Is dark energy a product of the vacuum of space, like gravity is the product of mass?
It seems to me that from the information that is out there on dark energy it is a product of space its self a repulsive force the opposite of gravity.
New theories claim that dark energy will completely disassemble all the matter in the universe over time even down to the subatomic level. Turning matter into energy and then dispersing energy almost to the point of being nonexistent.

Scary thought, although it will take an unfathomable length of time for this to happen

I would like to hear thoughts and theories on this subject, what could dark energy be? How is it generated? Could it be the 4th fundamental part of the universe after time space and energy?

LOL at the human trying to understand the universe.

no one knows for sure what dark matter is, but the human mind will keep searching and searching till their is an answer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rip
covers what your speaking of. Where all matter is dispersed into less dense forms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Crunch
is another theory where the whole Universe becomes a gravitational singularity again.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy
I had a look at this again, and the theories keep changing faster than the days on a calendar.

I'm more inclined to think that Dark Energy is comprised of more than one type, and that the interactions are stable. To an extent. The only thing I have to go on in formulating this, is the traversing of detectable energy forms that travel large distances. Such as Gamma Bursts, which in my opinion, would be significantly skewed if they were allowed to greatly accelerate through for what all intents and purposes would be a 'fluid' for them to gain momentum.

It's been forever since I looked at Astrophysics, and these new theories intrigue me. I'll have to look at them further.

Because of measurements done using the standard candle of a class 1a-supernova, astronomers have deduced that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. This is there reason for throwing the big crunch theory out and where the theory of dark-energy came from. It is also believed that there is not enough matter in the universe for it to collapse in upon its self.

One point should be maid though all of this is based on a standard candle, what kind of affects dose dark energy have on light?
There are a lot of unknowns with the aspect of dark energy that could change the way we look at the universe

we really don't know anything at all about dark energy ... it may not even exist.

http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn12...ark-energy.html

POOR HUMANS ALWAYS TRYING TO SOLVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THE UNIVERSE, WHICH THEY WILL NEVER FIND OUT BECAUSE GOD MADE THEM THAT WAY, GOD MADE THEM TO NOT KNOW EVERYTHING......[color="#FF0000"][/color]

I've always wondered something weird... Ok...

We are on the Earth, the Earth is in space, space is "in"(or is) the universe. The universe is..... where? No where? How is that logical? "The universe is no where". I'm sure someone will come along and try to explain it, but they don't even know themselves. We can't even comprehend it. Hell, we've never seen the "edge" of the universe. How would we know if there is or isn't an "end" to the universe? Sure, physics as we know it now may give us an idea, but we're talking about the frigging universe here! It never ceases to amaze us!

I have a possible explanation. But first dark energy is not a product of space, and gravity is not a product of mass. But repulsion is key to the solution. If you can accept the concept of somethingness existing, then you can understand a logical reason of what dark energy and gravity are and why. The lowest amount of information for "being" to exist in order to allow any recognition of an essence of something being ("for any awareness of anything"), require: 1 unit of somethingness, 1 unit of nothingness, two units of time, and 1 unit of gravity. Lets explain.
To be is to be something. In order to be aware of the something that is being, we must be able to compare it to somethingelse or at the very least be able to compare it to what it is not being. So we require 1-something and 1-nothing. We also must be able to compare the two this would mean acknowledging something and then acknowledging nothing and this requires a time to exist in and a force to pull or force change.
So nothing must exist as something then because it maintains a property. Its instructions is to not have any instuctions. Or the single property "nothing" has, is to not have any properties. So to remain being nothing it must not become something. This enforces that gravity and time are also required to be aware of anything at all. The somethingness must repel nothingness if the nothing is to remain being nothing. In order to repel the two conflicting units can exist in contradiction through time with gravity. The units can fluctuate or rotate positions through time with pull of gravity, or is gravity pulling time around?
Anyway by this line of thinking Dark energy could be seen as multiple effects of the repulsion of contradictions that are required for any existence to be, in any universe. And you could even see how energy is only required for awareness of existance but not for the existance of being. so even if the universe were spread out into complete equilibrium by dark energy, the existance should never quit only the dynamics of its entropy.

We have seen our visible edge of the universe. The edge of the universe is only the edge of where light has travelled that we are aware of. There is simply no means for understanding or describing if, if not, what or what isn't beyond the oldest light from our current perspectives. No one has proof or any better theory than anyother of what lays if anything beyond our known universe. We can simply see where light is travelling and it appears that it all started from a centralized location ( the singularity) or the point of impact for the "big bang". And we can see its furthest reaches travelled so far from our view. And that shapes our current universe. There are several possibilites that could result in whats beyond the light we know.

