Einstein's Biggest Blunder That Wasn't 303
jose parinas writes "The genius of Albert Einstein, who added a "cosmological constant" to his equation for the expansion of the universe but later retracted it, may be vindicated by new research.
The enigmatic "dark energy" that drives the acceleration of the Universe behaves just like Einstein's famed cosmological constant, according to the Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS). Their observations reveal that the dark energy behaves like Einstein's cosmological constant to a precision of 10%."
What is the cosmological constant ? (Score:5, Informative)
http://super.colorado.edu/~michaele/Lambda/lambda
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constan
I can't take it... (grammar nazi alert) (Score:5, Informative)
An informative post, and I'll accept moderator punishment for grammar nazi-ism.
Re:I can't take it... (grammar nazi alert) (Score:5, Funny)
You should have spelled it just 'nazism'.
Re:I can't take it... (grammar nazi alert) (Score:2)
Example:
"Here is a list of changes I want made. Please make sure you don't affect these changes."
"Here is a list of changes I want made. Please make sure you don't effect these changes."
The above two sentences mean very different things.
The first suggests "I want these changes made. Don't interfere when anyone makes them."
The second is more like "I want these changes made, but I
Re:I can't take it... (grammar nazi alert) (Score:2)
Re:I can't take it... (grammar nazi alert) (Score:4, Insightful)
If it's such a common mistake, then maybe it is a *good* thing to point it out in an attempt to educate the masses, wouldn't you think so? There was nothing humiliating in the way the grammar-nazi pointed it out. If one feels humiliated simply because somebody pointed out an error, then that person has issues.
Re:What is the cosmological constant ? (Score:2, Funny)
Density, exactly... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you had a glass sphere the size of a basketball, what are all the material objects that are realizable within that space? Well, we can put car keys, pens, small animals/insects, etc. But we cannot put a house inside a basketball right? Well maybe a doll house. But how would we go about putting a real house in a volume the size of a basketball? Simple, just increase the density of space-time within that abstract volume. That will increase the number of quantum states possible just like increasing the resolution of your computer screen. But what do we mean when we say "space is dense"? Since the vacum is matters "opposite", we would probably conclude that space would be "denser" where matter is not. So we might say that within a "black-hole" there is theoretically "no space". A black hole would then indeed be a hold within space-time, a tear in the fabric of reality for example. But this may not be the case. It could be that a black hole is a place were the density of space is so high as to be exactly "solid" space-time. In this respect matter flows into a black hole and then becomes converted to "space-time", which then slowly and inexorably flows outward. Space-time is being generated by a black-hole by the conversion of matter to space-time.
If space-time is a substance of some kind, and all matter is just some configuration of it, then that would explain why we cannot move faster than light. This would be the case if we were somehow made of configurations and vortices of "air". Since we being made of "air", we could not move faster than sound right? Of course doesn't the speed of sound vary with the density of air? Would not the speed of light vary with the density of space-time? Of course it does, this was Einsteins great find, that light travels along a space-time geodesic. The geodesic caused by the "density" of space-time.
Based on all these analogies, I don't see why we have to think about the fourth dimension at all. We just need to imagine space-time as a volume with varying densities. Within a high density of space-time, you can have more matter, and more quantum states. It is abstract I know, but for my mind it works. Is there a reason that these analogies can be viewed as "wrong"? I'm willing to take an alternate view.
Reminded me of the TARDIS. (Score:2, Interesting)
Using density as an analogy, as you have in your post, I couldn't help be reminded of the old TARDIS. By increasing the effective density of space-time within a police-box, you could possibly fit enough inside it to resemble that famous timeship.
Who knows - perhaps the travelling in time and the density of space-time have further connections, even?
Re:Density, exactly... (Score:2, Informative)
-- Worf
Re:Density, exactly... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Density, exactly... (Score:2)
You'd measure it by ext
Re:Density, exactly... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Density, exactly... (Score:3, Insightful)
also, is that guy describing ether? sounds like ether to me.
Einstein was still wrong about the constant though (Score:5, Informative)
OK, but the cosmological constant we see now is being used to explain the _acceleration_ of the universe, nothing like what Einstein put the constant in for. His blunder wasn't really the constant, it was the assumption that the universe was static, which turned out to be totally wrong.
