Re: Question for Cosmologists

Nope. Inflation is what happens in the first very small instance of inflation. Dark energy was stronger in the past, reducing the expansion of the universe, when it grew weaker, the expansion accellerated.

----- Original Message ----
From: Rich Blinne <rich.blinne@gmail.com>
To: Don Nield <d.nield@auckland.ac.nz>
Cc: asa <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 9:03:47 PM
Subject: Re: Question for Cosmologists

On 1/12/06, Don Nield <d.nield@auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
> Rich Blinne wrote:
>
> > Note the following story in New Scientist
> > <http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn8566&feedId=online-news_rss20>:
> >
> > Dark energy – the mysterious force that drives the acceleration of the
> > universe – changes over time, controversial new calculations suggest.
> > If true, the work rules out Einstein's notion of a "cosmological
> > constant" and suggests dark energy, which now repels space, once drew
> > it together. [emphasis mine]
> >
> > My question for the cosmologists on this group is as follows: Does
> > this not imply that inflation is incorrect and by extension so is the
> > multiverse explanation of fine-tuning?
>
> My answer (as an amateur cosmologist) is Rich's question is "no". There
> is no such implication. The report in the New Scientist is concerned
> with changes over a few billion years, disjunct from the very short
> interval over which inflation is postulated to have occured.
> Don
>
>
Thanks. But, it would mean that dark energy would be repulsive,
attractive and, then repulsive again?
Received on Fri Jan 13 00:14:34 2006