Dark Energy - the subject of last night's Horizon doc (actually, I think it was a repeat, I dimly remember some of the info from before). There was a wonderful cosmologist on it last night who said she didn't like teaching about the inflation theory of the universe - but it was the only way to make the standard model work.
There was a lot of talk about the Standard Model of how the universe developed, and the problem, which I did not of course understand, was that the Galaxies were behaving in a way not predicted by the mathematics... no one says "is the mathematics wrong?" "are the assumptions wrong?" instead they make up a new theory which explains everything, because obviously the maths and the work to date can't be wrong, can they? (tell that to Newton).
I understand - slightly - those people I used to meet who were doing PhD theses on testing inconsistencies in the Standard Model.... because the whole purpose of cosmology is to understand the universe's creation and development, but a great deal of it seems devoted to upholding existing theoretical work - which is fair, except that it seems that there might be a bias towards the Standard Model, and therefore, arguably a slight bias against the truth. Anyway, Dark Matter exists to explain the Standard Model - and no one can see it, or touch it, it's just that the presumed emptiness of space is not quite as thoroughly empty as previously thought - and then the other thing that ruins the SM is some other mathematical problem, that can only be explained away by Dark Energy. And as the marvellous woman cosmologist said "What is Dark Energy? I don't know, but I wish it would go away!" Another cosmologist said "Dark Energy is just another name for ignorance."
That sounded right to me - I think when cosmology goes into an almost entirely metaphysical place, then we need to stop taking notice of it. We need to get some idea of what is actually known and what is a theory, because quite often wild theory is being presented as fact. Everyone thinks Dark Energy exists - when it's actually just a metaphor. The recent discovery that possibly some particles moved faster than light might point to the idea that not only do we not know "nearly everything" but we may not even have the tools to discover it, because "it" is probably rather more complex than we think.
It you look at the Ptolomean idea of the universe it is a very simple one - we are on earth, and above us are layer upon layer of spheres, the closest being the sub-lunary sphere (believed to be full of demons), and so on until we get out, beyond, to God! I suspect that our idea of the universe at present compares to the reality, as well as Ptolomey's model, compares to our current state of knowledge.
I was somewhat outraged a few years ago, when Stephen Hawkin implied we were pretty much there - the whole "touching the mind of God" bit. There is so much we don't know and may in fact never know. But humankind cannot accept much uncertainty.
There was a lot of talk about the Standard Model of how the universe developed, and the problem, which I did not of course understand, was that the Galaxies were behaving in a way not predicted by the mathematics... no one says "is the mathematics wrong?" "are the assumptions wrong?" instead they make up a new theory which explains everything, because obviously the maths and the work to date can't be wrong, can they? (tell that to Newton).
I understand - slightly - those people I used to meet who were doing PhD theses on testing inconsistencies in the Standard Model.... because the whole purpose of cosmology is to understand the universe's creation and development, but a great deal of it seems devoted to upholding existing theoretical work - which is fair, except that it seems that there might be a bias towards the Standard Model, and therefore, arguably a slight bias against the truth. Anyway, Dark Matter exists to explain the Standard Model - and no one can see it, or touch it, it's just that the presumed emptiness of space is not quite as thoroughly empty as previously thought - and then the other thing that ruins the SM is some other mathematical problem, that can only be explained away by Dark Energy. And as the marvellous woman cosmologist said "What is Dark Energy? I don't know, but I wish it would go away!" Another cosmologist said "Dark Energy is just another name for ignorance."
That sounded right to me - I think when cosmology goes into an almost entirely metaphysical place, then we need to stop taking notice of it. We need to get some idea of what is actually known and what is a theory, because quite often wild theory is being presented as fact. Everyone thinks Dark Energy exists - when it's actually just a metaphor. The recent discovery that possibly some particles moved faster than light might point to the idea that not only do we not know "nearly everything" but we may not even have the tools to discover it, because "it" is probably rather more complex than we think.
It you look at the Ptolomean idea of the universe it is a very simple one - we are on earth, and above us are layer upon layer of spheres, the closest being the sub-lunary sphere (believed to be full of demons), and so on until we get out, beyond, to God! I suspect that our idea of the universe at present compares to the reality, as well as Ptolomey's model, compares to our current state of knowledge.
I was somewhat outraged a few years ago, when Stephen Hawkin implied we were pretty much there - the whole "touching the mind of God" bit. There is so much we don't know and may in fact never know. But humankind cannot accept much uncertainty.
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