Dark Energy

Shining a light on Dark Energy

The Paradigm

For 375,000 years following the Big Bang, the universe expanded very rapidly; a time referred to as the inflationary period. Despite its incredible density, and the gravitational fields that were being generated as the first matter condensed; the universe's rate of expansion appears to have exceeded the speed of light . The reason given for the universe not collapsing back in on itself is that there is/was another force, “dark energy”, which acted as an anti-gravitational repulsive force.  Dark energy continues to affect the expansion of the universe, although on a much less dramatic level.

Beyond the Paradigm 

If the universe is growing inwards (see Big Bang or the Big Bloat?), there is no reason to use dark energy as an anti-gravitational force to explain the expansion of the universe. The universe is growing because the closer you are to the center, the faster time flows. The apparent acceleration in the growth of our universe after its formation is due to the decreased time flow of the most distant objects, and our present inability to tell how fast time is flowing for those objects.  The effect is like watching a movie of a car being driven away from a camera. The car was moving at a constant speed. The camera recorded the car at a set rate. But, if when the movie is viewed, the initial frame lasts for a full second, and then the rate at which the film is shown is doubles the frame rate every second for several seconds. Then the rate slows; increasing at only a frame per second, until the speed of the projector matches that of the camera. Initially, the car will appear to undergo a tremendous acceleration; followed by a slower, gradual, acceleration. The universe is like that film, the most distant objects we see moving within a slower frame rate; the closer they are the closer their time flow is to ours.

Figure 4 Timeline of the Universe - A representation of the evolution of the universe over 13.7 billion years. Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team

The accelerated expansion observed over the last 4 billion years (as seen within 4 billion light years of earth) may well be the result of the acceleration of time due to decreased influence of gravity over our region of the universe.

Dark energy may well prove to be the cosmic ether of late 20^th early 21^st century astrophysics.

Questions that need answers:

Does the difference in time flow as you approach the Big Bang, the outer limits of the universe, account for the observed expansion or is “dark energy” still needed?

Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy

http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/

http://hubblesite.org/hubble_discoveries/dark_energy/de-what_is_dark_energy.php