I really hope that is true. The whole dark energy thing reads like the special "airs" and other stuff chemists and physicists of the 19th and early 20th century claimed to exist
This wouldn't be the first paper to challenge the finding. There have been some other ones that showed that the detection for acceleration was statistically insignificant, for example. It's all down to whether this paper can gain enough traction and stand up against high levels of scrutiny, and if an alternate picture of the universe that better explains observations can be constructed.
But it does seem like were heading towards a so called paradigm shift in cosmology.
It's certainly possible. This whole universe in a bottle we've got right now with everything from the beginning of time to the end fairly clearly mapped out and consistent no less with our religious intuitions seems... overly simple and convenient to me. Not to dismiss the huge amount of real and important work gone into it. But in the grand scheme of things, mapping out the beginning and end of time in no less than 50 years and a small handful of humans is absolutely simple and convenient.
I imagine the universe is probably much stranger than this.
> The whole dark energy thing reads like the special "airs" and other stuff chemists and physicists of the 19th and early 20th century claimed to exist
Yeah but, by the same token, when it was first proposed that air itself was made up of particles we couldn't see, or that there were little things called bacteria we couldn't see, the proponents were laughed out of the room.
I think if it is real, it will lead to whole new areas of study and maybe new physics.. but if it's not real, that'd be a bit boring. We don't discover what we don't imagine might be there.
Dark matter always felt like a god of the gaps answer to me. They needed an explanation for what they observed based on their models, but had no direct evidence of. That reeks of pseudoscience to me. It's not like the hypothetical elements on the periodic table where the physics dictate that an atom would exist with a specific atomic number, though it wouldn't be naturally occurring due to being so unstable. Dark matter was always, "this shit has to exist to make our model work, even though we can't find any evidence of it actually existing."
I wish Sagan was still around. He'd love discussing research like this and the implications. 🫤
That's what they mean when they say Dark. They understand the implications of the gaps. And they are trying to find answers to close the gaps. No scientist is saying 'dark matter explains everything, job done, go home, nobel prizes for everyone'. They all know that 'dark matter' is just a placeholder for a real theory.
The meaning of the word "dark" in dark matter goes further than that. Dark matter does not interact with the electromagnetic field, which means that it does not interact with any kind of light. If dark matter is any type of matter at all, then it is "dark" in the most literal sense.
That's not to say the metaphorical meaning of our understanding being dark doesn't also apply, but that sort of grew out of the original meaning.
Dark energy uses "dark" purely metaphorically, since energy isn't a thing we would be able to see anyway.
Not only are you confusing dark matter and dark energy like the other commenter said, I want to point something else out to clear up a misconception:
Dark matter is not a theory
You're treating it like physicists are going around saying 'ahh yes dark matter it has X properties and Y sorts of interactions and obeys the Z equations etc, we just gotta PROVE it/catch it in the act'
This is a misunderstanding. The term "Dark matter" is not referring to a particular theory, it is simply the name we give to our ignorance, our lack of a theory, our understanding that explaining the observed phenomena like the variability of galactic rotation rates requires something that's missing, some kind of secret sauce, but it could be one of a million different things that we can conceive of, and perhaps a million more we can't.
Dark matter is not a "god of the gaps", it's just the name of the gap. That's all.
Yes, exactly. We can observe the effects of dark matter pretty easily on a galactic scale. There's a gravitational effect that isn't explained by normal matter. We call it dark matter because it's literally 'dark' - it doesn't interact with electromagnetism and so the primary method we use to observe the universe, light, doesn't let us see it directly. We can see the effects on normal matter. We know it looks exactly like there's matter that isn't interacting with light, and a ton of it. There have been some theories proposed about alterations to the equations of gravity that would explain some things but they never cover everything.
That's one of the biggest points in favor of ∆CDM, Modified gravity theories like MoND never explain the whole shebang like ∆CDM does, although I can see why people are drawn to ideas other than dark matter, it's kind of weird and hard to wrap ones head around - but this universe we find ourselves in is obviously stranger than it looks.
It very much is not a theory. It is the name we have given to the phenomena that "something does exist".
A theory would be something the axion, or WIMPs, or primordial black holes, or sterile neutrinos. A specific theoretical framework that makes specific predictions about how dark matter should behave and can be tested against observations and experiments and potentially ruled out.
The statement "guys there's a bunch of evidence in multiple different types of observations that there's some stuff out there but we dunno what it is yet so we're calling it Dark Matter until we figure it out" is not a theory.
thats literally what it is - and that is why it was called Dark Energy and Dark Matter.
it is a placeholder. something that seems to be akin to energy and something akin to matter. but no-one is sure what it is.
we "see" effect but not what is causing it.
This article is about dark energy. Dark matter and dark energy are not the same thing. If physicists discovered the real origin of dark matter’s effects on the universe, that would be revolutionary.
I understand what you are saying, but I want to give you a different perspective. Imagine you live underground. You have never been above ground. You own a telescope that can see the surface. You see a ship at sea on the water. It has these big sails and seems to be moving on its own. We shall call whatever is moving it dark energy.
This is about dark energy, not dark matter. Also there is a pretty large amount of evidence for dark matter. Also also we know of things that function exactly like dark matter it’s just we don’t there could possibly be enough of it to account for our observations so we think there must be others things that are like it. The neutrino is an example.
