Dear astronomy community,
Re: the idea of multiple universes
We're still on this kind of attitude? Really? Did you forget the history of your fine profession? First it was "Oh, we're the only solar system ever and we're totally at the center of everything!" Then it was, "Okay, so we orbit the sun, but the SUN is the only sun with planets, and IT's totally at the center of everything!" Let's not forget the then, "All right, all right, so our sun is pretty average and at the edge of the Milky Way, but this obviously means the Milky Way is super-duper-awesome and the bestest and only galaxy and ... at the center of everything!" I believe it was then Hubble who delivered the smackdown of, "Nope, not the only galaxy, and guess what? Ours is pretty average, just like our sun, etc etc."
So don't forget, we've been down this road before. In this case, yes, we can never prove the existence of other universes, but let's be a little tongue-in-cheek about our skepticism, shall we?
As for the rest of the article, nice to see an article on cosmology in the NYT, as it's my favorite of astronomy's disciplines (though by far the most depressing*). Still, this article could have easily been written ten years ago. I remember when the supernova red-shifting was discovered. One of the Case Western team members, a woman, came to IMSA and gave a lecture on it, which I ate up like candy. Sadly I didn't get her to adopt me as a mentee, since she was far too busy, but that talk stuck with me. Anyway, as I recall the prevailing theories at the time were that Einstein's fudge factor was an actual phenomenon, but most of the astronomers looking at this suspected that the cosmological constant was not, in fact, constant, but would end up being a function. Pity that after ten years we've come no closer to finding that function, or if it even is one.
The article touches on, but doesn't really delve into, what a revolution for astronomy and cosmology this could be. Seriously, to explain the existence of this dark energy could require a massive rewriting of everything we know about the universe. Everything from string theory to tachyons to negative mass to Einstein's lambda is on the table here, and it could end up being something completely new and radical. My feeling is we really need to buckle down and focus on understanding gravity, though. Gravity's the least sexy of the forces, but there is still so much we don't understand about it. Most people only receive a paltry overview of it in school, on Newtown and a little bit on relativity, but we don't know if gravitational waves even exist or how they work. Gravity's messy, and mind-boggling, and really freakin' weak so it's hard to measure. Then it does freaky things like this "anti-gravity," and we have no way of explaining it.
Not to mention it seems a bit silly to be so focused on a universal theory and sweat over how universal expansion could ruin it when we still barely understand one of the four fundamental forces. But that's just my take on it. Who knows? Hopefully one of these J-dem projects will reveal something. Yet as the article itself implies, our best chances of figuring this out is in our minds, with new theories and completely requestioning how we think the universe works.
----
In other astronomy news, Phoenix may have already found the water ice on Mars it was seeking. Very exciting, but man, when are they going to get a sample-return probe to Mars? I wanna crack open some Mars rocks! :D
*Why the most depressing? Because prevailing theories about the fate of the universe are that it will expand endlessly, or expand and stop, and just one day be cold, dark, and dead. The world ending in ice, rather than fire, as it were, and it seems a sad fate for something so grand and beautiful.
We're still on this kind of attitude? Really? Did you forget the history of your fine profession? First it was "Oh, we're the only solar system ever and we're totally at the center of everything!" Then it was, "Okay, so we orbit the sun, but the SUN is the only sun with planets, and IT's totally at the center of everything!" Let's not forget the then, "All right, all right, so our sun is pretty average and at the edge of the Milky Way, but this obviously means the Milky Way is super-duper-awesome and the bestest and only galaxy and ... at the center of everything!" I believe it was then Hubble who delivered the smackdown of, "Nope, not the only galaxy, and guess what? Ours is pretty average, just like our sun, etc etc."
So don't forget, we've been down this road before. In this case, yes, we can never prove the existence of other universes, but let's be a little tongue-in-cheek about our skepticism, shall we?
As for the rest of the article, nice to see an article on cosmology in the NYT, as it's my favorite of astronomy's disciplines (though by far the most depressing*). Still, this article could have easily been written ten years ago. I remember when the supernova red-shifting was discovered. One of the Case Western team members, a woman, came to IMSA and gave a lecture on it, which I ate up like candy. Sadly I didn't get her to adopt me as a mentee, since she was far too busy, but that talk stuck with me. Anyway, as I recall the prevailing theories at the time were that Einstein's fudge factor was an actual phenomenon, but most of the astronomers looking at this suspected that the cosmological constant was not, in fact, constant, but would end up being a function. Pity that after ten years we've come no closer to finding that function, or if it even is one.
The article touches on, but doesn't really delve into, what a revolution for astronomy and cosmology this could be. Seriously, to explain the existence of this dark energy could require a massive rewriting of everything we know about the universe. Everything from string theory to tachyons to negative mass to Einstein's lambda is on the table here, and it could end up being something completely new and radical. My feeling is we really need to buckle down and focus on understanding gravity, though. Gravity's the least sexy of the forces, but there is still so much we don't understand about it. Most people only receive a paltry overview of it in school, on Newtown and a little bit on relativity, but we don't know if gravitational waves even exist or how they work. Gravity's messy, and mind-boggling, and really freakin' weak so it's hard to measure. Then it does freaky things like this "anti-gravity," and we have no way of explaining it.
Not to mention it seems a bit silly to be so focused on a universal theory and sweat over how universal expansion could ruin it when we still barely understand one of the four fundamental forces. But that's just my take on it. Who knows? Hopefully one of these J-dem projects will reveal something. Yet as the article itself implies, our best chances of figuring this out is in our minds, with new theories and completely requestioning how we think the universe works.
----
In other astronomy news, Phoenix may have already found the water ice on Mars it was seeking. Very exciting, but man, when are they going to get a sample-return probe to Mars? I wanna crack open some Mars rocks! :D
*Why the most depressing? Because prevailing theories about the fate of the universe are that it will expand endlessly, or expand and stop, and just one day be cold, dark, and dead. The world ending in ice, rather than fire, as it were, and it seems a sad fate for something so grand and beautiful.