But you have to admire Einstein - out of pure thought and mathematics he produced a theory which is still held up as a foundation of modern physics, even though practically every cosmological observation was made years after he published it (and all the observations have supported the theory to great accuracy). Compare this to, say, quantum mechanics, where many theorists struggled for decades to explain observations that had already been made, and Einstein's one-man theory is truly impressive.
Re:Einstein was still wrong about the constant tho (Score:2)
Re:Einstein was still wrong about the constant tho (Score:2)
BTW, is your sig a quote from "Benson"?
Re:Einstein was still wrong about the constant tho (Score:2)
Of course, had Poincare discovered the special theory of relativity his name would have been as great in physics as in maths, but few, even among people of Poincare's stature, can claim to be big in more than one field of science. For instance, Einstein was never a great mat
Re:: Moving Dimensions Theory Unifying ST, GR, QM (Score:2)
2. You asked: "How can matter display both wave and particle properties?"
Um, a medium ('ether') ?
No serious, I never understood the problem, compare it to soundwaves going through a medium, like air. They are waves when you measure the pressure, and moving particles when you look at the individual molecules.
Same for the waves in the
Awesome (Score:3, Insightful)
This will be a great thing for students to look up if they are doing (or going to do) relativity in school.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
actually chagrined (Score:2)
Post-humous? (Score:2)
Dark matter ... (Score:2, Informative)
Can anyone explain the idea behind dark matter and dark energy ? I mean if it is just a mathematical problem or has some experimental justification as well.
Re:Dark matter ... (Score:4, Informative)
Dark energy [wikipedia.org] is more of the same, and tries to account for the visible expansion of the universe.
Re:Dark matter ... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Dark matter ... (Score:2)
Why can't this acceleration be attributed to the shape of the universe itself instead of by some new force pushing on the matter ?
That is, if I understand correctly, gravity itself is not taken into account for this observed acceleration because of the expanding nature of the phenomenon, where we would be expecting the opposite.
But what if, i
Re:Dark matter ... (Score:2, Informative)
No, it doesn't. [slashdot.org] Even if their result was right, which it doesn't seem to be, it never explained all the observations which imply dark matter; it only accounted for galactic rotation curves.
Of course it has experimental justification. That's why it's such a big deal.
Dark matter is, well, non-luminous matter. The o
Re:Dark matter ... (Score:5, Informative)
Fair Warning: what follows is a really simplified version of reality, and at least a couple of points go beyond simplification to the point that they're arguably flat out wrong. If somebody wants to correct part or all of this, please feel free, but if you do so please try to keep with the spirit of actually explaining things so they're understandable.
The situation with dark matter is simpler than dark energy, so we'll start with that.
We've observed a certain amount of matter in the universe. Those observations lead to a rough estimate of what the total amount of matter in the universe might be.
Now, there was a certain amount of energy released in the big bang. For quite a while, it was assumed to be the primary reason that the universe was expanding. I.e. there as a big explosion, and matter went flying off in all directions (and we're basically just living on a bit of shrapnel from that explosion).
Now, if there was enough matter in the universe, the gravity between it would eventually slow it down, stop it, and finally start it contracting back together. That was a rather attractive idea -- that the big bang wasn't a one-time thing, but that we just happened to be seeing evidence of the most recent occurrence.
The problem was that our estimates of how much matter there was in the universe came out well below what was needed for there to be enough gravity to make the expansion stop and eventually reverse.
One answer that was postulated to that was dark matter -- a lot more matter out there that we couldn't see, so it wasn't being figured into our estimates of how much matter there was in the universe. Therefore, a lot of people spent a lot of time and energy trying to find ways to observe a lot more matter than we had previously. To some extent they succeeded -- better telecsopes, observing techniques, etc., have allowed us to observe quite a bit more than we had previously.
By this idea, however, almost regardless of the exact amount of matter in the universe, the gravity should act to slow down the expansion over time -- i.e. the energy pushing things apart was all expended during the big bang, and now gravity should be acting in the general direction of pulling things back together again or at least slowing down the rate at which they're moving apart.
That doesn't fit reality though. In reality, it appears that the expansion of the universe is actually accelerating. The original theory was that the expansion was due to energy released during the big bang. If that was the case, the expansion of the universe should basically just be "coasting", and there's no way it could be accelerating.