Somehow Dark Matter caught on as one of the more popular hypothesis, despite it being a catch-all for all the stuff the best theories we have as a civilization can’t explain. Advanced theoretical physics does invite a sort of mind-bending, daydreaming layman speculation that isn’t necessarily scientific.
Dark matter is not a theory or hypothesis. It's the set of observations that require a theory or hypothesis to explain. There are dark matter theories e.g. particle dark matter, but the observations themselves are what is referred to as the dark matter problem. We don't know what dark matter is, i.e. we have no currently accepted theory to explain the observations, but the observations (the data) themselves are real.
Dark matter is pretty narrow and deals with established gravitational phenomena. It also has not been gradually explained away. Dark matter is missing pieces of a carousel.
I'll just wait for more findings since there are still giant invisible blobs of pure gravity warping magnifying the galaxies behind them that astronomer needed to use to make these findings.
As opposed to the alternative which is void doesn't slow down light unless the light has travelled a certain amount of distance in which case it does slow it down
Big Crunch has always been my preferred hypothesis because it's the least existentially horrifying. A cyclical universe is a lot more romantic than one that freezes to death or rips in half
Personally I like the idea that dark energy is just mass that is positioned somewhere else along a 4th spacial dimension. Like if gravity operated across all 4 spacial axis then that would explain a lot. Virtual particles, for example, look a hell of a lot like simulations of what 4D particles bouncing around viewed as a 3D slice look like.
The only trick though is why would light not travel across that extra dimension. That question makes the idea a lot less compelling.
There's a market space for people doing punk-ethos paint sketches and zine style header images, something that very clearly isn't AI and betrays the hand of man on it.
Same with posters/menus for pubs and bars. I'm far more likely to go into a place that clearly handmade signs/posters/menus and more likely to actively avoid clearly AI versions.
When combined with the numerous technical editing errors peppered throughout the article it really is a slop job. The info might still be good, but it is loses a lot with the presentation.
Well, dark energy always seemed to be a very strange property of the universe instilling skepticism among many astronomers (including myself) but type Ia supernovae are not the only indications for it. There are still the CMB and BAO.
Which don’t all agree with each other. The evidence is still pointing in favor of dark energy but something is clearly off about it it’s just no one can figure out what. The general trend seems to hold no matter how you look at it but the specifics are highly uncertain.
In 19th-century physics, the luminiferous aether (or ether) was a hypothetical invisible medium permeating all space. Scientists believed it was necessary for the propagation of light and electromagnetic waves, acting much like air carries sound waves.The Aether ConceptInvisible medium: Filled the entire universe and passed freely through solid matter.Solid-like properties: Because light waves are transverse, physicists argued the aether had to behave like an elastic solid rather than a gas or liquid.Maxwell’s equations: James Clerk Maxwell united electricity, magnetism, and light, treating electromagnetic fields as mechanical stresses and strains in this universal aether.Decline and FallThe "Ether Wind": Scientists assumed Earth moved through the stationary aether, creating an undetectable breeze relative to light speed.Michelson–Morley Experiment: The famous Michelson-Morley Experiment of 1887 found no difference in the speed of light in any direction.Relativity: Albert Einstein introduced the Special Theory of Relativity in 1905, making the aether obsolete by showing the speed of light is constant without needing a medium.
Interesting. The key here is a challenge to a Type 1a being a standard candle. Basically, the brightness of this one type of supernova is not solely tied to its light curve.
Is the universe expanding. Yes based on our current understanding that is not in question.
Is that expansion accelerating? Maybe? If so how much? One possible explanation of the appearance of acceleration is gravity. Specifically how as objects move further from each other from the the normal expansion there pull weakens. So it would be more like... The true rate of expansion has been inhibited by gravity. Versus the rate of expansion is increasing?
It could be expanding at a constant rate. Or expanding a rate that is slowing down (deceleration), or it could be fixed... Not acceleration doesn't mean it's shrinking
Yes. But all of those scenarios mean that we either completely miss understand gravity or there's another force aka dark energy. So this alone doesn't disprove the dark energy hypothesis.
If dark energy does not exist or has a limit, it is simply a matter of time before gravity starts to take over again. I don’t know the actual timeline (no one does really) but I’m willing to say it’s a couple of thousand of trillion years before some kind of contraction begin at the galaxy level and we’ll get the big crunch. Which would be neat and the universe might get to restart again with another big bang event.
That's the thing though. The universe didn't start out so big and empty, it used to be significantly more dense. Most scientist agree that the big bang alone isn't enough to explain the current size of the universe. If there was no other force gravity should've stopped and reversed the expansion by now, unless of course we completely miss understand how gravity works which is possible but not more so than that there's simply another force we don't yet understand.
Is it possible that whatever the universe is or whatever state it was in during the big bang, is just incomprehensible to humans? It feels like we are missing big pieces of the truth puzzle
This acceleration has long bothered me, mainly because it seems so counter-intuitive, but also because the observations behind it do seem (to my highly uneducated ear) a bit shakey. Like, I’d really love to get very solid answer on this—dedicated time for JWST to observe these 1a supernovae, or whatever they need—and have it animated in a doc or some pics to get a solid grasp on what was observed and why it leads to the conclusions it does.
This is how science is done, by challenging the status quo with observations and experiments. To claim this is scientists ‘changing their minds’ and not… just doing science… is incredibly ignorant.
Dark Matter and Dark Energy have always seemed like made up BS terms.
