The Paradoxes That Threaten To Tear Modern Cosmology Apart

KentuckyFC writes Revolutions in science often come from the study of seemingly unresolvable paradoxes. So an interesting exercise is to list the paradoxes associated with current ideas in science. One cosmologist has done just that by exploring the paradoxes associated with well-established ideas and observations about the structure and origin of the universe. Perhaps the most dramatic of these paradoxes comes from the idea that the universe must be expanding. What's curious about this expansion is that space, and the vacuum associated with it, must somehow be created in this process. And yet nobody knows how this can occur. What's more, there is an energy associated with any given volume of the universe. If that volume increases, the inescapable conclusion is that the energy must increase as well. So much for conservation of energy. And even the amount of energy associated with the vacuum is a puzzle with different calculations contradicting each other by 120 orders of magnitude. Clearly, anybody who can resolve these problems has a bright future in science but may also end up tearing modern cosmology apart.

Comments

"inescapable conclusion"

[Anonymous Coward]

> What's more, there is an energy associated with any given volume of the universe. If that volume increases, the inescapable conclusion is that the energy must increase as well. So much for conservation of energy.

???
Why cant the energy just be less dense?

Re:"inescapable conclusion"

[Strangely Familiar]

I think it is because vacuum energy is calculated on the basis of the field theory, which in turn depends on constants like the charge of the electron. I am pretty certain that calculations of the vacuum energy do not depend on the size of the universe. Puzzles like these are really important so that people can think of new questions to ask based on problems they didn't previously realize existed. These puzzles challenge our notions of space and time, which to me, are pretty tenuous notions.

Re:Seems... facile

[fyngyrz]

The energy of the vacuum HERE would be decreasing over time,

You can't assume that everything everywhere behaves the same. You can't assume that energy drawn from one location will show up as a deficit in another (you find running water in the street's gutter... you learn Joe's pool is draining. Assuming Mark's pool is also draining doesn't follow.) You can't measure anywhere but (very) locally, which also means you can only measure data very near temporally -- and so you really have no bloody idea what is going on without resting your conclusion on assumptions made entirely free of supporting data.

What you're claiming is equivalent to saying you know exactly what's going on on a planet orbiting some star in Andromeda because you've done some observations as to what is going on here. Evidence is utterly insufficient to your claim.