Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?

[Reality Check]

Are you aware that you are still showing the symptoms of a crank

Did anyone else notice how "dark energy" went from being just a placeholder term for human ignorance (we don't know the real cause) to becoming a "specific" hypothesis (Ben's word)?
...usual "deity" rant...

Did anyone else notice that Michael Mozina is lying about what everyone in this thread has been saying?
There is no ignorance about the "real cause" of dark energy. Dark energy is by defintion the "real cause" of the effect. Or if you like:

Dark energy is a placeholder term for an area of human knowledge.
That knowledge is that the rate of expansion of the universe is measured to be expanding. This effect must have a cause. We measure several properties of the cause, e.g. that it emits no detectable light (is dark), is not very dense and seems to act like an energy. We call that cause dark energy. We have several candidates for the actual makeup of dark energy.
That we do not have complete knowledge is correct - that is not ignorance.
​

Did anyone else notice that Michael Mozina is still persisting in displaying to the world his crank symptoms? So we may as well officially expand this post from another thread

Are you aware that you are displaying the symptoms of a crank?
​

to include the previous point of Michael Mozina's ridiculous renaming delusion:

12. The delusion that changing the word that is used to describe something changes what is described.
Calling sometign a deity does not change anthing.
As Shakespeare said: A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
A Godrose smells as sweet as a rose.
A Satanrose smells as sweet as a rose.
​

 

[Reality Check]

Let's try it this way: An "energy density" of "what" exactly? (real physics please).

Let's try it this way: Are you ignorant of what the term energy density means? (real physics please).

 

[GeeMack]

A Godrose smells as sweet as a rose.
A Satanrose smells as sweet as a rose.​

And a concerted effort to diminish the validity of a well supported hypothesis by renaming it with some kind of made up baby-talk jargon smacks of desperate stupidity.

 

[Tim Thompson]

Dark Energy and Empirical Science VI

Did anyone else notice how "dark energy" went from being just a placeholder term for human ignorance (we don't know the real cause) to becoming a "specific" hypothesis (Ben's word)?

Remarkable, isn't it? Maybe this is the first time that scientists have ever put forward an hypothesis to establish a cause for observed phenomena, where the cause was previously unknown. Maybe this moment before us is a turning point in human history. Maybe this is a landmark moment that will forever define a new direction for scientific thought, one of observation followed by hypothesis. Let us bask in the eternal light of this cherished moment of intellectual surprise and discovery.

OK, maybe not. Moving on, then ...

This dark energy concept sure seems like it's morphing itself into a very specific and very impotent 'dark energy' deity, one that epically fails to show up in the lab like any other deity that we could 'name'.

Actually, sarcasm aside, it is morphing itself into a very specific and very important 'dark energy' scientific hypothesis, one that epically shows up in observations of the natural universe, unlike any other deity you can name. What is your beef with observations of the natural universe? Why do you think that observations of the natural universe are meaningless tripe?

Why don't you just admit that you hate science altogether, and let's get on with your real agenda of proving the existence of a mythical electric deity? We already know that you hate the word "empirical" so much that you had to invent a new meaning for the word, special and unto yourself (e.g., What is "Empirical" Science V, What is "Empirical" Science III, Delusional Science). We already know that you hate any controlled laboratory experiments that conflict with your precious electric deity (e.g., Magnetic Reconnection Redux XI, Magnetic Reconnection Redux X, Comments on Magnetic Reconnection III). We already know that you hate thermodynamics so much, you have to deny its very existence lest it conflict with your worship of the iron deity (e.g., No Iron "Surface" for the Sun, The Great Iron Layer, Iron Sun Surface Thermodynamically Impossible V). Come on, we know you hate science. So just admit it up front and we can move this discussion into the religion forums, where you belong. With you it's nothing but invisible electric deities and invisible iron deities anyway.

 

[ben m]

Let's try it this way: An "energy density" of "what" exactly? (real physics please).