Of course, as a nonscientist, I cannot criticize the Establishment, only shake my head in quiet disbelief.
Edit: I just remembered how nineteenth century physicists had their own “dark matter” they called Ether. The “medium of space” or something like that - look it up for a good laugh.
Of course, none of those Esteemed professors were laughing when Einstein blew them out of the water!
They are made up terms. That’s kind of the point they’re a name for something we don’t understand and can’t directly observe. They’ll likely get a “proper” name once we figure out what they actually are.
I will say though that the evidence for dark matter in particular is overwhelming at this point. The number of observations we’ve made that make sense only if there’s additional mass we can’t see is enormous and no alternative explanation comes close to explaining all of it.
Dark energy on the other hand is a bit more tenuous. The Evidence we have for dark energy is all statistical in nature and relies on a great number of correlations with varying degrees of uncertainty. A bias or oversight in our methods could plausibly explain it but until we figure out what that is we can’t simply dismiss it.
Dark matter must exist but Dark energy is still a tenuous placeholder.
Also, the conceptual basis for dark matter is the claim that there are particles which primarily interact gravitationally, and not much or not at all through the strong/weak/EM force. When you put it that way, it seems totally plausible. I mean, every other particle we know of interacts with some forces but not others. Why not one that just uses gravity?
Gravity is a force that may have a particle associated with it. The above commenter was saying that the force “gravity” interacts with dark matter and nothing about whether or not it is a particle.
Well they are made up in a sense that in order for our models/simulations to match observations additional placeholders needed to be added to make them work, these placeholders got named and here we are.
That said we have far more observational data for dark matter being SOMETHING manipulating gravity thus the matter part of the phrase. It may be our understanding of gravity is off and given we still don't fully understand gravity (force carrier still an unknown and other issues) that's still on the table but it APPEARS something is manipulating gravity on a galactic scale that's not interacting with the electromagnetic force (thus the "dark").
We are still learning, building new instruments and expanding our knowledge daily on the march to make the unknown known, we may end up scrapping our standard cosmological model one day with newer understanding specially since Lambda-CDM relies heavily on dark matter/energy being apart of the equations. I mean currently dark matter/energy makes up 95% of the energy density of our current understanding of the universe. Fully recognizing what those are or are not will change everything in cosmology when we get there.
The observations exist but our interpretations could be wrong, fun times ahead.
It would really be fascinating to see how the next Einstein brings in a new paradigm of understanding. Of course the establishment will never make it easy - I can picture a young researcher somewhere worried about the ridicule their ideas would garner.
I’m merely saying this here and look at how these “children of the establishment” are downvoting me!
I think you have a very warped view of what modern science is like. Scientists in general love when something new and interesting comes up to challenge current theories but those new theories must first survive intense scrutiny. That’s just how science works.
Also you aren’t be downvoted for challenging the established theory you’re being downvoted for voted for mocking said theory without actually understanding it. It’s ok to doubt current theories, tons of scientists do, but you need to be respectful still. You come across as extremely smug. As you said ridicule does not belong in science.
It's possible a valid area of discovery is sitting in a research paper right now we just lack the data, experimentation, or mathematical rigor (it may answer one question but does it answer all the rest to match observations) to validate it any further to justify it moving forward, happened many times in science history. It's a super hot topic though and plenty to read about if you get bored and want to explore it.
The idea of a super genius figuring it all out in one go is getting harder to do with how far and specialized science is getting though it is romantic to think about. It may take a novel approach to answer some questions but the incremental approach is more likely. One puzzle piece at a time.
People forget the function of up or down voting isn't suppose to be about your opinion on the material itself but if the material can move or create a discussion on the topic ...but it's reddit so set expectations at below ground level.
Dark matter is real, we just can’t describe its properties. Dark energy is tenous, but it was hypothesized because it fixed a problem with our model of the universe, same as the ether did. Once we have a better understanding of the universe, it might go like the ether or be proven as a real, describable thing. Einstein did not ‘blow them out of the water’, he did science, built atop their work, to figure out the truth. This is how science is done. You’re perfectly capable of criticizing science from a view outside of the establishment, but to criticize something you first have to understand it. And you clearly don’t.
> Of course, as a nonscientist, I cannot criticize
You could have stopped right there. It's good to have opposing views in science, that's how theories are supported through reproduced results, but without any fundamental understanding your views aren't worth much.
You feel confident because you're a non-conformist, but in your case it's unfounded.
Of course it is, or we would still think we’re on a flat Earth at the center of the universe surrounded by ether.
But scientists have enormous egos, and the more famous ones have even bigger egos, if that’s even possible. So they don’t look kindly on someone unknown who challenges their worldview.
Their response is often savage ridicule. Or worse.
Look up the case of Eske Willerslev, the discoverer of environmental DNA. He was laughed out of the room when he first proposed his theory. At least he didn’t suffer the fate of Ignaz Semmelweis, the doctor who proposed handwashing.
People believing the Earth was flat is largely a myth, people of old already knew it was round thousands of years ago. Even the medieval church accepted the Earth was round.
In both of your examples of people who questioned the established science of their time, they are both trained professionals - one a physician and the other a geneticist. They were both informed well enough and had the tools to research and support their claims and/or doubt.
> Of course, as a nonscientist
You don't fall into that category by your own admission. You have no basis for your beliefs.
