Thanks VEGANGELICA for the link to the Krauss/Scherrer article on
The End of Cosmology. Good premise, that information on how the universe began is disappearing. The Krauss/Scherrer collaboration is on a recent theory that dark energy appears to be accelerating the expansion of the universe.
EVIDENCE FOR DARK ENERGY
In 1998, published observations of Type Ia supernovae ("one-A") by the High-z Supernova Search Team followed in 1999 by the Supernova Cosmology Project suggested that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Since then, these observations have been corroborated by several independent sources. Measurements of the cosmic microwave background, gravitational lensing, and the large scale structure of the cosmos as well as improved measurements of supernovae have been consistent with the 'standard' (Lambda-CDM) model of the cosmological constant.
The more recent 'WiggleZ' project in Australia, which measured the redshifts of 240,000 distant luminous blue-star-forming galaxies from 2006-2011, apparently supports current dark energy theory that the universe is made up of 71.3% dark energy and 27.4% of a combination of dark matter and ordinary baryonic matter (according to wikipedia).
Dark energy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In short, faraway objects are gaining speed as they recede from us, presumably because of dark energy. And the dark energy model is consistent with measurements of other observables that are independent of the recession-velocity measurements.
In a lecture to the Atheist Alliance International (AAI), Krauss puts it another way:
Quote:
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Nothing isn't nothing anymore. Virtual particles in empty space are reponsible for 90% of all mass everywhere. 90% of the stuff of clusters and galaxies are dark matter. Dark matter is exotic because we know how many nucleons there are in the universe, and there's not enough to account for dark matter. 70% of the dominant energy in the universe resides in empty space, and we have no idea why it's there. Everything we see, including stars, galaxies and the atoms in our bodies constitutes a 1% pollution of a universe that's 30% dark matter and 70% dark energy.
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This is startling news.
Wikipedia has a good article on Krauss that made me enthusiastic about following his work. But when I found the video of an hour-long lecture he gave to AAI, I realized I'd seen it before in connection with researching Richard Dawkins. I don't like Krauss' combative attitude and his tendency to politicize his science by gratuitously insulting people (which is why I didn't listen to the whole lecture the first time I found it). He also lacks the humility he says everyone else should have. Overall giving me a tension headache. That's not to say that his science isn't good. I'd just rather hear it from someone else. But here's the lecture:
Episode 15 – Dr. Lawrence Krauss | Smart People Podcast
I'll leave the the Carroll/Chen musings on the arrow of time for Lucifer to unravel.
