From: 69jpil69@gmail.com   
      
   On Wed, 26 Mar 2025 09:31:10 -0400, Kestrel Clayton   
    wrote:   
      
   >Here's a source I found useful, as a first-pass primer:   
   >   
   >https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2025/03/19/new-desi-results-strength   
   n-hints-that-dark-energy-may-evolve/   
   >   
   >It's still pop science, but at least it's pop science written by actual    
   >scientists. The page is careful to state "the preference for an evolving    
   >dark energy has not risen to '5 sigma,' the gold standard in physics    
   >that represents the threshold for a discovery." Also it does not claim    
   >that cosmic expansion is slowing; only that the *rate of increase* in    
   >expansion due to dark energy may have slowed in the past (and is    
   >presumably still slowing). In other words, the car isn't slowing down,    
   >but dark energy is very slowly easing up on the throttle.   
      
      
   IIUC you distinguish between "rate of increase" aka acceleration and   
   plain vanilla increase.  If dark energy is constant, then rate of   
   increase would be proportional to the distance between objects aka   
   Hubble's Law.  If distant objects accelerate more slowly than   
   expected, then some other factor besides dark energy or gravity is   
   involved (gravity weakens over distance).   
      
   I have speculated in the past that dark energy might weaken over time   
   due to some quantum effect, which suggests that spacetime isn't doomed   
   to expand forever, and instead, some googolplexian years from now,   
   collapse cyclically back onto itself.   
      
   --    
   To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)