> Dark Matter and Dark Energy have always seemed like made up BS terms.
Lots of things sound like BS when you lack the fundamentals to understand them.
The universe is accelerating or decelerating was always a dumb theory. The universe would have to be accelerating or decelerating within another space, which would also be called checks notes, the universe.
Yes it does. Seems like our modern physicists are still behind in understanding if the most basics of a logic. I promise you, none of your equations or anything is going to escape the fact that some type of space needs to exist to be stretched or expanded or moved around in. That’s the only way. Anything else is just false beliefs and bad math.
Anachron101 | 4 days ago
I really hope that is true. The whole dark energy thing reads like the special "airs" and other stuff chemists and physicists of the 19th and early 20th century claimed to exist
CognitionMass | 4 days ago
This wouldn't be the first paper to challenge the finding. There have been some other ones that showed that the detection for acceleration was statistically insignificant, for example. It's all down to whether this paper can gain enough traction and stand up against high levels of scrutiny, and if an alternate picture of the universe that better explains observations can be constructed.
But it does seem like were heading towards a so called paradigm shift in cosmology.
DangerMacAwesome | 3 days ago
Could you imagine if the expanding universe was wrong? In 50 years kids will be laughing about the idea, right up there with the four humors.
CognitionMass | 3 days ago
It's certainly possible. This whole universe in a bottle we've got right now with everything from the beginning of time to the end fairly clearly mapped out and consistent no less with our religious intuitions seems... overly simple and convenient to me. Not to dismiss the huge amount of real and important work gone into it. But in the grand scheme of things, mapping out the beginning and end of time in no less than 50 years and a small handful of humans is absolutely simple and convenient.
I imagine the universe is probably much stranger than this.
sweetnsourgrapes | 4 days ago
> The whole dark energy thing reads like the special "airs" and other stuff chemists and physicists of the 19th and early 20th century claimed to exist
Yeah but, by the same token, when it was first proposed that air itself was made up of particles we couldn't see, or that there were little things called bacteria we couldn't see, the proponents were laughed out of the room.
I think if it is real, it will lead to whole new areas of study and maybe new physics.. but if it's not real, that'd be a bit boring. We don't discover what we don't imagine might be there.
ikonoclasm | 4 days ago
Dark matter always felt like a god of the gaps answer to me. They needed an explanation for what they observed based on their models, but had no direct evidence of. That reeks of pseudoscience to me. It's not like the hypothetical elements on the periodic table where the physics dictate that an atom would exist with a specific atomic number, though it wouldn't be naturally occurring due to being so unstable. Dark matter was always, "this shit has to exist to make our model work, even though we can't find any evidence of it actually existing."
I wish Sagan was still around. He'd love discussing research like this and the implications. 🫤
amusing_trivials | 3 days ago
That's what they mean when they say Dark. They understand the implications of the gaps. And they are trying to find answers to close the gaps. No scientist is saying 'dark matter explains everything, job done, go home, nobel prizes for everyone'. They all know that 'dark matter' is just a placeholder for a real theory.
FrozenWebs | 3 days ago
The meaning of the word "dark" in dark matter goes further than that. Dark matter does not interact with the electromagnetic field, which means that it does not interact with any kind of light. If dark matter is any type of matter at all, then it is "dark" in the most literal sense.
That's not to say the metaphorical meaning of our understanding being dark doesn't also apply, but that sort of grew out of the original meaning.
Dark energy uses "dark" purely metaphorically, since energy isn't a thing we would be able to see anyway.
CognitionMass | 3 days ago
that's how it started anyway. But as einstein said, convention and time make the facts of science. And Dark Matter is been reified as a fact today.
AMuonParticle | 3 days ago
Not only are you confusing dark matter and dark energy like the other commenter said, I want to point something else out to clear up a misconception:
Dark matter is not a theory
You're treating it like physicists are going around saying 'ahh yes dark matter it has X properties and Y sorts of interactions and obeys the Z equations etc, we just gotta PROVE it/catch it in the act'
This is a misunderstanding. The term "Dark matter" is not referring to a particular theory, it is simply the name we give to our ignorance, our lack of a theory, our understanding that explaining the observed phenomena like the variability of galactic rotation rates requires something that's missing, some kind of secret sauce, but it could be one of a million different things that we can conceive of, and perhaps a million more we can't.
Dark matter is not a "god of the gaps", it's just the name of the gap. That's all.
LawfulNice | 3 days ago
Yes, exactly. We can observe the effects of dark matter pretty easily on a galactic scale. There's a gravitational effect that isn't explained by normal matter. We call it dark matter because it's literally 'dark' - it doesn't interact with electromagnetism and so the primary method we use to observe the universe, light, doesn't let us see it directly. We can see the effects on normal matter. We know it looks exactly like there's matter that isn't interacting with light, and a ton of it. There have been some theories proposed about alterations to the equations of gravity that would explain some things but they never cover everything.
Eternal-Blazing-Sun | 3 days ago
That's one of the biggest points in favor of ∆CDM, Modified gravity theories like MoND never explain the whole shebang like ∆CDM does, although I can see why people are drawn to ideas other than dark matter, it's kind of weird and hard to wrap ones head around - but this universe we find ourselves in is obviously stranger than it looks.
fzammetti | 3 days ago
Scientists: poorly naming things and resultantly confusing lay people (and even some scientists) since the beginning of... checks watch... SCIENCE.
