Alan Guth - How Does Dark Energy Drive the Universe?

Dark energy, the repulsive energy of empty space, was one of the most unexpected and astonishing discoveries in recent science. Most scientists had expected that the expansion of the universe would be slowing down due to the inward pull of gravity. In fact, the expansion of the universe is speeding up, revealing the presence of dark energy. What does it mean?

Alan Harvey Guth is an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist. Guth has researched elementary particle theory (and how particle theory is applicable to the early universe). He is currently serving as Victor Weisskopf Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he is the originator of the inflationary universe theory.

Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[cheesypotates]

Always look forward to these talks with Dr. Guth

[david.thomas.]

Alan Guth is such an articulate and fascinating speaker. Excellent interview!

[gregkocher]

It's good to have a big mystery to solve. It's the aspiring to reach deeper insights that makes us better.

[NothingMaster]

It’s always an absolute pleasure and a learning experience to listen to Alan Guth, even if you happen to be an expert in whatever area it is that he’s commenting on.

[sakismpalatsias]

I'm well aware of the discrepancy for vacuum energy. It could also be an aspect of vacuum energy that interacts with the fabric of spacetime.

Don't forget we may be clumping up vacuum energy all together, when we should not. Some may not play any role with the fabric of space time.

There may be certain interactions with certain fields. Ie the electromagnetic field with weak field Or Higgs field with quark gluon field. Or a reaction to the cancellation effect of the particles with some asymmetry. These would almost be akin to a quasi particle.

We also have ideas that the fabric of spacetime may be entanglement; ER=EPR which we theoretically think that wormholes expand naturally.

Thus, the interaction of specific fields along with the fabric of spacetime creates new space that we perceive as repulsive.

This last part is a stretch. But the fact remains we don't have enough data, yet, on vacuum energy that gives us definite results.

I am very intrigued on certain ongoing experiments that shall provide us with more data, that we can narrow down the search. Because until we have convergence of this new data, everything sounds speculative, because we are creating too many assumptions on various factors.

[kipponi]

I too scratching my head every day but it makes me bald not wiser😂.
But this man helps amount of wisdom👍

[jayski]

I've always wondered if "light" could be the dark energy we're looking for? By that I mean, the light we see is only that which is coming right at us. But things that generate light usually send it out in all directions. So all that other light energy is out there and just because we can't see it doesn't mean it's not out there.

[buckanderson]

If we tried to measure the distance between two singularities within black holes wouldn't we find it is expanding? Or at least we could extend our tape measures an infinite distance because you could never actually reach the singularities so the overall length of the tape measure would be by definition expanding. So the space between black hole singularities is expanding. Aren't there super massive black holes at the center of every galaxy and isn't the only reason we know the universe is expanding because we observe galaxies moving away from each other? So it is possible that black holes are responsible for expansion.

[lordemed]

'Dark energy' points to a reality that preceded the big bang. Reality existed before the big bang. Our universe's big bang was not the beginning of ultimate reality. It was the beginning of our reality, ie space-time and the universe we can observe.

[christianrelloso]

Observing the universe is awareness of itself or self awareness.

[jamesruscheinski]

if almost all of the virtual particles annihilate, would this eliminate almost all of the dark energy, leaving the odd particle produced to expand space at the cosmological constant?

[mickeybrumfield]

When something can be explained away as easy as snaping one's fingers like the anthropologist principal has the capacity to do, it is easy to see why leading cosmologists like Alan Guth see it as the option of last resort.

[TheZimberto]

Maybe all the matter in the universe is shrinking, so it looks to us like the universe is getting bigger.

[mtarnowski]

Is it true that dark energy is a problem for String Theory, which predicts a negative cosmological constant?

[jamesruscheinski]

could there be space below or beneath virtual particles that is expanding? maybe cosmological constant space expanding in or through quantum wave function?

[infinitygame]

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[Brent-wbtk]

ALL IS LIGHT. NO DUALITY NOR CAUSALITY🎉

[jml_]

Two observations: 1) I can only accept an anthropic argument if it can be shown that there is a selection process. That means evidence of other universes with different values for the vacuum energy. That seems unlikely. 2) The small but non-zero value of vacuum energy seems qualitatively like the slight matter antimatter imbalance, leaving a universe full of matter. In both cases, a net of zero would make more sense than what we find. While these are very different problems on the surface, they don't seem entirely unrelated. Both deal with fundamental balances of mass and energy types in the universe. Both remind me qualitatively of the symmetry breaking associated with the Higgs field. I'm curious if there is a relationship.

[rainy_wish_studios]

Maybe when a black hole aka singularity reaches a critical point where it can no longer contain it's warped, high density space time; it expands outward and energy and mass re-assimilate in space time. Like a giant spherical spring. And dark energy is just gravity that is still compressed.

[NataliaCh]

Maybe You should invite Neil Tyson DeGrasse and Chuck from the Startalk Channel and podcast cause they talked about simillar topic and maybe You could make episode or podcast with them?