What Is Dark Energy? | Full Debate | Erik Verlinde, Sabine Hossenfelder, Catherine Heymans

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According to current theories, Dark Energy and Dark Matter make up 95% of all the stuff in the universe. Yet we still have no direct evidence for them and have no idea in what they consist. Is something radically wrong? Are the assumptions that led to the hypotheses of Dark Energy and Dark Matter mistaken? Might we need to rethink our account of the universe entirely? Or should we hold our nerve and an explanation will soon be with our grasp?

#darkmatter #erikverlinde #iaitv #darkenergy #stringtheory #gravity



Erik Verlinde: Utrecht theoretical physicist and string theorist famous for the 'Verlinde Formula', and winner of the Spinoza Prize, Erik Verlinde is developing his own radical theory of gravitation.

Sabine Hossenfelder: Sabine Hossenfelder is a theoretical physicist at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, and contributor to New Scientist, Aeon, Scientific American, and Forbes. She frequently writes about foundational issues in physics on her popular blog Backreaction.

Catherine Heymans: Edinburgh astrophysicist and European Research Council Fellow Cathrine Heymans leads a team using the world’s best telescopes to understand the dark side of our universe. She mapped dark matter on the largest scale ever observed.

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[ThePinkus]

20:30 reminds me what my professor of theoretical physics used to said, that there are two ways of doing physics: one is rigorously, the other is vigorously.

[tomdeus]

Sabine appears to want to rip the other's throats out, but tries so very hard not to. Love her.

[deeliciousplum]

Wonderful discussion. I also apprecieated the contentions that some of the speakers raised against each another's ideas and research. Disagreeing with each other where there is merit to do so may be equally as enlightening as it is dramatic.

[MichaelHarrisIreland]

A great discussion. All sides were talked about, all made suggestions for improvement. What more can we expect! They are all trying to advance our knowledge.

[scufftop]

Sabine is that person everyone hates because she shits on their stupid parade. Her brand of skepticism is to be admired.

[tonibat]

Tonight I asked God about the BM and BE riddles.
HE answered me ! -and gave me the right solution oh boy, a weird idea indeed! HE graciously confided also some good hints on the unification of GR and QM...
Unfortunately, the space in this screen is too small to write it down.

[freedscript]

I am pondering some hypothesis and need some advice/help.

QUESTION : How can I test / verify / check these hypothesis? Is there an existing answer? How can I build the apparatus for test #2 safely?

GR implies no energy conservation. expansion red-shift destroys energy.

Dark energy creates new space. Empty space has vacuum energy, so this is creating energy.

Hypothesis 1 : expansion red-shift of certain energies(eg photons) has space-energy conservation. space to energy / energy to space conversion is occurring, and if you factor in space as energy there is conservation.

Test 1:

a)check if the there is any variance in expansion rate between regions of space-time

b)Check if expansion rate and energy passing/radiating through regions of space is correlated.

Hypothesis 2 : All red/blue shifting includes an energy to space conversion. While traveling at high speed if light is emitted forward it is blue shifted and converts some space into energy, emit light backwards and it creates space. This may act similar in principal to a warp drive.

*I realize number 2 is a bit ridiculous because the gained/lost energy of the photon should be accounted for by momentum gain/loss, but perhaps there is a space-energy conversion component.

Test 2: 1)arrange a time dilation test by accelerating a time counter. Sandwich it between 2 powerful LED arrays, one facing forward and on facing backwards. check if time dilation is affected when light is emitted forward and/or backwards.

I realize these are quite out there. And GR guys keep yelling at me "GR means no energy conservation" as if that answers my question.

For test 1 I am having trouble finding data. Will I have to calculate these myself? Are there any maps of expansion rates over time? is dark energy proved to be uniform throughout space or just assumed so?

-Is there some good data to help me get started (estimated historical expansion rates for regions of space, estimated radiation energy passing through regions of space)?

-Has anyone already looked into this or is there some literature that can explain why this hypothesis is wrong?

For test 2 I can easily build timers to compare, lights, and a spinning device. But I will need at least 1km/s and even then I would probably need to spin a 60cm disc at 1khz for days just get a single sample.

-Anyone have suggestions for how I can induce velocity time dilation reasonably? I assume spinning is my only reasonable option.

-can someone suggest a reasonable way to DIY a terahertz frequency timer for this application? (Mhz easy, GHz doable, THz I'm unclear)

-is there no real hope and s should I just submit the experiment to NASA or something?

-is this idea ridiculous? why?

A more theoretical disproof also works, but not just "GR means no energy conservation", something more specific to this hypothesis would be preferable.

Is there a better way to test this?

Thank you kindly in advance, Matthew DeBlock

[dirtbird]

Wonderful discussion, my favorite part at the beginning , the one gal states, mabey what all these observations are telling us is mabey we are missing some very fundamental pieces of the puzzle.
Spot on ! Keep working on it, I have no doubt we will learn more in time. We need patience.

[TheMyopie]

A very interesting group of speakers on a top matter. Great!

[onderozenc]

What pushes the universe apart is the intrinsic expansion of the universe that transforms the self- gravitational potential energy into ever increasing the kinetic energy like a compressed spring accelerates as it expands.

[gushutchinson]

My dad used to say to me when I was a little kid trying to draw trees ...son...rather than look at the leaves, look at the spaces inbetween the leaves.

[debyton]

A theorist's mission is not to rip on anyone but to come up with affirming hypotheses that seek to describe reality.

[UtraVioletDreams]

I'm a guy and I've seen lots and lots and lots and - well you get the idea - of these talks.. Seldom do I see a panel with more female then male, thumbs up.

[ChaineYTXF]

Everyone polite and humble.
Sabine enters: "I'm taking offense with the question"...😁

[bennguyen]

Regarding the title.. seems most of the discussion was on Dark Matter, not Dark Energy. I've heard Sabine on a podcast where she mentions that Dark Energy isn't very mysterious, however I haven't heard her describe exactly how this energy comes about that is causing the universe to accelerate.

[Eris]

I loved the comment buried away in this discussion about The LHC, "It's wonderful and it discovered The Higgs Boson, but actually it hasn't discovered anything else so far, " and it should have done and even then the discovery of the Higgs was a bit of a fudge and even now it still hasn't been confirmed to same stranded of accuracy that all the other Standard Models particles have been.

[jellymop]

Dude Sabine! First time seeing her in a Brian Greene style conference like this. One of my favorite physicists.

[jamesgraham]

Knowledge or reason exists and it also expresses the properties each existence possesses. It depends on the variable standards of truth, proof and evidence you wish to apply wither the knowledge is adequate for it's objective purposes or not. Knowledge always appears in a certain defined standardised form. Once a standard has been set and agreed that provides a platform to raise the standard or improve the knowledge. It's a moving target so it's subject to continuous assessment. There's a history being made.

[koenvanvlaenderen]

Is dark matter just another theoretical patch to cover up that GR is not universally true (Verlinde's hypothesis I suppose)? Or does this matter really exist, and GR is universal? Or a combination of both? We cannot answer the question which hypothesis is true, just by observing gravitic interaction, and since there is no electromagnetic radiation emitted by 'dark' matter apparently, the question remains unanswered. Ockham's razor is in favour of Eric Verlinde's hypothesis because it is the simplest explanation for the observations, that is all.

[kyberuserid]

By the time the last theme was introduced, I didn care what anybody had to say about it, I only wanted to know what was the deal with that damn door!