says it accounts for dark matter and dark energy.

Originally posted by humy
I don't pretend to understand this latest reported theory:

http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html

Credibility? anyone?
It says it accounts for dark matter and dark energy.

Interesting speculation, no more.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
Interesting speculation, no more.

I tend to believe that major breakthroughs in our understanding of the
universe will get announced in Nature or similar... and not on phys.org
Which feels a bit click-baity to me.

Originally posted by joe beyser
Dark matter is just a bandaid or patch to keep a failing gravitational cosmological theory alive. Take a peek at The Thunderbolts Project and compare an electrical universe to a gravitational universe.

No, dark matter is proposed to explain why there appears to be more mass in the Universe than the "regular" mass we can detect.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
No, dark matter is proposed to explain why there appears to be more mass in the Universe than the "regular" mass we can detect.

And it's not actually even particularly surprising that it exists [although the amount might be].

Because all dark matter is in principle is matter/mass that we cannot see in our telescopes
and/or particle detectors.

It would be surprising that we could detect everything in the universe.

But there are a whole bunch of observations that suggest that the objects we can see are
under significantly more gravitational pull than is accounted for by the mass we can account for.

And it turns out that the extra mass required to fill the gap is [within the error margins] the
same amount of mass we predict should exist based on our current models of the early universe
and the observation that the universe appears pretty much flat at large scales.


Now this is not direct observational evidence, and doesn't tell us what this mass is...

But it does mean that it's not some simple accounting trick, it's an explanation for real
observed phenomena.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
No, dark matter is proposed to explain why there appears to be more mass in the Universe than the "regular" mass we can detect.

No, dark matter is proposed to explain why there does not appear to be enough mass to conform to the current understanding of the universe. Cosmologists have run into a problem where the mathematical model of the universe does not agree with observation. They simply say, the matter is there, we just cant see it. Another problem with science in general is that mathematics has taken on a role for which it has no place. Mathematics is a tool to describe nature, but it can not create anything. Mathematics is very valuable but it has its limitations.

Originally posted by joe beyser
No, dark matter is proposed to explain why there does not appear to be enough mass to conform to the current understanding of the universe.

It is not one single observation however that indicates the existence of dark mater. It is a lot of observations in a variety of contexts.

Cosmologists have run into a problem where the mathematical model of the universe does not agree with observation. They simply say, the matter is there, we just cant see it.
We cannot actually 'see' mass at all. We work out the mass of stars using mathematical models. They do not have masses written on the name tag.

Another problem with science in general is that mathematics has taken on a role for which it has no place.
Not true.

Mathematics is a tool to describe nature, but it can not create anything.
No, mathematics is a tool to use in physics. Physics is a tool to describe nature. Nobody is claiming either mathematics of physics is creating anything. Physics quite clearly describes nature as having more matter than we have yet given good descriptions of.
You can put your hands over your eyes and say 'if physics can't describe it perfectly it doesn't exist', or you can go out an keep doing the physics until you describe it all perfectly.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I tend to believe that major breakthroughs in our understanding of the
universe will get announced in Nature or similar... and not on phys.org
Which feels a bit click-baity to me.

I agree. Too many speculations are presented to the audience as proven science. Too many speculations are believed by the public as proven science.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Whoever 'they' is, doesn't understand basic physics. The expansion of the universe does not have a 'speed'. One can measure the resulting speed between any two points in the universe, and the further away the two points are, the higher the resulting speed. If the universe is finite (not a known fact), then the highest speed will be between opposite 'edges ...[text shortened]... at that highest speed is, you have to know the size of the universe, which is currently unknown.

When I say 'speed' I am talking about what we CAN see, galaxies, which are receding from each other at a known rate, which obviously gets greater the further the objects are. Doppler shift shows that pretty clearly.