IAI_Admin OP t1_jc6itm9 wrote
Abstract: The evidence is that dark energy is responsible for the rate of the universe’s expansion. While the name makes it sound like a spooky force, it’s the cosmological constant Einstein added to his theory of gravity in 1917. There is a backing of sorts from quantum theory, which predicts a cosmological constant but of a substantially different value. Unifying the value predicted by quantum theory with the value observed from the expanding universe would be a great discovery, but even the most sophisticated theory is constrained by observational evidence which will always be imperfect and incomplete. Theories will always be an approximation, and never an account of ultimate reality, argues James Peebles.
kris_lace t1_jc73em9 wrote
The cosmological constant is one of the more mind blowing values in science.
If we took a ruler the length of the observable universe and mapped some of the main constants along it; gravity, speed of light, weak nuclear force etc. We could move the value of those constants along the ruler by millions of miles to a new value - and the forces still more or less act the same way and nothing is changed in reality.
But if we moved the cosmological constants pointer even one inch along that ruler to a new value; the universe as we know it would cease to exist. It has 120 zeros after the decimal point, and then a two.
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