(We don't know yet. If we knew exactly what it was, we'd have said so already.)

Do you want to know what the hypotheses are for "real things" that have vacuum energy density? Vacuum fluctuations of orginary virtual particles (a well-known feature of particle physics, visible in the Casimir effect) are one example hypothesis. A cosmological constant (an allowable, underlying feature of the geometry of spacetime) is another example hypothesis. A field condensate, akin to the Higgs condensate---a standard feature of particle physics, expected to be visible at the LHC---is another example hypothesis. And so on.

"Hey", I can hear you repeating, "That's all stuff we've never seen empirically so it is just more religion-dogma-bunny-magic-words". It's stuff we haven't seen, indeed, which is why they are still HYPOTHESES rather than simple facts. But so was the Top Quark prior to 1995. So was the neutrino prior to 1956. You're allowed to hypothesize stuff you haven't actually seen, that is how hypotheses work.

 

[edd]

Did anyone else notice how "dark energy" went from being just a placeholder term for human ignorance (we don't know the real cause) to becoming a "specific" hypothesis (Ben's word)? This dark energy concept sure seems like it's morphing itself into a very specific and very impotent 'dark energy' deity, one that epically fails to show up in the lab like any other deity that we could 'name'.

I don't get the problem. DE is actually a placeholder for a wide class of ideas to solve the acceleration problem (although it's getting a bit beyond solving just the one problem now). A cosmological constant is a specific hypothesis though, and a specific hypothesis is exactly what is desired as a specific hypothesis is generally the most predictive and most falsifiable. You make it sound like it's a bad thing when in fact it's the thing we want to work with most, because we don't even need a lab to get it to epically fail, in principle.

Unfortunately for your preconceptions though, even the simplest form of dark energy is yet to fail in even a non-epic manner.

 

[Perpetual Student]

Very crudely the amount of dark energy is just the amount of mass in the sphere times c^2, times a factor of 2 or 3 or so since dark energy wins. In other words the dark energy density is about twice or three times the average mass density times c^2.

To be more accurate you can put in by how much it wins (i.e. the magnitude of the observed acceleration). To be even more accurate you'll need GR, since dark energy gravitates differently than cold matter (due to its pressure).

I think that means the Newtonian procedure I suggested would be off by 2 (since it's actually density plus 3*pressure that matters, and that adds up to -2*density for dark energy).

So is the 2 or 3 factor ( repeated below) just a fudge factor:

the amount of dark energy is just the amount of mass in the sphere times c^2, times a factor of 2 or 3 or so since dark energy wins.

or is the justification based only on observations or is it due to the difference between GR and Newton?

 

[sol invictus]

So is the 2 or 3 factor ( repeated below) just a fudge factor:

It's a fudge factor at the level of the analysis I suggested, which was just supposed to give you a sense of how the real calculation goes.

or is the justification based only on observations or is it due to the difference between GR and Newton?

Both. GR tells you how dark energy (or more precisely, vacuum energy and/or cosmological constant) gravitates, observations tell you how much acceleration there is, and so the two together tell you how big the dark energy density is.

Newton alone doesn't really work for this, because dark energy is an intrinsically relativistic thing. It has a pressure that's comparable to its energy density, which is impossible for any non-relativistic form of energy. That's why you need the fudge factor when you try to use Newtonian gravity.

 

[ben m]

It is? Is this a new "property" that you "assigned" to it in an ad hoc manner, or can I expect you to demonstrate that "dark energy" has a zero charge in a lab anytime soon?

Yes, I can do it right now.

(I turn on my digital multimeter, a Fluke 87, in autoranging DC mode. It operates for some time without shorting out.)

There, that's an direct observation. The hypothesis, which you just presented, "empty space is electrically charged", leads (via Maxwell's Equations) to the conclusion that the Universe is suffused by an infinitely-strong electric field. This is observationally not true, as I just demonstrated. Therefore empty space is not electrically charged. Next?

