Bobster2 From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Posted (6 years 6 months 4 days 11 hours ago) and read 1181 times:
This was in the NY Times last week: "A strange thing happened to the universe five billion years ago. As if God had turned on an antigravity machine, the expansion of the cosmos speeded up, and galaxies began moving away from one another at an ever faster pace."
I no longer believe in physics, not the cosmology branch of it. Somewhere they must have taken a wrong turn. Some assumption widely accepted as fact must be in error. Antigravity, turning on and off? String theory? What's next?
Am I the only one who gave up on cosmology? Is this still part of science or has it gone totally nuts, like some kind of religious cult?
Phoenixflyer From United States of America, joined Aug 2006, 81 posts, RR: 0 Reply 1, posted (6 years 6 months 4 days 5 hours ago) and read 1163 times:
If there is a widely assumed fact that is actually erroneous then many other aspects of physics would be affected. Depending on what is false, the entire field of physics could turn out to be wrong. I doubt that is the case.
First off I dont think you can take a line that combine both god and physics in the same sentence seriously. Its either one or the other. It could be that 5 billion years ago the universe reached a point where gravitational forces are outweighed by the energy of expansion of the universe.
Think of the shuttle taking off. At first acceleration is very slow but the further it gets from earth, the less gravity effects it and thus acceleration increases. The shuttle must reach a certain speed to escape the pull of gravity or else it will return back to earth.
The same mechanics, i imagine apply to the big bang. There was a lot of mass in a very small area. Therefore gravitational forces are very high in a very small relative area. I think what happened is that 5 billion years ago the universe finally reached the escape point.
I think the wrong turn was taken in the writers perspective when he states that a god flicked a switch.
Bobster2 From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 2, posted (6 years 6 months 3 days 18 hours ago) and read 1149 times:
Quoting Phoenixflyer (Reply 1): It could be that 5 billion years ago the universe reached a point where gravitational forces are outweighed by the energy of expansion of the universe
Thank you for answering the question. The lead sentence of the article was misleading. Your explanation fits better what the scientists were trying to say.
Still, there are physicists who think dark energy is not constant. I wonder about the distance scales that astronomers are so dependent on. That's one place in cosmology where assumptions come into play. We could be getting misleading data about the size of the universe and expansion rates.
Phoenixflyer From United States of America, joined Aug 2006, 81 posts, RR: 0 Reply 3, posted (6 years 6 months 3 days 14 hours ago) and read 1131 times:
The estimations about the size of the universe are always changing so there probably is error even today. Ive read some papers where physicists estimate that dark matter or anti-matter could comprise up to 70% of the universe. Theres a lot thats not known and jsut guessed about. We think when we know something then it must be true but if you look back at the theories of the solar system over the last 500 years then there is a lot those philosophers "knew" as well that turned out to be wrong. Science is an ever changing field.
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