The obvious way for the expansion to accelerate is to figure that even though we generally think of the space beyond the edge of the universe as a complete vacuum, devoid of matter or energy, that there really is a little bit of something there afterall, and being a little bit of something (energy or mass) it has some gravitational pull on the matter that we think of as part of the universe, so it's more or less pulling the universe apart -- i.e. accelerating the outward movement.
Given that the expansion of the universe is accelerating (which certainly seems to be accepted as fact right now anyway), it seems to me that the existence of the cosmological constant isn't really the question. The primary questions are 1) what is its exact value, and 2) where exactly does it come from.
If you read the article from the University of Colorado cited elsehwere (for one example), you can find both some estimates of upper and lower limits on the value, and at least one possible explanation for its source. I've heard at least one person give what sounded (to me) like a different explanation of its source, but it wouldn't surprise me too much i
Re:Dark matter ... (Score:5, Informative)
The original problem that lead to postulating dark matter involves observations of galaxies. Galaxies rotate and physics makes predictions about the orbital velocity of stars in a galaxy based on their distance from the centre of the galaxy. The problem is that these predictions don't square very well with observations. In general observations show stars distant from the center of the galaxy orbiting much faster than expected. You can express this in terms of rotation curves [wikipedia.org] making the problem relatively clear. The proposed solution to this is to assume that there must be extra unobserved (hence dark) mass providing extra gravitational energy, and thus extra orbital velocity, to the more outlying stars.
There are other theories to explain the observations such as Modified Newtonian Dynamics [wikipedia.org], but they tend to run into their own problems, and currently aren't anywhere near as widely accepted as the dark matter solution.
Jedidiah.
Re:Dark matter ... (Score:5, Informative)
Just to expand on this a little, as people may not know the physics behind this...
The stars in question are gravitationally atrracted to the centre of the galaxy, just like the Earth is gravitationally atrracted to the Sun. Just like the Earth, they must either circle the gravitational source, or "fall" towards it. In order to remain in their orbit (rather than moving inwards or outwards) their centripetal acceleration must be equal to the acceleration they feel from the gravitational pull of the galaxy. (Centripetal acceleration is the acceleration required to keep them moving in a circle)
If the gravitational pull is too strong, they'll be pulled in towards the galactic centre; if it's too weak, they'll fly off into space.
Measuring their orbital speed allows us to calculate their centripetal acceleration, and thus the acceleration they feel due to the gravitational pull of the galaxy. This in turn allows us to calculate the mass that is producing the gravitational field that they are in:
v**2/r = GM/r**2
Where v**2 is the speed of the star, squared; r is the radius of the orbit of the star; G is the gravitational constant; and M is the mass of the galaxy producing the gravitational force.
This gives us an estimate of the mass of the galaxy of rv**2/G.
The problem is that working through the numbers gives us a mass that's significantly higher than we can account for from what we see. So, that leaves us with three choices:
1) our understanding of dynamics is flawed (and so v**2/r is wrong)
2) our understanding of gravity is flawed (and so GM/r**2 is wrong)
3) there's stuff out there that we can't (currently) detect by other means
1) would be pretty fundamental (that's some very basic physics indeed), as would 2). That only really leaves 3) as an attractive proposition (imho).
MOND v/s Dark Matter (Score:2)
2) has a lot of momentum behind it but we cannot rule it out.
3) is the easiest way out.
Tully Fisher's relation (which is what MOND derives) makes
3) not an easy way out for any scientist that compares MOND
and Dark Matter.
Dark Matter is ad-hoc. It is basically fitting the theories
by assuming that something exists that we cannot see.
Normally it would be a good choice, but MOND gives a simple
equation which fits the curves of most galaxies without any
extra parameters. The real
Expansion... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Dark matter ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dark matter ... (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem was that our estimates of how much matter there was in the universe came out well below what was needed for there to be enough gravity to make the expansion stop and eventually rev
Re:Dark matter ... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's an expansion of space, everything that is in space is just going along for the ride.
A visual way to clarify that is to shoot down the idea people have that things cannot recede faster than light. That gets their attention, they all know about Einstein and c. Things cannot move through space faster than light, but space itself puts a distance between things that C can never outpace.