See, Michael, we're not making it up. People have spent the past 15 years trying every way they could think of to explain the cosmological data. The "dark energy" thing is NOT, as you seem to think, the first random thing that came to mind, which we stuck to out of laziness. It is, rather dramatically, the only thing left after uncounted alternative hypotheses failed.

How exactly did you rule out electrons, protons and other moving charged particles again? What if it's some ugly combo deal where neutrinos provide some of that moving "energy/mass" and moving charged particles provide the rest?

(sigh) Neutrinos, electrons, protons, plasmas, and so on---no matter how many of them you put in, and in what combinations---always, always, always predict that the supernova distance-luminosity curve would bend down. The data shows that the distance-luminosity curve bends up. http://www.supernova.lbl.gov/PDFs/expansionhistoryphystoday.pdf

Sorry, Michael---once again, this stuff you're throwing out is all stuff that people thought of years ago. It's all been looked at. It doesn't work. Go back in time to 1975, suggest that the Universe is full of neutrinos, and maybe you'll be taken seriously for a few minutes before people realize you have no idea what you're talking about. It's not 1975, it's 2010. We've learned a thing or two about what neutrinos, electrons, and protons can and cannot do to the large-scale behavior of the Universe.

ETA: We've also explained it to YOU, personally, in great detail, over and over again, in simple posts and complex posts, in casual posts and citation-choked posts, in science language and in cretin language. Did you read any of that?

 

[ben m]

Did anyone else notice that Michael Mozina is lying about what everyone in this thread has been saying?
There is no ignorance about the "real cause" of dark energy. Dark energy is by defintion the "real cause" of the effect. Or if you like:

Dark energy is a placeholder term for an area of human knowledge.
That knowledge is that the rate of expansion of the universe is measured to be expanding. This effect must have a cause. We measure several properties of the cause, e.g. that it emits no detectable light (is dark), is not very dense and seems to act like an energy. We call that cause dark energy.​

With all due respect, RC, I think you're trying to concede MM some point of the language; you're getting it wrong and confusing the issue. Dark energy isn't a placeholder term for anything, except insofar as there are multiple underlying physics ideas, and any one of them might turn out to generate the actual vacuum-energy-density that we call dark energy. If we find out that the observed redshift pattern is due to the "cosmic void" business, then no, we won't apply the words "dark energy" to that. If we find out that all galaxies have a big string tied to them and God is tugging on them, we won't apply the words "dark energy to that.

It's not a placeholder at all. It only describes things that go into the source term of the Einstein equation in the form of a scalar quantity times the metric tensor. That's not literally everything we don't know about the cosmology, it's that one thing---the magnitude and maybe the time dependence of that scalar.​

 

[Reality Check]

With all due respect, RC, I think you're trying to concede MM some point of the language; you're getting it wrong and confusing the issue. Dark energy isn't a placeholder term for anything, except insofar as there are multiple underlying physics ideas, and any one of them might turn out to generate the actual vacuum-energy-density that we call dark energy. If we find out that the observed redshift pattern is due to the "cosmic void" business, then no, we won't apply the words "dark energy" to that. If we find out that all galaxies have a big string tied to them and God is tugging on them, we won't apply the words "dark energy to that.

It's not a placeholder at all. It only describes things that go into the source term of the Einstein equation in the form of a scalar quantity times the metric tensor. That's not literally everything we don't know about the cosmology, it's that one thing---the magnitude and maybe the time dependence of that scalar.

I agree that "placeholder term" is way too simplistic and general for what dark energy is. But given the problems that MM has with understanding anything complex, I have tried to keep things simple -probably too simple.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Remarkable, isn't it? Maybe this is the first time that scientists have ever put forward an hypothesis to establish a cause for observed phenomena, where the cause was previously unknown. Maybe this moment before us is a turning point in human history. Maybe this is a landmark moment that will forever define a new direction for scientific thought, one of observation followed by hypothesis. Let us bask in the eternal light of this cherished moment of intellectual surprise and discovery.

