Is Dark Energy Necessary?
Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2020 7:29 am
Walk with me through this. It'll probably expose a fundamental misunderstanding or two on my part, but this will be worth it to me just to get things straight.
Okay. By our understanding of gravity (bit Newtonian I know but run with it) every bit of matter in the universe should be attracting every other bit. So, one assumes in a near frictionless environment such as space, that this force of attraction would result in all of the matter of the universe gradually pulling together into one solid clump. (Would such a clump by necessity implode, with the gravitational force at it's center essentially crushing the matter out of existence? - Well, that's a question I'll leave aside for the moment.)
Given that most of the universal matter is concentrated into galaxies, spotted about like raisins in a fruit cake, it makes sense to talk about the behaviour of galaxies and to look at them when considering what matter is doing, but as has long been known we find that galaxies, far from being drawn together as gravitational theory would suggest it should be, are instead moving away from each other. Well, that's okay - we could expect to see that if there were a 'big-bang' - a mammoth explosive propulsion of matter away from a central point, early in the universal history. But it isn't just matter that is flying apart is it; the whole universe is inflating, like a balloon expanding and carrying the galaxies apart as it does so. The red-shift we see when looking at galaxies through telescopes is a side effect of this - though why this should be so I'm not sure; I understand the 'doppler effect' applied to light-waves, but if the universe is expanding, wouldn't every thing within it - including the light waves themselves expand with it (effectively negating the red-shift)...... again, by-the-by, a question for another time.
So, so far so good - we have our expanding universe, our big bang theory, our gravitational theory, all in place and all hanging together......but suddenly a fly is introduced into the ointment. If the gravitational theory of matter is correct, then it should be seen at least in a slowing down of the rate at which galaxies are moving away from each other (and presumably at some point, turning back into an acceleration in the opposite direction to where we would expect to be, with all of the matter racing back towards itself to form the aforementioned clump, and the universe itself to end in a cataclysmic 'crunch').
But observation shows that this isn't happening. Rather, the galaxies, the universe itself is accelerating in its expansion, as though far from experiencing a force that is pulling it back together, this is being massively outstretched by a force that is driving it appart - a force we cannot account for, have no idea of what it is......... and enter dark energy.
Dark energy is simply (to my understanding) a made-up force, like unto the cycles and epicycles of Ptolomy, to explain the phenomenon of the accelerating expansion of the universe. There is no evidence of its existence (other than the said expansion - but this is circular reasoning if ever it occurred) to backup the idea, no concrete experimental data that confirms it exists, and this is where my question at the head of this post arrises - why does it have to? I mean, it seems to me that we already have all the tools we need in order to answer the conundrum of the accelerating universal expansion without recourse to inventing an entirely new energy of which we know nothing and understand less.
We know from Einstein's theory (general, I think) that space-time is bent (by the presence of matter). I know that as a result of this bending, we can explain how the universe can be both infinite and limited in size at the same time. (Like a 3-D version of the surface of a ball, infinite to the ant walking on its surface, but only because it folds back onto itself.) We know that if I sit in my chair in my front room, take a vertical path upwards and never deviate from it, then this bending of space-time will result in my coming up through the floorboards and disappearing up my own jacksy. So......is it so hard to imagine a situation where despite what our telscopes tell us, that the galaxies are accelerating away from each other, due to the bending of space they are actually taking the path that is an acceleration toward each other. Sort of like a long path round a torus that they are obligated to take in order to implode in the big-crash. Surely our math can easier explain the acceleration within the framework of Einstein's space-time bending, in a way that fits the observation, rather than invent a new and entirely hypothetical energy to account for it? Seems to me..........
Okay. By our understanding of gravity (bit Newtonian I know but run with it) every bit of matter in the universe should be attracting every other bit. So, one assumes in a near frictionless environment such as space, that this force of attraction would result in all of the matter of the universe gradually pulling together into one solid clump. (Would such a clump by necessity implode, with the gravitational force at it's center essentially crushing the matter out of existence? - Well, that's a question I'll leave aside for the moment.)
Given that most of the universal matter is concentrated into galaxies, spotted about like raisins in a fruit cake, it makes sense to talk about the behaviour of galaxies and to look at them when considering what matter is doing, but as has long been known we find that galaxies, far from being drawn together as gravitational theory would suggest it should be, are instead moving away from each other. Well, that's okay - we could expect to see that if there were a 'big-bang' - a mammoth explosive propulsion of matter away from a central point, early in the universal history. But it isn't just matter that is flying apart is it; the whole universe is inflating, like a balloon expanding and carrying the galaxies apart as it does so. The red-shift we see when looking at galaxies through telescopes is a side effect of this - though why this should be so I'm not sure; I understand the 'doppler effect' applied to light-waves, but if the universe is expanding, wouldn't every thing within it - including the light waves themselves expand with it (effectively negating the red-shift)...... again, by-the-by, a question for another time.
So, so far so good - we have our expanding universe, our big bang theory, our gravitational theory, all in place and all hanging together......but suddenly a fly is introduced into the ointment. If the gravitational theory of matter is correct, then it should be seen at least in a slowing down of the rate at which galaxies are moving away from each other (and presumably at some point, turning back into an acceleration in the opposite direction to where we would expect to be, with all of the matter racing back towards itself to form the aforementioned clump, and the universe itself to end in a cataclysmic 'crunch').
But observation shows that this isn't happening. Rather, the galaxies, the universe itself is accelerating in its expansion, as though far from experiencing a force that is pulling it back together, this is being massively outstretched by a force that is driving it appart - a force we cannot account for, have no idea of what it is......... and enter dark energy.
Dark energy is simply (to my understanding) a made-up force, like unto the cycles and epicycles of Ptolomy, to explain the phenomenon of the accelerating expansion of the universe. There is no evidence of its existence (other than the said expansion - but this is circular reasoning if ever it occurred) to backup the idea, no concrete experimental data that confirms it exists, and this is where my question at the head of this post arrises - why does it have to? I mean, it seems to me that we already have all the tools we need in order to answer the conundrum of the accelerating universal expansion without recourse to inventing an entirely new energy of which we know nothing and understand less.
We know from Einstein's theory (general, I think) that space-time is bent (by the presence of matter). I know that as a result of this bending, we can explain how the universe can be both infinite and limited in size at the same time. (Like a 3-D version of the surface of a ball, infinite to the ant walking on its surface, but only because it folds back onto itself.) We know that if I sit in my chair in my front room, take a vertical path upwards and never deviate from it, then this bending of space-time will result in my coming up through the floorboards and disappearing up my own jacksy. So......is it so hard to imagine a situation where despite what our telscopes tell us, that the galaxies are accelerating away from each other, due to the bending of space they are actually taking the path that is an acceleration toward each other. Sort of like a long path round a torus that they are obligated to take in order to implode in the big-crash. Surely our math can easier explain the acceleration within the framework of Einstein's space-time bending, in a way that fits the observation, rather than invent a new and entirely hypothetical energy to account for it? Seems to me..........