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Necessity of Dark Energy Questioned
ttnuagmada points us to an article about scientist David Wiltshire's suggestion that theorized dark energy is not needed to describe the expansion of the universe. His work challenges assumptions made about the distribution of matter in the universe. Early solutions to general relativity were based on a "smooth distribution" of matter. Wiltshire's approach focuses on a "lumpy" dispersal, which more accurately fits data from modern studies. We have discussed other theories about dark energy in the past. Quoting:
"Through observational projects like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the 2 Degree Field survey, we now have a much better picture of the large-scale structure of the universe and we know that galaxies are not uniformly distributed. 'Rather, they are in clusters sprinkled thinly in filaments and "bubble walls" surrounding huge voids hundreds of millions of light-years across,' Wiltshire says.
Just because you know that something is happening doesn't mean that you account for it correctly or fully appreciate the implications; I'm a biologist, all the systems I deal with are heterogeneous, and it's always a major bitch to deal with. That said, I share your skepticism but this doesn't strike me as implausible - although I know essentially nothing about astrophysics.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
From the article, it seems like he believes that this lumpiness was always there, rather than an earlier smooth distribution they've been assuming.
While we might not ever know who is correct in this regard, I tend to prefer theories that don't have the need for dark energies, or matter,even if that really really screws up the equations we use to model the early universe. I think at some point every physicist just stares at a black board somewhere and says to himself " thats fucked up". We really have lost the elegance of the universe being a series of spherical shells rotating around the earth. Since that point we've managed to go through cycles of discovering elegance in the universe on a deeper level (the simple math of kepplar and Newton), and having to reject it for more complexity( Einstien's huge matrix of PDE's ). Let this be a lesson to us all, Don't let what should be prevent you from seeing what is.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
The fact that matter forms bubbles around the voids intuitively make me think that some force is pushing matter away from the center of each void. Perhaps the center of each void is location where mini-inflation events have happened and what we see today is the reslut of these events pushing shells of matter up against each other so that they form filaments and bubbles. Just a though, IANAP though.
Exactly, even though we don't need to postulate the presence of "Dark Matter" to construct mathematical models of the expanding Universe, Einstein did not need the "ether" theory to construct "relativity" mathematical models that incorporated how light seems to behave.
Still that does not prove that the "ether" either exists or doesn't exist. Just that it is not necessary to incorporate into a mathematical model, that will more or less express what is observed. But we still have the question of "zero point energy", what exactly is it? And what possible connections or similarities might it have with "dark matter" and "ether" theories.
I have my own theory, and it is about the limitations of thought or of comprehension. Thought itself seems to work on a relativistic principle, where the polar opposite is always simultaneously needed as a contrast. Example: Up/Down, In/Out, Near/Far, Good/Bad etc. etc. So Einstein's theory of Relativity does not necessarily explain how the Universe works, it only explains how the limitations of thought work. Thought as a medium of awareness can therefore never grasp the Absolute, or the Non-Relativistic Totality, because that requires a different kind of awareness than thought is capable of.