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Dark Energy...solved. Maybe.

disappoint

disappoint

Lifer
I wonder if I've stumbled upon a possible explanation for dark energy?

So as you probably already know dark energy is the explanation for why the universe is expanding as opposed to collapsing. So it's the energy that works against gravity (which tends to pull things with mass together) and causes the universe to expand.

What if gravity is not just a positive attractive force? What if it can also go negative and repel?

Think about it, we live in a bipolar universe. I know it sounds crazy, well we live in a crazy universe (bad pun? 🙂)

But seriously, it's a bipolar universe. Some examples: There are no monopole magnets. There is no north without south, no positive without negative, no light without dark, good without evil, hot without cold, up without down, left without right, forward without backward. Those are the three dimensions, also time has a past and a future. If you can think of some more examples feel free to post them.

Anyway, why doesn't gravity also have a negative effect? Why would it ALWAYS be attractive? What if it's also capable of going negative. Negative gravity would have a repulsive force which would explain why the universe is expanding. You wouldn't need this kludge of dark energy.

As you may have read already, the universe does not expand where objects are gravitationally bound. In other words, you and I are not expanding along with the universe. The sun, moon, earth, this whole galaxy is not expanding, nothing in it is. What is expanding is the space between galaxies.

I propose that the space between galaxies is so devoid of mass as to have a negative gravitational effect. Repulsion. Why would gravity have to go to zero in empty space? Why not negative?

Think of gravity as the warping of space time.
gravity-probe-confirms-einstein-theories-space-time_35284_600x450.jpg



Why can't it warp upward where there is much less mass in the vicinity and not just downward?

So what do you think? Make sense?
 
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I know fuck all about any of this, but wouldn't the lack of gravity create a flat plane, and not a protrusion?
 
Try googling "repulsive gravity" and you'll find several links to articles that suggest this as an alternative to dark energy.

Now you really are disappoint... 🙂

As I remember it, repulsive gravity due to negative pressure is also used to explain the inflationary period (i.e. the Big Bang) near the universe's beginning.
 
disappoint said:
gravity-probe-confirms-einstein-theories-space-time_35284_600x450.jpg
Click to expand...

I have a problem with this picture too. It simplifies the gravity well by removing most sides. When I try to picture it as a full 3D model, my brain chokes. I'd like to see the grid lines arranged so the whole thing is fully shown. I can't picture what that would look like :^/
 
disappoint said:
But seriously, it's a bipolar universe. Some examples: There are no monopole magnets. There is no north without south, no positive without negative, no light without dark, good without evil, hot without cold, up without down, left without right, forward without backward. Those are the three dimensions, also time has a past and a future. If you can think of some more examples feel free to post them.
Click to expand...

Other than directions up, down, north, south, etc, which are abstractions of non physical concepts, the rest of these are just magnitudes of properties for which we have assigned relative values.

Examples.

Hot and Cold? There really is just hot relative to abs zero.
Light and Dark? Same as cold but as a degree of luminosity
A magnet is just a circuit for which electrons flow in one direction. There really is just amounts of magnetism.

Gravity is the same, although its measurement is relative to distance and mass
 
PowerEngineer said:
Try googling "repulsive gravity" and you'll find several links to articles that suggest this as an alternative to dark energy.

Now you really are disappoint... 🙂

As I remember it, repulsive gravity due to negative pressure is also used to explain the inflationary period (i.e. the Big Bang) near the universe's beginning.
Click to expand...

Son, I am not disappoint(ed) that others have come up with the same idea. Why would I be? After all great minds think alike.😉

Although the first article I googled came up with something slightly different, they attribute "anti gravity" to antimatter:

http://phys.org/news/2012-01-repulsive-gravity-alternative-dark-energy.html

(PhysOrg.com) -- When scientists discovered in 1998 that the Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, the possibility that dark energy could explain the observation was intriguing. But because there has been little progress in figuring out exactly what dark energy is, the idea has since become more of a problem than a solution for some scientists. One physicist, Massimo Villata of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) in Pino Torinese, Italy, describes dark energy as “embarrassing,” saying that the concept is an ad hoc element to standard cosmology and is devoid of any physical meaning. Villata is one of many scientists who are looking for new explanations of the Universe’s accelerating expansion that involve some form of repulsive gravity. In this case, the repulsive gravity could stem from antimatter hiding in voids.
“Cosmic voids (and in particular the nearby Local Void) are observationally very well known and constitute the largest structures of which our Universe is composed,” Villata told PhysOrg.com. “The problem is whether they are really empty or contain the repulsive antimatter.”
In Villata’s paper, which will soon be published in Astrophysics and Space Science, he suggests that antimatter could be hiding in these large voids, separated from matter by mutual gravitational repulsion. As he explained previously, the gravitational repulsion between matter and antimatter is a prediction of general relativity. In this scenario, matter has a positive gravitational charge while antimatter has a (hypothetical) negative gravitational charge. As a result, both matter and antimatter are gravitationally self-attractive, yet mutually repulsive. The gravitational repulsion between matter and antimatter could be so powerful, in fact, that Villata has calculated that it could be responsible for the accelerated expansion of the Universe, eliminating the need for dark energy and possibly dark matter.
Click to expand...
 
lxskllr said:
I have a problem with this picture too. It simplifies the gravity well by removing most sides. When I try to picture it as a full 3D model, my brain chokes. I'd like to see the grid lines arranged so the whole thing is fully shown. I can't picture what that would look like :^/
Click to expand...

In all 3 dimensions? It would be a cluttered mess. Think of gravity as sort of a pressure exerted from all 3 dimensions pushing things together. Sort of like water pressure under water or atmospheric pressure here on good ole' terra firma.

Maybe that's a bad analogy. Well as analogies often go they have limits. As does this one.
 
ElFenix said:
What if we're anti matter and the void is actually the matter
Click to expand...

That's probably what the antimatter people think. Might make for a good Twilight Zone episode. Be nice if they did away with one of these goofy "reality" (more like staged) tv shows and brought back TZ. The pilot could be titled: "What's the matter?" I know I know groooan.^_^
 
Wow! You solved something the greatest minds on earth have been trying to figure out for 50 years!


Not...
 
Schmide said:
Other than directions up, down, north, south, etc, which are abstractions of non physical concepts, the rest of these are just magnitudes of properties for which we have assigned relative values.

Examples.

Hot and Cold? There really is just hot relative to abs zero.
Light and Dark? Same as cold but as a degree of luminosity
A magnet is just a circuit for which electrons flow in one direction. There really is just amounts of magnetism.

Gravity is the same, although its measurement is relative to distance and mass
Click to expand...

Boom! You've been Science'd!
 
well Voyager would start to accelerate if this was the case, right?

So there is already a test in progress.
 
Agent11 said:
well Voyager would start to accelerate if this was the case, right?

So there is already a test in progress.
Click to expand...

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/news/voyager_update.html

March 20, 2013
NEWS RELEASE: 2013-107​
NASA VOYAGER STATUS UPDATE ON VOYAGER 1 LOCATION

"The Voyager team is aware of reports today that NASA's Voyager 1 has left the solar system," said Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. "It is the consensus of the Voyager science team that Voyager 1 has not yet left the solar system or reached interstellar space. In December 2012, the Voyager science team reported that Voyager 1 is within a new region called 'the magnetic highway' where energetic particles changed dramatically. A change in the direction of the magnetic field is the last critical indicator of reaching interstellar space and that change of direction has not yet been observed."
Click to expand...
 
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