OK, maybe not.

Yes, that is how science usually works. To be fair, Michael Mozina is unfamiliar with that paradigm.

Did anyone else notice how "dark energy" went from being just a placeholder term for human ignorance (we don't know the real cause) to becoming a "specific" hypothesis (Ben's word)?

You're over-generalizing. No one has suggested that "dark energy" is a placeholder that refers to all human ignorance or to every specific instance of human ignorance. In particular, no one has suggested that "dark energy" is an alias for Homer Simpson^WP, Michael Mozina, or W.D.Clinger.

Where we have agreed with you is that dark energy^WP is a placeholder that stands for any cause that behaves like vacuum energy^WP or Einstein's cosmological constant^WP. (In case you've forgotten, that's the notion of dark energy that's named within the title of this thread.)

 

[Ziggurat]

Let's try it this way: Are you ignorant of what the term energy density means? (real physics please).

Probably. He doesn't know what pressure is. We went around in circles for pages and pages once, trying to get him to define pressure, and he couldn't do it.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Well, yes. If it had charge, it wouldn't be dark. Do you know why, Michael? Can you figure it out?

Birkeland figured it out for me over 100 years ago. You still can't figure out what causes the acceleration of solar wind, so we can easily demonstrate the flaws in your logic based on your own claims.

You don't know the "real empirical" cause of acceleration of solar wind, so we begin by labeling this "unknown acceleration", "dark energy". Dark energy is able to generate this acceleration pattern, so now all we have to do is find out which force(s) of nature might do that and we can figure out how "dark energy" manifests itself right here inside our own solar system. Once we figure that out we'll know exactly how "dark energy" works "out there somewhere".

Sound fair? It is your "methodology"' after all, right?

Now we look back 100 years in time and we notice that Kristian Birkeland came up with an empirical "prediction" about "flying electric ions' of all sorts coming from the sun. How did he accomplish this feat? He used the EM field, and specifically "electricity".

You guys have all these various "magnetic reconnection" theories to tinker around with, but each and every one of them is simply a theory about the way the EM field manifests itself in the solar system.

Unless both you and Birkeland are incorrect, the EM field *MUST* be responsible for that "unknown acceleration" and our term "dark energy" is now understood to be directly related to the EM field.

Now why in the world do I need to to look anywhere other than the EM field to explain acceleration of plasma outside of the solar system?

 

[GeeMack]

Unless both you and Birkeland are incorrect, the EM field *MUST* be responsible for that "unknown acceleration" and our term "dark energy" is now understood to be directly related to the EM field.

Kristian Birkeland never proposed any such mechanism for the accelerated expansion of the Universe. He never even gave the idea a second thought. Are you lying again, or are you just ignorant?

Oh, and speaking of all that lying you do to support your religious attachment to your crackpot notions, do you figure to stop that, or can we just expect you to continue?

 

[sol invictus]

Now why in the world do I need to to look anywhere other than the EM field to explain acceleration of plasma outside of the solar system?

I wonder how many times you've posed that question on this forum - and had it answered?

I would say at least 10, and probably more like 20.

 

[Michael Mozina]

I don't get the problem. DE is actually a placeholder for a wide class of ideas to solve the acceleration problem (although it's getting a bit beyond solving just the one problem now).

Please read my last post to Zig and you can see why that "we don't really know" concept opens the door for all of you to eventually become "EU promoters" one fine day in the future edd.

A cosmological constant is a specific hypothesis though, and a specific hypothesis is exactly what is desired as a specific hypothesis is generally the most predictive and most falsifiable.

A cosmological constant isn't a "thing", it's a number in a math formula. Unless and until you understand the "physical cause" of that "constant", you really haven't figured out anything. You know the constant but you don't know the 'cause".

You make it sound like it's a bad thing when in fact it's the thing we want to work with most, because we don't even need a lab to get it to epically fail, in principle.

