Is Dark Energy the Answer to the Accelerating Universe and Big Bang Conundrums?

[rogerpendleto]

Two Issues:

1 Accellerating Universe Expansion (Inflation)

As I understand this this arises out of the observation that the further away object are, the faster they are moving, (relative to us). This I assume is the origin of the search for “Dark Matter” & “Dark Energy”

Surely if a star 1,000 light years away is traveling faster than a star 100 LY away this means that 1000 years ago it was traveling faster than it was 100 years ago – ergo it is SLOWING DOWN. Does this not remove some of the problems we are trying to solve?

1 Big Bang Issues.

Many of the currently available books written as explanations of the BB and posing the questions of the issues of inflation mention what happens in the “first Micro second” or the “first 4 minutes”. If we assume that just before the BB there was no mass and nearly infinite energy then from

E= 1/2MV² then V must beclose to the limiting velocity C. Now Uncle Albert told us that time slows down as relative velocity increases so on this model one second could be the sam as 100 present day years. As all of our calculations are based on our experience of present “earth” seconds does this not go a long way to explaining the mysteries of the first few seconds?

 

[phinds]

All of your statements represent common misconceptions about these topics that have been explored many times here on this forum. I suggest a forum search and/or further reading on cosmology.

Also, the expanding universe is related to dark energy. Dark matter is a contributing factor to slowing down the expansion, not speeding it up as you seem to think, but the effects of dark energy became dominant about 6 or 7 billion years ago. Dark matter was discovered because of its gravitational effect on large structures (galaxies) and not because of anything relating to the expansion of the universe or the acceleration of that expansion.

You might take a look at the link in my signature.

EDIT: One other thing. About your statement "If we assume that just before the BB there was no mass and nearly infinite energy then from ...", the Big Bang Theory does not say ANYTHING about "before the BB", it is a theory about the evolution of the universe starting at about one Plank Time after the singularity but says nothing about the singularity, so we don't make any assumptions about "before the BB" or before one Plank Time.

 

[tzimie]

... and finally E= 1/2MV² is Newtonian formula, not valid when v-->c

 

[mathman]

As I understand this this arises out of the observation that the further away object are, the faster they are moving, (relative to us). This I assume is the origin of the search for “Dark Matter” & “Dark Energy”

The observation you described is the idea behind the concept of an expanding universe, leading to the idea of a big bang.

Dark matter is a separate issue, based on observations of stellar motion in galaxies and relative motion of galaxies within clusters.

Dark energy is proposed as an explanation for the observation that the expansion is speeding up, rather than slowing down. If there was no dark energy there still would be expansion.

 

[sardar]

I would like to address these two issues separately.

1) Accelerating Universe Expansion (Inflation):

The observation that objects further away from us are moving faster is actually due to the expansion of the universe. This means that the space between objects is expanding, causing them to move away from each other. This expansion is happening at an accelerating rate, which is what led to the search for dark energy and dark matter. These two components are thought to make up about 95% of the universe, with normal matter (the matter we can see) making up only about 5%. Therefore, it is not just a matter of stars slowing down over time, but rather the overall expansion of the universe that is causing this phenomenon.

2) Big Bang Issues:

The Big Bang theory is our current best explanation for the origin of the universe. It states that the universe began as a single point of infinite density and temperature, and has been expanding and cooling ever since. The first microsecond and four minutes are crucial periods in the early universe, as this is when the fundamental particles and forces were formed. While it is true that time slows down as velocity increases, this does not necessarily mean that one second could be equivalent to 100 years. This is because time dilation is dependent on the relative velocity between two objects, not just the velocity of one object. Therefore, the effects of time dilation would be different for different objects in the early universe. Additionally, our calculations and measurements are based on a standard unit of time, not just our experience on Earth. This means that even if time dilation were significant in the early universe, it would not change our understanding of the first few seconds.