Re:... or Light matter? (Score:2, Informative)
The photon energy is taken into account, but it's currently a tiny fraction of the total energy (most of which is dark energy, the rest mostly dark matter - which does obey E=mc^2). If i recall corrrectly, currently the photons (namely the cosmic microwave background) contribute 0.004 of the total energy (starlight probably contributes less, but I could be wrong). In the p
Still a blunder? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, why is this news?
Re:Still a blunder? (Score:3, Informative)
That's what I thought. However a quick scan of the article suggests that the increase in the rate of expansion can be explained better by a Cosmological constant (which is a constant unlike Hubble's constant which is not) rather than the alternative Quintessence hypothesis where the repulsive force is not constant.
So yes this story is new and possibly important.
Re:Still a blunder? (Score:3, Interesting)
Einstein did some calculations and stuff and came up with two potential models of the universe. (Perhaps two solutions to his equations?) One had the universe expanding, the other contracting. Einstein called up some astronomers and asked which it was. They told him to get lost, that the universe was static. So Einstein went back and added the cosmological constant so that it matched "reality." Later Hubble was like "look, y'all, the
Re:Still a blunder? (Score:2, Insightful)
Your argument about coincidence is basically correct; Einstein didn't have a "legitimate" reason to foresee the CC. Yet adding the CC is the simplest modification to his theory that you can make, so it's no surprise that Einstein hit upon the idea, even if he (and we) didn't know why that term ought
Re:Still a blunder? (Score:2, Funny)
Dude, lay off the grass! --- Didn't like Einstein totally die long before the Hubble was like, launched???
Bummer man!
Re:Still a blunder? (Score:2)
Re:Still a blunder? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Still a blunder? (Score:2, Informative)
Edwin Hubble 1889-1953
Hubble Telescope 1990-2003^H^H^H^H2007^H^H^H^H2009^H^H^H^Hwhatever
Re:Still a blunder? (Score:3, Informative)
His work was what Hubble's Law is actually founded out, he and Hubble worked together, and he was the one that 'observed' the red shift.
Sagan always took time to credit Humason, but very few other prominent people give him the recognition.
Re:Still a blunder? (Score:2, Funny)
He's been dead for thirty years. Do you think he's still bitter?
Ohh yeah... (Score:5, Funny)
That's for sure (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Ohh yeah... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ohh yeah... (Score:3, Interesting)
I contend the blunder stands! (Score:3, Funny)
His blunder has merely changed to the premature retraction of his "cosmological constant."
Imagine? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Imagine? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Imagine? (Score:2, Funny)
Just confirms the conspiracy theory... (Score:3, Funny)
The aliens gave him the theory -- including the cosmological constant. Unfortunately, there wasn't actually a justification for it. Thinking quickly, Einstein ad-libbed that it without it, the universe would be expanding, "and, uhh, we all know that's not true, right, fellas?", sacrificing the chance to be the first one to "predict" this. He copied the answer from the back of the book and got busted for not showing all the work. C'mon, who hasn't that happened to?
"He was a patent clerk..."??? (Score:2)
Studies Show... (Score:4, Funny)
What a fraud, and I would assume would be then, a god.
Re:Studies Show... (Score:2)
Don't tell that to the people who believe in Intelligent Design.
I thought we didn't need... (Score:3, Informative)
Granted, it's unproven at this point, but Occam's Razor and all, I vote for the theory that makes sense with matter and energy as-is and doesn't require some exotic matter/energy that exists only as speculation to fill an unknown.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I thought we didn't need... (Score:3, Informative)
I vote for the theory that makes sense with matter and energy as-is and doesn't require some exotic matter/energy that exists only as speculation to fill an unknown.
And I think most scientists would agree with you. Of course you still have to come up with this theory you speak of that explains all observations without requiring exotic matter/energy that hasn't been directly observed.
(psst... this story is about dark energy, not dark matter).
The evidence for dark energy is that the expansion of the univers
Hardly Einstein's biggest blunder... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hardly Einstein's biggest blunder... (Score:4, Funny)
That's not a blunder, that's a difference of opinion.
Re:Hardly Einstein's biggest blunder... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hardly Einstein's biggest blunder... (Score:2)
Cosmological pressure (Score:3, Informative)
The distance vector between the observer and the residual center of mass is constant at any point between the surface and the center of the mass. The residual mass decreases linearly as the observer descends towards the center. The gravitational force on the observer decreases linearly to zero over this domain. The radius of the sphere is the radius of maximum gravitation.