Hmmm. Well, maybe. You might actually falsify some "general ideas" that way, but that's about it. You can't "prove" that "dark energy" is the cause of acceleration however by pointing at the sky. Unless you can demonstrate that "dark energy" is somehow empirically related to acceleration of plasma/objects (like the EM field in the lab), you really just have a "religion', one that epically fails to have any effect here on Earth.

Unfortunately for your preconceptions though, even the simplest form of dark energy is yet to fail in even a non-epic manner.

IMO you folks have deluded yourselves into believing that a new force of nature is required to explain an acceleration process you simply do not understand. You can't even be sure you won't all one day end up in the EM field camp anyway. About all you really know is that "acceleration happens", and you can't figure it out yet.

Dark energy is no more the cause of acceleration than invisible potato energy. There is no cause/effect connection between dark energy and acceleration any more than there is a an empirical link between God energy and the same observation.

I do find it fascinating that you are all straddling both sides of this fence so 'dark energy" cannot be "falsified". Ben's concept "might' be falsified in some way because it is more specific. *All* concepts of "dark energy" cannot be ruled out anymore than all concept of God energy could be ruled out. What you've done is shifted the burden of proof by *insisting* that the term can be generic and also specific. By doing that, it becomes impossible falsify all connections between that observation of acceleration and what you're calling "Dark energy". In GM's mind, the dark energy *must* exist, simply by definition. The "dark energy" is the "cause" of the "acceleration", there is "acceleration" and therefore 'dark energy" will always exist (only in his head however).

What you've done here is you've created a nice 'religion' that cannot ever actually be "falsified" because it's too generic. That applies not only to your "Dark energy" concepts, but also to inflation, dark matter, etc. All of these terms of so vague as to be 'unfalsifiable" because because they all ultimately represent generic labels that define our human ignorance.

 

[Ziggurat]

Birkeland figured it out for me over 100 years ago.

No he didn't.

You still can't figure out what causes the acceleration of solar wind, so we can easily demonstrate the flaws in your logic based on your own claims.

Sorry, but this makes no sense.

You don't know the "real empirical" cause of acceleration of solar wind, so we begin by labeling this "unknown acceleration", "dark energy".

No, you do. There's no "we" here. And you can call it whatever you want to, though choosing a name that's already being used for something else is... what's the word? Stupid.

Sound fair? It is your "methodology"' after all, right?

Nope. You need to start with a model. You don't have a model. Go get yourself a model.

But you won't, because a model would require equations and numbers, and you can't do that. You're math-phobic. Or maybe even math-allergic.

You guys have all these various "magnetic reconnection" theories to tinker around with, but each and every one of them is simply a theory about the way the EM field manifests itself in the solar system.

Unless both you and Birkeland are incorrect, the EM field *MUST* be responsible for that "unknown acceleration" and our term "dark energy" is now understood to be directly related to the EM field.

It's not our "dark energy", it's your "dark energy". The cosmological dark energy model cannot produce solar winds, because unlike what you believe in, it's actually constrained by observation and theory, and makes specific and limited predictions. The fact that your conception of EM fields can do anything is a pretty damned good indicator that your conception of EM fields is wrong.

Now why in the world do I need to to look anywhere other than the EM field to explain acceleration of plasma outside of the solar system?

Because plasmas shield EM fields but they don't shield gravity? Duh.

 

[Michael Mozina]

I wonder how many times you've posed that question on this forum - and had it answered?

I would say at least 10, and probably more like 20.

I'm still trying to figure out how you know that this acceleration is related to Gauss's Law of gravity or electricity. Care to elaborate on how you ruled out one in favor of the other?

 

[sol invictus]

I'm still trying to figure out how you know that this acceleration is related to Gauss's Law of gravity or electricity. Care to elaborate on how you ruled out one in favor of the other?

No, I don't.

The reason is obvious from my previous post.