Space is a "vacuum"?

Originally posted by sasquatch672
Can anyone comment on the possibility that the fabric of space-time may in fact be dark energy? Einstein postulated that an ether must exist. With so pervasive a "medium", it's remarkable that we've had so little success predicting it. It's remarkable that the finest minds in history still regard dark energy as unobservable.

Not quite true:

http://www.physicscentral.com/explore/action/camera1.cfm

They are leading the effort to in fact image dark energy.

And this in answer to what is dark energy:

http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/

Originally posted by sonhouse
Not quite true:

http://www.physicscentral.com/explore/action/camera1.cfm

They are leading the effort to in fact image dark energy.

And this in answer to what is dark energy:

http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/

That last link confirms my suspicion that “dark energy” and “dark matter” are just names given to areas of almost complete if not complete ignorance.
If it wasn't for the ill-founded speculations, you could near-enough replace “dark energy” and “dark matter” with “don't know -not a clue” and “don't know -not a clue”.

Originally posted by humy
That last link confirms my suspicion that “dark energy” and “dark matter” are just names given to areas of almost complete if not complete ignorance.
If it wasn't for the ill-founded speculations, you could near-enough replace “dark energy” and “dark matter” with “don't know -not a clue” and “don't know -not a clue”.

Hmmm, I think they are more like the word "wind".

Before people knew about, or could detect/investigate, objects on an molecular/atomic level,
they could observe that there was this invisible substance that they called air.
And that air could move and blow things, which they called wind.

We can detect the effects of 'dark energy' and 'dark matter' and thus know that 'something'
is there and going on.

However as we can't 'see' what it is that is causing the effects we observe we are in the same
position of those who could see the effects of air and wind. but not detect or discern their substance.


Our big bang theories say that for the universe to look like it does, it must have had far more mass/energy
than we can see.

We can detect galaxies moving in ways that indicate that they have way more mass than we can detect,
and distributed differently from their visible mass.

And we can detect the expansion of the universe altering in ways that make no sense without something other
than normal matter and forces.


So we have detected effects, we have names for those effects (the 'dark' part just signifying that we can't see
them because they don't emit/reflect light) and now we are trying to determine their exact properties and directly
detect them.

Given that dark energy and matter are pretty well always described as being great mysteries we need/want to solve
I don't see what the problem is.


I don't see any inherent problem in naming a new phenomena you want to try to explain...

As long as you don't mistake labelling it for explaining it.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Hmmm, I think they are more like the word "wind".

Before people knew about, or could detect/investigate, objects on an molecular/atomic level,
they could observe that there was this invisible substance that they called air.
And that air could move and blow things, which they called wind.

We can detect the effects of 'dark energy' and 'dark matte to explain...

As long as you don't mistake labelling it for explaining it.

We can detect the effects of 'dark energy' and 'dark matter' and thus know that 'something'
is there and going on.

actually, we don't know “ 'something' is there” !
That's because there may be nothing "there"!
Look back at my OP of my “Dark matter might not exist “ thread I made just a few days ago ( on the 13th of November ) .
Until science finds some more real evidence that sheds some sort of light on what is really going on here, we don't know anything and all we really have is speculation.

I don't see any inherent problem in naming a new phenomena you want to try to explain...

agreed -even if we have no idea what the correct explanation is ( yet ) .