AMuonParticle | 3 days ago
ok you're not wrong but coming up with funny names for things is like the best part of being a scientist
fzammetti | 3 days ago
True!
funicode | 3 days ago
It very much is a theory. The theory that both our best models of physics and the observations are both right.
There's fairly solid evidence that something does exist, but dark matter, until found, is still just a theory.
AMuonParticle | 3 days ago
It very much is not a theory. It is the name we have given to the phenomena that "something does exist".
A theory would be something the axion, or WIMPs, or primordial black holes, or sterile neutrinos. A specific theoretical framework that makes specific predictions about how dark matter should behave and can be tested against observations and experiments and potentially ruled out.
The statement "guys there's a bunch of evidence in multiple different types of observations that there's some stuff out there but we dunno what it is yet so we're calling it Dark Matter until we figure it out" is not a theory.
Dancing-Wind | 3 days ago
thats literally what it is - and that is why it was called Dark Energy and Dark Matter.
it is a placeholder. something that seems to be akin to energy and something akin to matter. but no-one is sure what it is.
we "see" effect but not what is causing it.
mtbdork | 3 days ago
This article is about dark energy. Dark matter and dark energy are not the same thing. If physicists discovered the real origin of dark matter’s effects on the universe, that would be revolutionary.
Nice-Ask4369 | 3 days ago
I understand what you are saying, but I want to give you a different perspective. Imagine you live underground. You have never been above ground. You own a telescope that can see the surface. You see a ship at sea on the water. It has these big sails and seems to be moving on its own. We shall call whatever is moving it dark energy.
Skarr87 | 3 days ago
This is about dark energy, not dark matter. Also there is a pretty large amount of evidence for dark matter. Also also we know of things that function exactly like dark matter it’s just we don’t there could possibly be enough of it to account for our observations so we think there must be others things that are like it. The neutrino is an example.
thelongernight | 3 days ago
Somehow Dark Matter caught on as one of the more popular hypothesis, despite it being a catch-all for all the stuff the best theories we have as a civilization can’t explain. Advanced theoretical physics does invite a sort of mind-bending, daydreaming layman speculation that isn’t necessarily scientific.
Boring_and_sons | 3 days ago
Dark matter is not a theory or hypothesis. It's the set of observations that require a theory or hypothesis to explain. There are dark matter theories e.g. particle dark matter, but the observations themselves are what is referred to as the dark matter problem. We don't know what dark matter is, i.e. we have no currently accepted theory to explain the observations, but the observations (the data) themselves are real.
helm | 3 days ago
Dark matter is pretty narrow and deals with established gravitational phenomena. It also has not been gradually explained away. Dark matter is missing pieces of a carousel.
Typical-Plantain1252 | 3 days ago
Who were laughed out of the room?
Super_Range45 | 4 days ago
I'll just wait for more findings since there are still giant invisible blobs of pure gravity warping magnifying the galaxies behind them that astronomer needed to use to make these findings.
AlwaysHopelesslyLost | 3 days ago
Sounds like the last paper I read whose stated goal was to review/offer alternatives for dark matter.
In the end their new expalantion still required dark matter to exist lol
c0dearm | 4 days ago
It reminds me when we thought that light speed was not constant and we had to come up with stuff like the ether for it to propagate through.
Minky_Dave_the_Giant | 4 days ago
I still believes in the luminiferous aether and you'll never convince me otherwise!
QuietWaterBreaksRock | 4 days ago
If is ether, why space no ether shaped?
Minky_Dave_the_Giant | 4 days ago
What if space is aether?
QuietWaterBreaksRock | 4 days ago
Could be aether or
fishboy3339 | 4 days ago
And what does it taste like?
Minky_Dave_the_Giant | 4 days ago
Some kind of cherry cola.
LocCatPowersDog | 4 days ago
Lala LA LA Lola
a1c4pwn | 3 days ago
it kinda, kinda, is. the big difference is that spactime doesn't have a frame of reference, while the aether does by construction.
ph33rlus | 3 days ago
Ah The Ether
darkest_irish_lass | 4 days ago
Or like the cosmological constant that Einstein snuck into his equations to allow for a steady state universe (that isn't expanding or contracting).
RiriaaeleL | 3 days ago
As opposed to the alternative which is void doesn't slow down light unless the light has travelled a certain amount of distance in which case it does slow it down
Doesn't make much more sense.
Dirtgrain | 3 days ago
It mainly is a poor name for the idea.
tisused | 4 days ago
Simpler to explain if the Universe is decelerating I guess
citizen42069101 | 4 days ago
In my mind that would make more sense.
Bang banged swole up and will slowly recoalesce until it all sucks back together and bangs again.
asyork | 4 days ago
I feel like I read a similar hypothesis about 30 years ago.
Tupcek | 3 days ago
so heat death of the universe was cancelled? Bummer, was looking forward to it
SwampFungalPod_ | 3 days ago
Big Crunch has always been my preferred hypothesis because it's the least existentially horrifying. A cyclical universe is a lot more romantic than one that freezes to death or rips in half
citizen42069101 | 3 days ago
Its simplicity removes questions that other theories need to function.
Universe could act like a cavitation bubble under water. Sometimes they rebound (lack of a better word) before disappearing.
NextWeather7866 | 3 days ago
Would better fit nature anyway, everything is related to circles except for the trajectory of the universe? Doubt it.
tisused | 3 days ago
What about straight lines?
