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HaleBopper
sage
Reged: 01/14/08
Posts: 259
Loc: Great White North
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Re: Do you believe in dark energy and matter?
07/11/08 04:01 PM
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HiggsBoson, you make some excellent points. I think the best we "non-pros" can do is read up on the subject matter and try to understand why certain theories are put forth. Whether we choose to accept what we read is another case. Bottom line, results obtained through scientific experimentation, and scrutiny, trump all feelings and opinions.
Having said that, as a non-pro, I don't really have a hard time accepting the dark matter idea. It's not new. Fritz Zwicky in the 1930s postulated its existence. Through the years, evidence mounted in support of that notion.
As for dark energy, although not settled, it's just my personal belief that it will be proven. For instance Einstein showed mathematically that gravity depends not only on mass and energy, but also on pressures exerted. Gravity can be repulsive as well as attractive. The cosmological constant, if it turns out to be correct, exerts an overall repulsive force. Is this correct? Who knows, maybe it's wrong after all...
In a nut shell, this is what I gather from reading Brain Greene's "The Fabric Of The Cosmos." He does a good job explaining the physics to the "masses" without invoking the complicated math. Given that these theories involve a lot of complicated math, I think we can appreciate that it's not an easy thing to explain to the general interested public. Many of us simply take it on faith. Either way, it's very interesting reading and I recommend it. Just know that you'll probably have read it about 10 times to fully understand the material as written. I'm only on the 4 th reading 
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