Don't be too sure. Here's an idea from a few years ago from one of the big names in inflationary cosmology, Andre Linde: article.

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them." - Galileo Galilei

Seeking answers to the burning questions and knowing every are completely different things.

we don't know what is on the outside of the universe because we were made not to find out, simple as that.......so stop being soo curious and live life and die

ok then so your saying that one day god will let you know how it is to die, or he wil explain evrything about the universe to you? maybe when your dead but you wont remember it anywase so yea , GOD made us to not know everything, and the universe kinda counts as everything

I understand that there are many things that are possible and that we like to think that we know what is going to happen. I believe in time we will know but at this point in time we have nothing but ideas and theories.

I must say I do like the big crunch theory better on a natural level nature seems to run in cycles it just seems to fit

Very nicely put I totally agree, information entertains mind

I’m here to learn and hopefully I can teach someone something in the proses

We'd still be living in caves if we all had that attitude.




I'm saying that, if there is a god, why would he put this universe exponentially bigger than us here and then try to tell us not to explore it? Considering the grandeur of natural world on every level, from the sub-atomic level up to the cosmological level, it seems almost a waste for a god to put us in this world just to kiss his ass and not ask questions.

Interesting, I understand the Universe is increasing in size or expanding, there are two theories at the moment which are pretty strong contenders, due to their scientific basis.

One is that the Univers will expand and just keep on expanding and expanding, leaving galaxies further away from each other, ending up with planets, stars and galaxies dying a cold death.

the second theory is that will expand to a point, where it will collapse on itsef, bit like a scroll being opened and when you let go, it just rolls back to it original form etc.

My opinion is that he second theory may prove right and everything may implode on itself or something like that, back to its original form maybe.

I found an interesting article that implies there could still be a "big crunch":

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2759

...
He and his colleagues have shown that according to some theories of supergravity, which try to describe gravity within the context of quantum theory, the dark energy from a scalar field will do more than simply reach zero - it will become negative and possibly even plunge as far as minus infinity.

This would slow the rate of expansion of the Universe and then put it into reverse, causing space and time to collapse to a point in a big crunch.
...

I haven't studied Physics in forever, although at one time I did want to go into observable phenomenon. I still think we'll cross an energy field of unknown dynamics that'll rip us to shreds. Even before another catastrophic event like most subscribe to: comets, asteroids, global warming, etc.

I think people like "asian-ghosts" should just stick to praying for their own selfish ends like all the so called religious people and leave ones who are driven by the thirst for knowledge to seek answers. They dont want to admit that the world is where it is only due to people who sought answers to the secrets of nature.

God Made us all "amen" we were made to handle all the mysteries of god. we all have senses that god intended for mankind to have. we were made by a devine creator. so how would the devine creator, create us not with a devine thought process. jesus is the example made flesh. divinity in thought, and spoke with devine truth. mankind lets open up our minds. there is life out there in space, does it matter? it does matter because god, would have never design it if it didn't. what i'm trying to say is, lets take off the blind fold, and stop being selfish in thinking we are the only one's. we have the knowledge of everything embedded in our brains, about the universe and everything else. but it was turn off in the garden due to our sins. that's why they say to seek god, is to seek for knowledge and wisdom. we all have knowledge and wisdom but god, is the only one who can awaken it inside of us. we can only obtain what was lost, only if we know what were looking for. accept it for what it's worth.

yea, LOL

they can't even understand their own body enough to make it immortal , much less understand the universe

yea i agree, the earth, yea mankind is where itis at today because of his findings, on earth, yea earth only, space has not gotten us anywhere, exept for the moon

exactly what im trying to tell them, thanx, we have not even discover our earth yet, so yall can quit space

One day, perhaps millions of years away, mankind might find the answer. Or perhaps the big crunch will happen and in a few minutes we'll find it. I have a thirst to know these things and even though I probably will never know them it's good to seek answers and see what you come up with.

Ignorance... thou hast no bounds!!! Just run a search on Google to see the how mankind has benefited from space science. It is pure stupidity to say that man should confine all his study only to this earth. Knowledge has no limits. Man's curiosity will take him everywhere. One day the survival of mankind would depend heavily on his knowledge of space and other worlds. The day you acquire some basic understanding of the universe you will know that the earth is not something entirely seperate from the space.