NextWeather7866 | 3 days ago
they curve.
tisused | 3 days ago
Okay, so they are not straight
highso | 4 days ago
Just a lil phlogiston
slingshotstoryteller | 4 days ago
In a discussion with my nuclear physicist father in law, I referred to it as “Aether” and he nearly did a spit-take.
McCaffeteria | 3 days ago
Personally I like the idea that dark energy is just mass that is positioned somewhere else along a 4th spacial dimension. Like if gravity operated across all 4 spacial axis then that would explain a lot. Virtual particles, for example, look a hell of a lot like simulations of what 4D particles bouncing around viewed as a 3D slice look like.
The only trick though is why would light not travel across that extra dimension. That question makes the idea a lot less compelling.
Fee_is_Required2 | 4 days ago
Those foul humors?
NoInevitable9810 | 4 days ago
To be fair the aether telsa talked about exists.
OhYeahSplunge4me2 | 4 days ago
Dark Energy is the Aether of modern science
HighOnGoofballs | 4 days ago
My brain approves of this more than everything accelerating away
sweetnsourgrapes | 4 days ago
I really don't like the AI generated images at the top of every article these days. Comes across rather cheap and low effort.
Novel_Yesterday3309 | 4 days ago
Cheap and low effort is just our society now.
Fee_is_Required2 | 4 days ago
Yet somehow still enriching the trillionaires of the world …
starke_reaver | 4 days ago
Ain’t the MIC, ahem, fasc, cough cough, sorry something in my throat, I meant: system grand!
Isn’t it though…
EasyRecognition | 3 days ago
Making laypeople ruin their lives voluntarily out of convenience is a cheap and low effort way to enrich a trillionaire.
alphaxion | 4 days ago
There's a market space for people doing punk-ethos paint sketches and zine style header images, something that very clearly isn't AI and betrays the hand of man on it.
Same with posters/menus for pubs and bars. I'm far more likely to go into a place that clearly handmade signs/posters/menus and more likely to actively avoid clearly AI versions.
Lfeaf-feafea-feaf | 3 days ago
It's not though. The image is made by a science illustrator and is listed as no AI: https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/720355/view
manystripes | 3 days ago
And if you plug it into Tineye you get exact matches for this image going all the way back to 2016, long before AI was a thing
jarvis0042 | 4 days ago
When combined with the numerous technical editing errors peppered throughout the article it really is a slop job. The info might still be good, but it is loses a lot with the presentation.
DatDawg-InMe | 3 days ago
This image has been around for literally a decade.
faeriewhisper | 4 days ago
Well, dark energy always seemed to be a very strange property of the universe instilling skepticism among many astronomers (including myself) but type Ia supernovae are not the only indications for it. There are still the CMB and BAO.
xboxiscrunchy | 4 days ago
Which don’t all agree with each other. The evidence is still pointing in favor of dark energy but something is clearly off about it it’s just no one can figure out what. The general trend seems to hold no matter how you look at it but the specifics are highly uncertain.
PilotParticular7503 | 4 days ago
In 19th-century physics, the luminiferous aether (or ether) was a hypothetical invisible medium permeating all space. Scientists believed it was necessary for the propagation of light and electromagnetic waves, acting much like air carries sound waves.The Aether ConceptInvisible medium: Filled the entire universe and passed freely through solid matter.Solid-like properties: Because light waves are transverse, physicists argued the aether had to behave like an elastic solid rather than a gas or liquid.Maxwell’s equations: James Clerk Maxwell united electricity, magnetism, and light, treating electromagnetic fields as mechanical stresses and strains in this universal aether.Decline and FallThe "Ether Wind": Scientists assumed Earth moved through the stationary aether, creating an undetectable breeze relative to light speed.Michelson–Morley Experiment: The famous Michelson-Morley Experiment of 1887 found no difference in the speed of light in any direction.Relativity: Albert Einstein introduced the Special Theory of Relativity in 1905, making the aether obsolete by showing the speed of light is constant without needing a medium.
Eternal-Blazing-Sun | 3 days ago
Sounds alot like a primal version of QFT, with some missing details. Maxwell's equations actually working would suggest something like that, right?
HyShroom | 3 days ago
I’m glad for you or I’m sorry that happened to you
waffle299 | 3 days ago
Interesting. The key here is a challenge to a Type 1a being a standard candle. Basically, the brightness of this one type of supernova is not solely tied to its light curve.
That's new.
Craftomega2 | 3 days ago
Is the universe expanding. Yes based on our current understanding that is not in question.
Is that expansion accelerating? Maybe? If so how much? One possible explanation of the appearance of acceleration is gravity. Specifically how as objects move further from each other from the the normal expansion there pull weakens. So it would be more like... The true rate of expansion has been inhibited by gravity. Versus the rate of expansion is increasing?
I don't know it's just a thought.
