Cosmic Speed-Up Nabs Nobel Prize

ScienceNOW ^ | 4 October 2011 | Adrian Cho

[hellbender]

Lots of questions about your theory. It has long been considered a reliable law that energy (including the energy equivalent of mass) is conserved. If mass is increasing, does energy decrease by an equivalent amount? Also, I thought Einstein demonstrated that gravity was caused by distortion of space-time, rather than being a "force." How does your theory deal with that?

Incidentally, I've always been puzzled by Einstein's apparent assertion that gravity was not really a force, because modern physicists treat it as a force and look for its "force carrier" particle, the graviton.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Captain Beyond.

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[allmost]

We have no empirical evidence measuring the behavior of light waves over large distances and time. If it takes ten billion years for the effect to occur, it might be too small for us to currently measure. Our theories are incomplete, this much is known. If our expansion is to continually increase, our time will slow down, our mass will increase and the rest of the Universe will be essentially accelerated black holes. If it is actual speed we are measuring.

[SunkenCiv]

If we were already inside an event horizon, it would explain a lot of what is observed (lensing, the “wall of galaxies”, etc). :’)

[allmost]

We lose either way.

[rottndog]

Empty space as we seem to know it is actually the most dense part of the universe. It’s compacted and compressed, under enormous pressure,

I'm curious about this...if 'empty space' is compacted and compressed, it isn't really empty then...is it? IOW, what has been compacted and compressed?

[djf]

It’s the background quantum field.

It was never compressed by anything else, it’s a phenomena due to the emergence of the particles.

Just like popcorn becomes “compressed” in the bag if it’s in the microwave. As the bag fills, it becomes more and more “compressed”.

The same way the popcorn expands the bag, the quantum field “compresses” the universe and “poofs it up”.

It’s just a continuation of the big bang, which is still going on.

If you use the Planck units to compute the density of the universe it works out to like ten with 109 zeros after it, grams per cubic centimeter.