Notes about the Universe; follow up

Introduction

This article is perceived to be a direct continuation of the initial one “Notes about the Universe” (http://author-point-of-view.blogspot.com/2012/02/notes-about-universe.html) the ideas of which are employed herein to comment on the selected, thought to be most significant statements, from the “The dark side of the universe” published in The Economist (http://www.economist.com/node/21547760, Feb. 18, 2012). The latter work, where a substantial package of the most contemporary research and theoretical endeavours is presented to the reader, served for the author as the inspiring event to write this time.

Comments

The format used henceforth is as such: a short direct non-modified statement (in red) from the “The dark side of the universe” is followed by the remark in conjunction with the ideas suggested in the “Notes about the Universe”. 

1.      …universe looked like when it was just 380,000 years old, showed that the universe, then and now, was “flat”. However big a triangle you draw on it - the corners could be billions of light years apart - the angles in it would add up to 180°, just as they do in a school exercise book.

2.      Cosmologists were quite prepared for it to be curved at the grandest of scales, and intrigued to discover that it was not.

The Universe is considered to be an integral self-sustained (not expanding and not going anywhere – otherwise it would be taking space or would be heading to somewhere that would not be a part of it) non-stationary system engaged in the internal motion in the form of fluctuations about nodal points; the internal fluctuations suggest that the proposed flat nature of the Universe will not be affected by this type of movement.

3.      universe to be flat, it has to have a very particular density - which in relativity is a measure not just of the mass contained in a certain volume, but also of the energy. The puzzle was that various lines of evidence showed that the universe’s endowment of ordinary matter (the stuff that people, planets and stars are made of) would give it just 4% of that density. Adding in extraordinary matter - “dark matter”, not made of atoms that interacts with the rest of the universe almost only by means of gravity - gets at most an extra 22%. That left almost three-quarters of the critical density unaccounted for. …that there was something big missing from their picture of the universe.

The primary substance can be in two states: original and concentrated. The intermediate phase between them is - on one hand at micro level - the quantum (because of transitional uncertainty) phenomena and - on the other hand at macro level - the “elastic” effect around the fully materialized primary substance.

So, whatever called matter is the concentrated primary substance, anything else called “dark” is the primary substance itself existing in the form of fluctuations. The nature of fluctuations is sufficient for the original substance to simultaneously have both stretching and limiting features intrinsic to such internal motion.

4.      …that “dark energy” - Dr Turner is thought to have coined the term - must be very strange stuff indeed.

The strangeness of the stuff is because the primary non-concentrated substance, contrary to its materialized state, most likely should not be readily detected by scientific tools and methods.

5.      Divide dark energy’s pressure (negative) by its energy density (positive) and you get something cosmologists label “w”. It is easy to see that w must be negative. Observations made since 1998 suggest that w is pretty close to -1. If it were found to be exactly -1, that would make dark energy something physicists call a cosmological constant. A cosmological constant is the same no matter where in the universe you look - an inherent, unchanging feature of the fabric of creation….

True, the fluctuating primary substance is capable to stretch and limit itself at the same time. The envisaged constant must be 1 (disregarding the sign) due to the singularity of stretching-limiting characteristic inherent to the fluctuating substance meaning that division of the stretching-limiting feature onto itself should always make 1.

The singularity of stretching-limiting characteristic is, thus, contrasting the mentioned above quoted suggestion about the opposing each other “dark energy’s pressure and density”.

6.      …discovery 12 years later that other galaxies were indeed streaming away from Earth’s Milky Way backyard, Einstein dropped the tweak.

Very true as all observations have been and are being made from the only available so far location in space - Earth’s Milky Way backyard. This spatial point in respect to envisioned global fluctuations could be positioned favourably to mostly detect the internally moving segments of the Universe that are on the upper arc of the fluctuation’s wave curve (between nodal points, see figure in the original article). Such segment should constantly be having higher velocities relative to that of Earth. 

At this, the author cautiously dares to suggest that eventual (in case of lucky attempts) identifying space objects, which potentially may have lower speeds, would have hinted on possible substantiation of the global fluctuations idea. Or, if such attempts are unaffordable, see point 12 of the list, please.

7.      …vacuum energy and dark energy might be the same thing…

They are same indeed as they both are the primary substance itself.

8.      …the vacuum energy is vast, but it is almost all hidden away in extra spatial dimensions…

It is assumed hidden not in the spatial sense, but in the sense that it is not accessible for detection by means of the purely materialized world.

9.      Names applied to this something else include quintessence, k-essence, phantom energy and a bunch more, depending on which theorist you ask and what properties you think likely. It would be a new fundamental force, one that rears its head only at vast cosmic distances.

It looks like each case of introduction of vague terms triggers even more numerous unsubstantiated definitions.