HikariAnti | 4 days ago
It may not be accelerating but then how do you explain why gravity hasn't started to collapse the whole thing in?
elcapitan520 | 3 days ago
It could be expanding at a constant rate. Or expanding a rate that is slowing down (deceleration), or it could be fixed... Not acceleration doesn't mean it's shrinking
HikariAnti | 3 days ago
Yes. But all of those scenarios mean that we either completely miss understand gravity or there's another force aka dark energy. So this alone doesn't disprove the dark energy hypothesis.
patientpedestrian | 3 days ago
If it's not accelerating, wouldn't extreme initial velocities explain the geometry of observable stuff in space?
elcapitan520 | 3 days ago
Don't ask me lol
TeachingScience | 3 days ago
If dark energy does not exist or has a limit, it is simply a matter of time before gravity starts to take over again. I don’t know the actual timeline (no one does really) but I’m willing to say it’s a couple of thousand of trillion years before some kind of contraction begin at the galaxy level and we’ll get the big crunch. Which would be neat and the universe might get to restart again with another big bang event.
HikariAnti | 3 days ago
That's the thing though. The universe didn't start out so big and empty, it used to be significantly more dense. Most scientist agree that the big bang alone isn't enough to explain the current size of the universe. If there was no other force gravity should've stopped and reversed the expansion by now, unless of course we completely miss understand how gravity works which is possible but not more so than that there's simply another force we don't yet understand.
PixelDemon | 3 days ago
Is it possible that whatever the universe is or whatever state it was in during the big bang, is just incomprehensible to humans? It feels like we are missing big pieces of the truth puzzle
SCP-iota | 3 days ago
Grand unified theory
SockBrewer | 3 days ago
There’s other clues. Galaxy’s are spinning too fast for their measurable mass.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_rotation_curve
Eternal-Blazing-Sun | 3 days ago
Aww man, I've had my fingers crossed that Penrose's CCC would be the ultimate fate of our universe... Boo.
Biglypbs | 3 days ago
It’s past escape velocity?
johnstonjimmybimmy | 3 days ago
The ether!
Yos13 | 3 days ago
Nonsense
brandolinium | 4 days ago
This acceleration has long bothered me, mainly because it seems so counter-intuitive, but also because the observations behind it do seem (to my highly uneducated ear) a bit shakey. Like, I’d really love to get very solid answer on this—dedicated time for JWST to observe these 1a supernovae, or whatever they need—and have it animated in a doc or some pics to get a solid grasp on what was observed and why it leads to the conclusions it does.
UntowardHatter | 4 days ago
Yeah, no.
Soggy_Book2422 | 3 days ago
'May not'.. 'could mean'
ShiftyShankerton | 4 days ago
Make up your mind scientists! Jeez
No_Intention_8079 | 4 days ago
This is how science is done, by challenging the status quo with observations and experiments. To claim this is scientists ‘changing their minds’ and not… just doing science… is incredibly ignorant.
RaunakA_ | 4 days ago
This changes things. Like how I live my personal life.
Stainz | 4 days ago
Same, since there's no longer a hidden universal constant expanding my body I can afford to add a few extra calories to my diet.
rddman | 3 days ago
That is why you visit a science sub.
RaunakA_ | 4 days ago
Gawd people need an explicit "/s" now.
Eternal-Blazing-Sun | 3 days ago
Always have... Bang!
buddhasballbag | 3 days ago
No shit Sherlock.
Ill_Mousse_4240 | 4 days ago
Dark Matter and Dark Energy have always seemed like made up BS terms.
Of course, as a nonscientist, I cannot criticize the Establishment, only shake my head in quiet disbelief.
Edit: I just remembered how nineteenth century physicists had their own “dark matter” they called Ether. The “medium of space” or something like that - look it up for a good laugh.
Of course, none of those Esteemed professors were laughing when Einstein blew them out of the water!
Natedoggsk8 | 4 days ago
“Dark” is another word for they don’t know what it is.
xboxiscrunchy | 4 days ago
They are made up terms. That’s kind of the point they’re a name for something we don’t understand and can’t directly observe. They’ll likely get a “proper” name once we figure out what they actually are.
I will say though that the evidence for dark matter in particular is overwhelming at this point. The number of observations we’ve made that make sense only if there’s additional mass we can’t see is enormous and no alternative explanation comes close to explaining all of it.
Dark energy on the other hand is a bit more tenuous. The Evidence we have for dark energy is all statistical in nature and relies on a great number of correlations with varying degrees of uncertainty. A bias or oversight in our methods could plausibly explain it but until we figure out what that is we can’t simply dismiss it.
Dark matter must exist but Dark energy is still a tenuous placeholder.
thing188 | 4 days ago
Also, the conceptual basis for dark matter is the claim that there are particles which primarily interact gravitationally, and not much or not at all through the strong/weak/EM force. When you put it that way, it seems totally plausible. I mean, every other particle we know of interacts with some forces but not others. Why not one that just uses gravity?
akhst | 4 days ago
Is "gravity" really a particle that can potentially interact with "dark matter" ?
ZappaBaggins | 3 days ago
Gravity is a force that may have a particle associated with it. The above commenter was saying that the force “gravity” interacts with dark matter and nothing about whether or not it is a particle.
Shizix | 4 days ago
Well they are made up in a sense that in order for our models/simulations to match observations additional placeholders needed to be added to make them work, these placeholders got named and here we are.
That said we have far more observational data for dark matter being SOMETHING manipulating gravity thus the matter part of the phrase. It may be our understanding of gravity is off and given we still don't fully understand gravity (force carrier still an unknown and other issues) that's still on the table but it APPEARS something is manipulating gravity on a galactic scale that's not interacting with the electromagnetic force (thus the "dark").
