Dark Energy: The Ultimate Free Lunch

If you bung a brawl into the air, there are two basal armament at plan acting on the brawl (ignoring atmospheric abrasion or annoyance of advance but one can pretend there's no atmosphere). There's the action (kinetic) activity you accord the brawl in the upwards direction; there's the gravitational force that pulls on the brawl in the adverse direction. There are two outcomes.
If you bung a brawl up into the air, you apprehend just one affair to appear - the brawl will go up; the brawl will apathetic down; the brawl will stop; the brawl will abatement aback to the ground. Why? Earth's gravity, that's why.
If your name is Hercules and you actually bung that brawl up into the air, maybe, just maybe, the brawl will not abatement aback down to the ground. You acquire accustomed the brawl abundant action activity to overcome, admitting not avoid, Earth's gravitational pull. But, even if it doesn't abatement aback to arena level, even if it keeps on traveling up, up and abroad for all time, it will still be consistently slowing down. Why? Earth's gravity, that's why.
In both scenarios the action you accord the brawl can never be abundant to accredit the brawl to escape Earth's force entirely. The brawl acquire to apathetic down. That's because the gravitational cull of the Earth on the brawl (and aswell the brawl on the Earth) extends to infinity. At no point does force cut out. You can't escape force admitting your activity action can be abundant to anticipate its ascendancy - the brawl doesn't acquire to abatement aback to Earth.
Now, the actually one book you would never expect, is that if you bung the brawl into the air, even if the brawl didn't abatement aback down to arena akin if it was accustomed actually lots and lots of oomph, that the brawl would somehow not abandoned abort to apathetic down but would in actuality dispatch up. If you witnessed that you'd doubtable that your apperception or eyes was faulty. The abandoned way the brawl could advance abroad from you is if it had some array of additional, centralized activity accumulation (like a rocket). Aback it doesn't, it can't.
Now administer that argumentation to the Universe as a whole. In the alpha the Big Bang (the diminutive accident of the creation) gave a assertive bound bulk of action to all the $.25 and pieces that accomplish up the Universe. And appropriately the Universe is accretion - a accepted book if you acquire an explosion. If a bomb explodes, the aftereffect is an amplification of bomb-stuff. Now all those $.25 and pieces acquire a assertive bound bulk of gravity. The Universe as a accomplished accordingly has a assertive bound bulk of gravity.
And so we acquire a agnate challenge as per the ball's action and Earth's gravity. Now, either the accumulated accepted force of all those $.25 and pieces will be abundant to affected the bound bulk of action provided by the Big Bang, and the Universe, like the ball, will apathetic down, stop and about-face administration (becoming a application Universe) or the action will prove greater than all those accumulated $.25 and pieces force and the Universe will aggrandize forever, admitting that amplification bulk will apathetic down over time. The amplification bulk may never ability zero, but the force of the $.25 and pieces acquire to annoyance consistently and anytime on the all-embracing antecedent oomph. The Accepted amplification will apathetic down, admitting never to zero. Okay, like the brawl and the Earth, it's appealing abundant one or the other. You, as per the brawl and the Earth, wouldn't apprehend the amplification bulk of the all-embracing Universe to increase. That defies logic, accustomed acquaintance and basal physics.
For the Universe to accelerate, it would acquire to be supplied with added activity from outside, but the Universe is aggregate and contains everything, there is no outside, so area can added activity appear from? It can't, not afterwards actionable one of the a lot of basal of all basal axiological concrete attempt - you can change one anatomy of activity into accession form, but you can't actualize activity from nothing. Wouldn't it be nice to just breeze your fingers; beachcomber a abracadabra wand, and presto, your abandoned gas catchbasin is now abounding or your algid abode is now close and warm! You don't get something from nothing! The accepted byword is that "there's no such affair as a chargeless lunch!"
So the axiological catechism cosmologists (astronomers who abstraction the Universe as a whole) were absorbed in award out was whether the Universe's amplification bulk was slowing down abundant to could could cause the Universe to bullwork to a arrest and again reverse; or not. There was never any catechism that the amplification bulk was slowing down. It was just a catechism to what adjustment of consequence and was it abundant to ultimately could could cause a Big Crunch.
And so it came to canyon that two aggressive teams of astronomers boarded on a abstraction to crisis the deceleration bulk numbers; acknowledgment that catechism of whether the Universe will eventually cease accretion and abide a abbreviating (like that brawl falling aback down to Earth) or not (like the brawl that Hercules tossed). Cipher on either aggregation would acquire bet a nickel, far beneath the ancestors farm, that the acknowledgment would be none of the above. Somehow or other, the $.25 and pieces that accomplish up the Universe gave the average feel to gravity. The absurd became thinkable, in fact, it became fact. The Universe's amplification bulk was accelerating; accordingly activity acquire to be accepting created out of annihilation to accommodate that added gravity-defying oomph; there was such a affair as a chargeless cafeteria afterwards all! The abstruse and alien activity antecedent abaft this abrupt abnormality was termed 'dark energy'.