Gravitational force may cause the radius of the sphere to contract. As the radius shrinks, it approaches the center of mass and therefore increases the gravitational force upon an observer standing at the radius as the inverse square of the change in radius until it relativistically approaches a point at which escape velocity equals the speed of light. To an external observer, the radius will seem to shrink more and more slowly until it seems to stop as it approaches this point. Likewise for the internal observer, but neither mass nor energy can now escape from inside the radius to the outside, so we cannot communicate with him unless we shift our perspective to his.
Staying with our external perspective for the moment, however, we can measure the gravitational force at some distance from the radius, and observe how it acts upon other masses. Nearby matter may get swept into this gravity well, adding to the total mass of our system and increasing its externally determinable radius. But by appearing to slow down and stop at a radius greater than that of our original mass, it would not seem to reach the original radius at all.
Now let's depart our external universe and try to figure out what's going on with our inside observer. First of all, he's not seeing any in-falling matter because his frame of reference is also much slower than that of the radius, in fact he'd have to wait infinitely long before anything like that would happen, so let's just say it doesn't. But that doesn't mean that he cannot observe any effects at all.
What our man on the inside discovers is that there is intense energy, in the form of pressure, being applied to his little micro-universe. This pressure continues to build and build, charging our little spherical mass like a battery, until maximum energy density is reached. But the pressure continues, so the mass does what it has to do, it inflates.
Our mass isn't just expanding in space; it is expanding "space." As pressure energy continues to pour in, the inflation continues until certain physical properties of matter and energy begin to assert themselves; and the inflation proceeds outwards and away from the original mass -- into the new universe.
This is one possible explanation of how our universe may have begun. In searching for evidence of such a hypothesis, one might hope to find some sort of inflationary pressure which seems to operate against gravity. Since this "dark energy" seems probably, this may be a feasible cosmology.
Re:Cosmological pressure (Score:2)
Ah, the old "our universe is the inside of an event horizon that is located in another universe, which itself may be the inside of an event horizon that is located in another universe, ad nauseam" theory. That's been on my wouldn't-it-be-cool-if radar every since I had a layman's idea of what an event horizon was (i.e. not a rarely-rented DVD at the nearby Blockbuster). In your paper, did you go for the "event horizon formation == big bang in child universe" upgrade? Or even the "infinite hierarchy of un
Re:Cosmological pressure (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Cosmological pressure (Score:2)
Re:Cosmological pressure (Score:2)
I don't much like the term "black hole" anyhow, as the radius of maximum gravitation is necessarily at the event horizon itself, so the interior cannot be a singularity.
Re:Cosmological pressure (Score:2)
Oh well, now maybe I need to ask for some help well-ordering my socks.
Re:Cosmological pressure (Score:2)
Re:Cosmological pressure (Score:2)
Re:Cosmological pressure (Score:2)
Skeleton in the closet (Score:2)
But Einstein's intuition did him in and he was convinced the Universe was not expanding, so in comes the cosmological constant. It was the wrong reason to add it to his math models, despite subsequent evidence that some form of "fudge factor" may be needed to
Premature Retraction? (Score:2, Funny)
Isn't there a medical solution for these things?
Do astronomers have more of these than the rest of us?
Or do physicists and mathematicians also suffer from it?
Gads, even Einstein had the problem.
Unimaginary (Score:2)
Re:Unimaginary (Score:2)
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
--Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing [slate.com]
A bit confusing... (Score:2)
So, since we know basically nothing either about what dark energy is or what the constant represent, are we sure that it's not both current researchers and Einstein that make a similar blunder?
This would be oh so much easier if there
Re:A bit confusing... (Score:2)
I thought dark energy was added to make our modern theories "work" to our expectations without knowing what dark energy was
Pretty much, yah. To be fair though this is often a practice in science, to modify theory to meet new observation.
and now it's told a concept that Einstein added to make his equations work to his expectations "sort of" matches (10% is still a big deviation) with this.
Welcome to Cosmology! Where a 10% error is considered pretty good. This is probbably the biggest problem in Cosmology,
Um (Score:2, Interesting)
If you take a snapshot of the universe, if you discount its expansion, then the existence of dark energy, remnant of the big bang, is requisite to explain certain phenomena and balance out equations.