We are still learning, building new instruments and expanding our knowledge daily on the march to make the unknown known, we may end up scrapping our standard cosmological model one day with newer understanding specially since Lambda-CDM relies heavily on dark matter/energy being apart of the equations. I mean currently dark matter/energy makes up 95% of the energy density of our current understanding of the universe. Fully recognizing what those are or are not will change everything in cosmology when we get there.
The observations exist but our interpretations could be wrong, fun times ahead.
Ill_Mousse_4240 | 4 days ago
It would really be fascinating to see how the next Einstein brings in a new paradigm of understanding. Of course the establishment will never make it easy - I can picture a young researcher somewhere worried about the ridicule their ideas would garner.
I’m merely saying this here and look at how these “children of the establishment” are downvoting me!
Ridicule should never be allowed in science
xboxiscrunchy | 4 days ago
I think you have a very warped view of what modern science is like. Scientists in general love when something new and interesting comes up to challenge current theories but those new theories must first survive intense scrutiny. That’s just how science works.
Also you aren’t be downvoted for challenging the established theory you’re being downvoted for voted for mocking said theory without actually understanding it. It’s ok to doubt current theories, tons of scientists do, but you need to be respectful still. You come across as extremely smug. As you said ridicule does not belong in science.
Shizix | 4 days ago
It's possible a valid area of discovery is sitting in a research paper right now we just lack the data, experimentation, or mathematical rigor (it may answer one question but does it answer all the rest to match observations) to validate it any further to justify it moving forward, happened many times in science history. It's a super hot topic though and plenty to read about if you get bored and want to explore it.
The idea of a super genius figuring it all out in one go is getting harder to do with how far and specialized science is getting though it is romantic to think about. It may take a novel approach to answer some questions but the incremental approach is more likely. One puzzle piece at a time.
People forget the function of up or down voting isn't suppose to be about your opinion on the material itself but if the material can move or create a discussion on the topic ...but it's reddit so set expectations at below ground level.
No_Intention_8079 | 4 days ago
Dark matter is real, we just can’t describe its properties. Dark energy is tenous, but it was hypothesized because it fixed a problem with our model of the universe, same as the ether did. Once we have a better understanding of the universe, it might go like the ether or be proven as a real, describable thing. Einstein did not ‘blow them out of the water’, he did science, built atop their work, to figure out the truth. This is how science is done. You’re perfectly capable of criticizing science from a view outside of the establishment, but to criticize something you first have to understand it. And you clearly don’t.
Ill_Mousse_4240 | 4 days ago
“To criticize something you first have to understand it”
But nobody really understands either dark matter or dark energy. That’s why they’re named as such.
If I develop an understanding of them I wouldn’t be some internet rando on Reddit, you’d already know me as I head to Stockholm to collect my Prize
Edit: a Mousse in Stockholm😂
No_Intention_8079 | 4 days ago
I meant, understanding the basics of science. You clearly don’t understand how scientific work gets done at a fundamental level.
CMDR_1 | 3 days ago
> Of course, as a nonscientist, I cannot criticize
You could have stopped right there. It's good to have opposing views in science, that's how theories are supported through reproduced results, but without any fundamental understanding your views aren't worth much.
You feel confident because you're a non-conformist, but in your case it's unfounded.
Ill_Mousse_4240 | 3 days ago
“It good to have opposing views in science”
Of course it is, or we would still think we’re on a flat Earth at the center of the universe surrounded by ether.
But scientists have enormous egos, and the more famous ones have even bigger egos, if that’s even possible. So they don’t look kindly on someone unknown who challenges their worldview.
Their response is often savage ridicule. Or worse.
Look up the case of Eske Willerslev, the discoverer of environmental DNA. He was laughed out of the room when he first proposed his theory. At least he didn’t suffer the fate of Ignaz Semmelweis, the doctor who proposed handwashing.
CMDR_1 | 3 days ago
People believing the Earth was flat is largely a myth, people of old already knew it was round thousands of years ago. Even the medieval church accepted the Earth was round.
In both of your examples of people who questioned the established science of their time, they are both trained professionals - one a physician and the other a geneticist. They were both informed well enough and had the tools to research and support their claims and/or doubt.
> Of course, as a nonscientist
You don't fall into that category by your own admission. You have no basis for your beliefs.
> Dark Matter and Dark Energy have always seemed like made up BS terms.
Lots of things sound like BS when you lack the fundamentals to understand them.
pummisher | 4 days ago
Wouldn't it be funny if light really traveled through the aether?
TheIncandescentAbyss | 3 days ago
The universe is accelerating or decelerating was always a dumb theory. The universe would have to be accelerating or decelerating within another space, which would also be called checks notes, the universe.
attimhsa | 3 days ago
No, you’re thinking of it as an expansion, but it’s stretching; it doesn’t need to expand in to anything.
I strongly urge you to remove the human in you aa much as possible when considering the cosmos, because very little of it human.
TheIncandescentAbyss | 3 days ago
It needs to be stretched into something.
attimhsa | 3 days ago
No, it doesn’t
TheIncandescentAbyss | 3 days ago
Yes it does. Seems like our modern physicists are still behind in understanding if the most basics of a logic. I promise you, none of your equations or anything is going to escape the fact that some type of space needs to exist to be stretched or expanded or moved around in. That’s the only way. Anything else is just false beliefs and bad math.
SCP-iota | 3 days ago
It's not expanding its borders, because it has no borders; the scale of space itself is increasing