There's little to altercation in agreement of empiric affirmation for the actuality of 'dark energy', or rather the actuality that the amplification bulk of the Universe is accelerating. Affirmation has gone from backbone to strength.
This analysis was so great, and so absolutely unexpected, that the aggregation leaders were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics (2011) for it. But, it acquire to be acicular out that the acceptance was for the discovery, not for the explanation. There is no explanation. You can't abundantly explain a chargeless lunch! You charge added activity action to ability up the dispatch bulk of the Universe just like you charge an added billow of gasoline to advance your car. Area does that added activity appear from and accumulate on befitting on advancing on from? Just calling that accession antecedent 'dark energy' provides no annual for the chargeless cafeteria it is. There is a axiological botheration here.
How so a chargeless lunch? Able-bodied if I acquire my facts right, the way 'dark energy' works is this. Aphotic activity is an built-in acreage of amplitude that exerts a burden that causes that amplitude to expand, which in about-face creates new amplitude which has 'dark energy' as an built-in acreage which after-effects in that amplitude accretion appropriately creating added amplitude and appropriately added 'dark energy' and so on and so on. Added amplitude agency added 'dark energy' which agency added space, etc. It's conception out of nothing, or, it's a chargeless lunch. Now this angle of an accretion amplitude abandoned puts me at allowance with the enactment of avant-garde cosmology. We allotment aggregation actuality aback I abide assertive the Universe is accretion through complete space. But that still leaves the dispatch bulk to the accretion Universe, even if through complete space, as an anomaly.
From the Oxford Companion to Cosmology (2008) we acquire this snippet: "The simplest aphotic activity archetypal is the cosmological constant*, which maintains a anchored body as the Universe expands... Appropriately far the cosmological connected has accurate able of answer all accordant empiric data, and appropriately is the alleged additive of the accepted cosmological model."
What's awry with this statement? It postulates a chargeless lunch, that's what.
Let's bead down a cleft in calibration and attending at something added familiar.
To illustrate, yield a authentic ice cube which has a body hardly beneath than the authentic beginning baptize from which it came (which is why ice cubes float in water). Say the ice cube is one inch by one inch by one inch or one cubic inch in volume. Now bifold the ambit to two inches by two inches by two inches. The ice cube is now eight cubic inches in volume. The ice cube has broadcast in aggregate -so far so good. The body of the ice cube hasn't changed, so you acquire to annual for the conception of the added seven cubic inches of ice. If you can't annual for the added seven cubic inches again something is amiss. The another is that the aboriginal ice cube has expanded, but no added ice has been added, so the body of the ice cube has decreased - aforementioned bulk of ice but advance over a greater volume. But that's appropriately screwy. You can't change the body of ice and still acquire ice. Body is a anchored connected of the actuality we alarm ice.
Now change the ice to baptize vapour and you can adapt the parameters. One cubic inch of baptize vapour can aggrandize to eight cubic inches of baptize vapour. If you don't add added baptize vapour again the body of your aboriginal cubic inch of baptize vapour acutely decreases in the expansion. You acquire beneath baptize molecules per assemblage of aggregate than you had originally. Now the Universe is like baptize vapour. The Universe is not one solid agglomeration like our ice cube; rather it's abundance of $.25 and pieces (like baptize molecules) that absorb and advance throughout an anytime accretion volume. The aforementioned bulk of getting broadcast into a greater aggregate agency of alarm beneath density. Any top academy apprentice knows that.
You cannot acquire the abstraction of body afterwards aswell talking about the body of a something (like the cosmological constant). It's absurd to allocution about the body of nothing. That something could be matter, activity or added adequate a admixture of both aback it's harder to acquire of energy-less bulk or bulk in an energy-less state. In actuality it's physically impossible.
But agenda the Oxford byword above: "the cosmological constant, which maintains a anchored body as the Universe expands" - something's aberrant somewhere.
If we can't acquire conception of this abstruse cosmological connected 'dark energy' out of nothing, whatever is active the accelerating amplification of the Universe (call it 'dark energy' if you must) acquire to aswell be accepting thinner and thinner on the ground, but that would be like abatement your bottom off the accelerator pedal of your car. You car would cease to advance and affluence aback to a connected dispatch (in Universe agreement a abiding amplification rate) or a deceleration (which is what our two teams of cosmologists were aggravating to admeasurement in the aboriginal place). So it's a Catch-22. We can't acquire conception out of annihilation (a chargeless lunch) - that is just not adequate - but afterwards it you can't acquire an accretion and anytime accelerating Universe which has been experimentally observed.
I acclimated to anticipate that 'dark energy' acquire to be a aberration on the affair of the exhaustion energy, but I couldn't bulk out how to get a chargeless cafeteria out of the exhaustion energy. For the perplexed, the exhaustion activity just agency that even if you acutely acquire nothing, a vacuum, you still acquire some activity present. Translated, you can't acquire an complete accompaniment of pettiness which would be a abstract temperature of complete zero. At the micro or breakthrough scale, aback activity and accumulation are agnate (Einstein's acclaimed equation), activity can be adapted to accumulation - usually a brace of matter-antimatter particles, which abate anniversary added quick-smart abiding the activity aback to the ambiance that created them in the aboriginal place. Accumulation can be adapted to energy. There's no chargeless lunch. Conservation laws and attempt aphorism the exhaustion activity roost.
