From: 69jpil69@gmail.com   
      
   On Thu, 27 Mar 2025 10:19:43 -0400, Kestrel Clayton   
    wrote:   
      
   >On 27-Mar-25 01:53, jillery wrote:   
   >> 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-stren   
   then-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.   
   >   
   >Could well be. We're far off the map from what I know — when I was a    
   >physics student, the phrase "dark energy" hadn't even been coined yet.   
      
      
   You and me both.  A challenge for mere mortals like us is that   
   cosmology is still on the bleeding edge of ignorance, so new   
   discoveries almost necessarily create controversies and paradigm   
   shifts among those who are paid to know what they're talking about. It   
   (almost) makes me long for the mindless simplicity of Genesis:   
      
   "In the beginning, the earth was formless and void, and darkness   
   covered the face of the deep.  Then God said, 'Let there be light',   
   and there was light.  Of course the earth was still formless and void,   
   but now you could see it better."  (Woody Allen?)   
      
      
      
      
   --    
   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)