Why is it weird these two are similar?
Not exactly brilliant science is it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Fudge factor (Einstein) == fudge factor (dark energy/matter)
What exactly is surprising about this? They were/are both added to represent something unknown, a pure speculation which is likely to fall (or be changed to the extreme) by Occams razor as science and knowledge progresses.
http://www.astronomycafe.net/anthol/fudge.html [astronomycafe.net]
Einstein retracted his fudge while still alive and I have a suspicion those championing dark matter/energy will have to as well
Slightly off topic:
Hmm was this the first valid and correct reference to Occams razor on Slashdot ever? Probably the first time here it wasn't used in a faulty manner applying it with anti-religious or ideological/political arguments (one would think people would get a clue from the fact that Occams razor was created by a Franciscan friar).
religion != science
Occams razor = intended for scientific theories (given two equally predictive theories, choose the simpler)
Occams razor != rational to apply to religion
*doesn't even need a flameretardant suit*
Re:Not exactly brilliant science is it? (Score:2)
Probably not...
Occams razor = intended for scientific theories (given two equally predictive theories, choose the simpler)
Occam never formulated any principle like the modern "Occam's Razor," it was invented by later people. What Occam said was that you should not multiply entities unnecessarily, which does not mean that "a simpler theory" is better. At all. So, sure, Occam was religious , but Occam also did not use Occam's
Re:Not exactly brilliant science is it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Prior to the experimental (observational) discovery of the increasing rate of expansion of the observable universe (part of the multiverse ?) many physicists regarded the cosmological as essential to general relativity. Coleman for one asked the question why is the cosmological constant zero and proposed a hypothesis based on wormholes between universes to explain why it shoul
Stupid Question (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is it not possible that the universe is simultaneously expanding and contracting?
One question I've had for a while is, why couldn't the universe be shaped in such a way that the force causing accelleration on the expansion of the universe is actually the gravitational force of the universe contracting.
To sort of illustrate my point, think of the game Asteroids. If you fly out of the top of the screen, you appear back on the bottom, and if you fly out the left side of the screen, you appear on the right side. Why couldn't there be some n-dimensional version of that concept in the universe such that as it expands it's actually approaching an earlier state?
Anyway, if this is just the stupidist thing ever, please be kind in saying so. IAONAP (I Am Obviously Not A Physisist).
Re:Stupid Question (Score:3, Interesting)
It is possible to have the universe expand and contract in different directions at the same time. However, this isn't what we observe. Two of the basic ideas about the universe we assume to be broadly true (yes, not exactly but to a good approximation) are
1) It is homogeneous. This is math speak for it's the same at every point
2) It is isotropic. Math speak for looks the same in every direction.
Now, this clearly isn't exactly true - if it were there would be no difference betwee
Re:what dark matter? (Score:2)
Re:what dark matter? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:what dark matter? (Score:2, Insightful)
For this reason science and religion are not at odds because they server very difference purposes. Sure, they have some effect on each other, but I can believe that
Re:what dark matter? (Score:2, Informative)
Remember, these publications are peer reviewed. If the mistake were that simple, the reviewers should have caught it.
Read carefully (Score:2, Informative)
This article is talking about dark energy
These are different things.
Personally I would suspect that, similar to dark matter, dark energy will come in time to be derided as an unnecessary mathematical kludge introduced to paper over problems introduced by an oversight we made somewhere else. However, this hasn't happened yet.
Slashdot headlines != reality (Score:2, Informative)
That turns out not to be the case. [slashdot.org] And I was far from the only poster to point that out. Please read the Slashdot comments for critical analysis, not just the blurbs.
Besides which, dark matter has nothing to do with dark energy.
Re:Slashdot headlines != reality (Score:2)
You must be new here...
Re:Precision? (Score:4, Informative)
You didn't read the article. (Re:Precision? (Score:2)
Re:Come back Einstein (Score:4, Funny)
They're just waiting for someone to come pick them up.
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:2)
Re:Dark energy is also a fudge (Score:2)
Dark energy and the cosmological constant are essentially the same thing.
Re:Grammar School (Score:2)
even stupider
no shit sherlock
and einstein (unlike you) was imho a genius anyway. he figured out most of the stuff on paper whereas most of here couldn't even do this with our 3ghz pc's
so respect to einstein and respect for 'stupiders'.