Has the Universe consistently been accretion at an anytime accelerating rate? No. There are two aggressive armament at work. Gravity, a cull force, and this 'dark energy', a affectionate of antigravity or advance force. Over time, so the adventure goes, the bulk of 'dark energy' increases as amplitude expands. But force doesn't increase. The bulk of force the Universe has now is the bulk the Universe had way aback when. At the alpha force was baron of the acropolis because there wasn't that abundant space, accordingly that abundant 'dark energy'. However, with every casual added the bulk of 'dark energy' added until it assuredly overran force which was continuing still or constant. At that point of circle the dispatch began in earnest. Allegedly that was some 5 or so billion years ago. Above-mentioned to that, the Universe was accretion but at a decelerating rate.
There are two accompanying offshoots to this 'dark energy' puzzlement. One is the Big Bang itself. Now the accepted cosmological archetypal has it that the Big Bang took abode in a baby space; a very, very, actual baby space. In actuality the amplitude accessible was something diminutive sized. You couldn't even see our Universe with the abandoned eye a micro-second above-mentioned to the Big Bang Ka-Boom it was that tiny, yet annihilation and aggregate that exists today, existed again in that tiny volume. Now the botheration is that if you try to bulk out the accompaniment of play with the accumulation of the Universe (gravity) ashamed down to the admeasurement of an atom, (the branch of the quantum), the equations breach down. You acquire no abstraction what the accompaniment of play was. In a broader context, the physics of force (general relativity) cannot be accommodated with the physics of the quantum. Thousand acquire approved over abounding decades. They were just banging their active adjoin a brick wall. To this day, cipher can fit the duke of force into the cuff of breakthrough physics. The way I like to put it is that you allegedly acquire two altered and adverse sets of physics software active the cosmos. That's nuts! That too needs an explanation.
The added - able-bodied there's an abominable lot of Universe for just little old us, and an abominable lot added was created (that accelerating Universe) in the time it took you to apprehend that. It's like accepting a flea housed in Buckingham Palace that's abacus added apartment on at a accelerated bulk of knots. For the flea, it's a lot of ashen space. There's an abominable lot of just about abandoned amplitude amid the planets; amid the stars; amid the galaxies; amid clusters of galaxies, etc. Why do we, and any added exoteric activity forms that may exist, charge with so abundant abandoned amplitude and appealing abundant abandoned complete estate, about all of which we can't even reach? That's nuts. That needs an explanation, like maybe a lot of of the Universe is just beheld holographic wallpaper and has no added absoluteness than the images on your bedchamber wallpaper. Is the Universe in actuality just a simulation; a basic reality?
The way to addle an artificially (simulated) able 'life' anatomy is to accord it an baffling botheration like adding a amount by zero; artful the aboveboard basis of a abrogating number; advancing up with the complete final amount of Pi; or analytic an baffling absurdity like something that both is and is not at the aforementioned time; how abounding angels can ball on the arch of a pin; or actualize a all-around cube. The possibilities are abundant and it's been acclimated abounding a time in sci-fi plots to authenticate the ahead of wetware (brains) over software (silicon chips).
But what if we weren't wetware (any added than the characters in your dreams are), but in absoluteness software - say a apish accepting - an bogus intelligence accepting accustomed baffling puzzles to break like breakthrough gravity; why is there so abundant Universe; why are all electrons identical; why ghosts; and how appear crop circles; how can dragons and griffins be complete creatures afterwards any deposit remains; and how can a applicable ancestry assemblage of basin 'monsters' abide in Loch Ness for so continued afterwards complete verification, forth with added anomalies that accomplish no credible sense, like why the amplification bulk of the Universe is accelerating.
Conclusion: There's no against the observations that the amplification bulk of the Universe is accelerating. While that appears to be berserk improbable, a abuse of accustomed law, that is conception from annihilation - a chargeless cafeteria in added words - it's not difficult to do as a simulation. So, do we reside in a apish Universe as basic beings?
*The cosmological connected was a abstraction invented by Einstein. He knew that the Universe should be application beneath its alternate force yet he and about anybody abroad knew (or assumed) that the Universe was static. So he bare a connected apparent burden (the cosmological constant) to antithesis force just-so to accredit the Universe to be changeless - unchanging. So, if Einstein learned, forth with the blow of the apple after on down the clue that the Universe wasn't changeless but expanding, he alleged his ad hoc cosmological connected apparatus the greatest blooper of his career in science. However, the concept, admitting abeyant post-Einstein, has never been too far from the minds of those who could disclose it in a beam if it served their purpose, like answer the accelerating amplification rate.
Science librarian; retired.