Dark energy

May the Dark Force be with you!

Mysterious energy indeed!

Dark energy is not so called as some sort of Underworld thing. The name of this energy means that like the boy in that brilliant Passat video also top astrophysicists are somewhat in the dark about what is causing the lights blink.

What force?
Let us suppose that a boy jumps bravely from a board. But alas! Instead of splashing loudly to the swimming pool below he keeps flying upwards with accelerating speed and gravity is not slowing his flight or bringing him back down to Earth as it should... Surely not a nice nor natural experience to the boy and we are in dark about the reason for such flight.

Scientists have been discussing dark energy since 1990's as enough evidence had been gathered about a dark force causing Cosmic Big Bang jump board. The speed of galaxy cluster formation and patterns observed in galaxies (baryon acoustic oscillation) defy the known laws of gravity.

Should Mr Einstein's general theory of relativity be modified by adding exceptions, a bit like Ptolemaic planetary explanations, to explain the oddities. Or is there a simpler answer, an unknown force that causes the observed phenomena and kind of flattens the space?

BBC Science reporter Paul Rincon tells in today's news about soon to be published results of the WiggleZ project that began in 2006. More than 200.000 galaxies were studied by two telescopes in NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (Galex)and Australian Siding Spring Observatory (home). Recently, also instruments in space have been used to study dark force and gravity, the Gravity B probe and the new AMS 2 spectormeter carried by Space Shuttle Endeavour to be installed in the International Space Station (ISS).

Quote "To explain why the expansion of the Universe was speeding up, astronomers had to either rewrite Albert Einstein's theory of gravity or accept that the cosmos was filled with a novel type of energy.
"The action of dark energy is as if you threw a ball up in the air, and it kept speeding upward into the sky faster and faster," said co-author Dr Chris Blake of the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia.
"The results tell us that dark energy is a cosmological constant, as Einstein proposed. If gravity were the culprit, then we wouldn't be seeing these constant effects of dark energy throughout time." End of quote
BBC Science news


THE TRUTH IN NOT KNOWING EVERYTHING
From a Theologian's point of view science teaches something very essential about the truth. We do not know everything! By honestly confessing our ignorance of even most central matters, such as our understanding of the creation of the cosmos or our faith in God Almighty, we are truthful. This gives us a healthy dose of humility in front of the majesty of God of Israel.

This is how modern scientists follow in the footsteps of Sir Isaac Newton, who was in his own words quite an ignoramus despite of all the knowledge and understanding of Nature he had gained, including the calculated force of gravity.

Quote While dark energy makes up about 74% of the Universe, dark matter - which does not reflect or emit detectable light - accounts for 22%. Ordinary matter - gas, stars, planets and galaxies - makes up just 4% of the cosmos.

However, despite scientists being able to infer the existence of dark energy and dark matter, these phenomena still elude a full explanation.

The professor of astrophysics at Portsmouth University, UK, added: "It's re-confirmation of dark energy, it gives us another data point to fit our theories around and it shows us the way to the future. More astronomers are going to be doing this in years to come."End of quote
BBC Science news

Siding Spring Observatory, Australia (wikipedia)

Well!

Let us all take a pause and think the fact that seems to diminish the materialistic point of view that matter is all that matters: "Ordinary matter - gas, stars, planets and galaxies - makes up just 4% of the cosmos."

There definitely are other forces out there besides visible light and matter!

Energy and matter... e=mc2

Albert Einstein certainly understood the KISS principle long before it was formulated by the nerds and refined by Zen Python!


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News get around at great speed these days ... take a look at this video from newsy.com!

http://www.newsy.com/videos/massive-galaxy-survey-confirms-dark-energy/

"Newsy.com uses multiple sources to analyze and synthesize news coverage for their
viewers. They present their videos online and on mobile platforms."

Gravity Probe B

Gravity Probe B was launched in 2004

BBC science news Jonathan Amos gives an excellent description of this amazing project with the title "Gravity Probe B confirms Einstein effects".

Not only is the subject esoteric, the impact of large objects like planet Earth on space-time continuity, but the tools created for this impressive physical experiment are absolutely amazing. Humans build better tools for more accurate observation - but this approaches the ridiculous - measuring axis shifts in perfectly spherical quartz gyroscopes coated with niobium and swimming in super-fluid helium in giant vacuum flask at almost absolute zero temperature. What a feat of engineering!

I quote from the article: "A milliarcsecond is the width of a human hair seen at a distance of 10 miles. It really is a rather small angle, and this is the accuracy Gravity Probe B had to achieve," explained Professor Everitt.

"For the geodetic effect, the predicted relativity effect is 6,606.1 of these milliarcseconds, and the measured result is [to within] a little over a quarter of a percent of that. The frame-dragging we've measured to a little better than 20%."

To be honest - I have never even heard about milliarcsecond before reading about this.

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From theological point of view this amazing feast of measuring changes in space-time continuum and thereby giving credence to Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity focuses our attention to two things, humans and God of Israel.

When Einstein published his theory in 1916 the best tools for observations of such cosmic things was the 100 inch Hooker and other telescopes at Mt Wilson Observatory. (He actually went there to have a chat with Edwin Hubble.) There was no space travel, no CERN and not accelerators and nothing. T-Ford had been released 1908 and was already a great commercial success. First World War was about to start next year but no human on this planet knew what it would turn out to be.

So?

Einstein effect is not the direct result of anykind of empirical research. It is the product of a brilliant human mind figuring out matters of cosmic importance. Of course there is preceding research, there are previous experiments, much learning, theories and counter-theories.

But the fact is that Einstein effect was figured out by a single person in his mind. By thinking and searching for beautiful explanations.

Well, that sounds more like praising the human mind.

Theology?

If such things can be understood by thinking - and we have the fabulous examples of Leucippus and Demoritus before Einstein with even less concrete evidence to help the mind - so why it is so difficult to accept that everything has been made by someone thinking, someone slightly deeper and more original than Einstein?

Is it because God is hidden and cannot be studied by scientific methods?

Actually, Bible does not say that God created the word by "thinking" but a step forward from this, by "saying" - and God said, let there be light.

We would not know anything about what was moving in Einstein's head if he did not say it in English or German or some other humanly understood language.

The language of creation seems to be superior mathematics, but not only that.


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back to the celebrated experiment with gravity - I quote:

"If Einstein had been wrong in his ideas then the gyros should have spun unperturbed.

But given the physicist has taught us that local space-time around the Earth is curved and frame-dragging then a deviation in their behaviour ought to be expected and measurable - albeit with great difficulty.

Over the course of a year, the anticipated drift in the spin axes of the balls due to the geodetic effect was calculated to reveal itself on the scale of just a few thousand milliarcseconds. The frame-dragging effect was predicted to be even smaller."

Jonathan Amos BBC science news