10.  Some physicists would rather fiddle with Einstein’s theory of relativity, for instance by making gravity weaker at extremely long ranges…

As stated in the original article: “Sequential to this proposal, materialized formations are regarded to be surrounded by the original substance being in a state of elastic pull that gets diminished the further it is from the object’s center. Given this, for example, there should be equilibriums of elastic influence within the section found to be situated in between some quite distant from each other arbitrary entities (and outside their centered zones of effective stretching).”

11.  The more precisely w comes to look like -1, the more enthusiasm there will be for cosmological constant theories, which require that value, and the less enthusiasm there will be for fifth forces and modified gravity…

Please, see point 5 comments of the list.

12.  What the Supernova Cosmology Project and the High-z Supernova Search both found, and what others have later confirmed, is that distant exploding stars are dimmer, and so farther away, than their redshift implies they should be if the universe has been expanding at a steady clip throughout. The expansion must therefore have sped up recently.

Please, see first comments in point 6 of the list.

“The expansion must therefore have sped up recently” phrase is viewed here as statement supporting variability of accelerations pertaining to different objects in space. The variability is in perfect tune with the inherent feature of fluctuations when according to the original article: “Such permanency in relationships is explained by the feature of oscillating movement when some zones of the system continually and in the same direction travel larger distances compared to other zones depending on their positions relative to nodal points and places of maximum amplitudes.”

13.  The higher density regions became the seeds of galaxies - and the average separation of those galaxies thus reveals the wavelength of the oscillations in the primordial fluid.

This is only one step away from suggesting that the oscillations about some nodal points have been going on the global scale.

14.  …the distribution of matter, both dark and humdrum, can be gleaned from the effect it has on light. Relativity requires the path of light to be bent by massive objects. The heavier the object, the more an image of something behind it is warped.

-          Light is understood to be the limited by speed transfer through the original substance. The transfer is evoked by the materialized formations’ changes.

-          “…materialized formations are regarded to be surrounded by the original substance being in a state of elastic pull that gets diminished the further it is from the object’s center…meaning that the light path and manner of passing are effected by the localized concentrations of the original substance.”

15.  The rub is that no amount of observations can ever pin down the figure for w with perfect accuracy. That would require infinite precision, something impossible to achieve even in an ever-expanding universe.

This virtually supports the author’s tendency to acknowledge that “it might not be accessible for detection by means of the purely materialized world”, please see point 8 of the list.

16.  “It could be a 22nd-century problem we stumbled upon in the 20th century,”

The author would rather prefer avoiding the potential scenario of saying at the end of 22nd-century that it may be up to the distant 24th-century generations to tackle the matter.

17.  Many astronomers, including Dr Perlmutter, are quietly hoping that as DES and the host of other acronyms come online, they will spring another surprise, like the one that first propelled cosmic acceleration into the limelight in 1998. Whether they do or not, though, dark energy - or whatever else is causing the universe to speed up

 After the above comments and at the end, the questions marks are being left open for “or whatever else”? and “the universe to speed up”?

 

No further discussions are offered (that’s how the article ended when originally introduced on Feb. 27, 2012)

Remarks (added on Feb. 29, 2012)

The author eventually decided to browse the Internet for the key words “Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Modified Gravity” in order to not remain ignorant about the up-to-date theoretical physics’ advancements. From the yesterday’s “googled” resultant abundance of scintillating stuff, the work “What do we really know about Dark Energy?” of Ruth Durrer, https://thejournalofcosmology.com/Contents15_files/Durrer1103.5331.pdf, was picked. Picked luckily because it not only broadly-briefly gave the author a better picture of what is happening, but also granted him a strong moral support in conquering growing hesitations and doubts on whether to speak out at all. The supportive were Ms. Durrer’s thoughts found in the work like the following ones:

“… unexpected result has been found by observations shows that present cosmology

is truly data driven and not dominated by ideas which can be made to fit sparse

observations.”

”… I want to investigate what present data really has measured. As always when our

interpretation of the data leads us to a very unexpected, unnatural ’corner’ in the

space of physical theories, it may be useful to take a step back and reflect on what

the measurements really tell us and how much of what we conclude is actually an

interpretation of the data that might be doubted.”

”Let us start with the first data that gave strong indication of an accelerating universe,

the supernovae type Ia observations. SN1a observations measure the light

curve and the spectrum of supernovae. The latter is not only used to determine

the redshift, but also indicative for the type of the supernovae while the light curve

can be translated into a luminosity distance…”

”What do these observations really tell us about dark energy? I think it is clear,

even though I did not enter into any details about observational problems, that each

observation taken by itself is not conclusive. There are always many things that

can go wrong for any one cosmological probe.”

The presented above quotes vividly advocate - to the author at least - that philosophy, probably, should always be put first for considering matters of any complexity by all sort of people, even by those from the cohort of scientists’ possessing dazzling minds.

The author, therefore, would like to thank Ms. Durrer (and everyone else who is also at the forefront of eternal ventures) for the inadvertent backing by raising questions: “Je vous prie d’accepter, Madame, a l’assurance de mes sentiments distingues. Merci beaucoup”.