Why is gravity a force and dark energy is energy?

Use this forum to discuss the philosophy of science. Philosophy of science deals with the assumptions, foundations, and implications of science.
Steve3007
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Re: Why is gravity a force and dark energy is energy?

Post by Steve3007 »

Atreyu:
Yes, obviously the two terms are defined differently in science. I was merely showing how, philosophically speaking, they can be reduced to two different aspects of the same thing.
I guess everything can be regarded as different aspects of the same thing because of this conviction we have that the same laws of physics can be used to describe everything in the universe. Clearly it's not very useful to do that. We have to have different quantities with different units of measurement.
When this Something is active and manifest to our senses, we say "a force is acting" or "a force is being applied", and when this Something is not being manifest to our senses, but we are referring to it conceptually, we speak about "energy". If a certain quantity of energy is said to be present, then a certain amount of potential force is also said to be present.
You probably think I'm being pedantic but I wouldn't use the term "potential force". Just "potential energy".
The idea is that when scientists speak of "dark energy", they are merely referring to the energy that theoretically must be present in order for the force of accelerating expansion to be applicable, which it apparently is. Just like mass (E=MC2) is the "energy" which also must theoretically exist in order for the force of gravity to be applicable, which it also apparently is.
As suggested by A Poster He Or I in post #2, I don't think they're talking about energy in any classically recognizable sense at all. It's just a label that is convenient for now. It may turn out to be useful to continue to think of it as analogous to the mass/energy concept that we're more familiar with. It may not. It'll probably continue to be referred to as "dark energy" even if not. Labels stick.

I think physics is so steeped in metaphor that it can be easy to fall into the trap of taking things too literally. For example, we still talk about electric and magnetic "flux" when referring to electromagnetic fields as if those fields were a liquid that flows out from sources and into sinks. We talk about electrons and "holes" (the absence of electrons) in semiconductors and treat the holes as "things" like the electrons. We talk about quantum mechanical "spin" even though it bares only a metaphorical relationship to classical spin. We talk about the "curvature" of space-time. We envisage electrons around a nucleus as being like fuzzy versions of planets orbiting a star. All metaphors, originating in our need to get hold of an intuitive, visualizable sense of how things work and not just represent it as pure mathematics.

When the concept of energy, as it is understood in physics, was being formed, along with the laws of thermodynamics, it was also very much thought of as a kind of fluid that can flow from one place to another. This fluid, in the context of heat energy, even had a name: caloric.
Blake 789
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Re: Why is gravity a force and dark energy is energy?

Post by Blake 789 »

No-one knows what dark energy is only that the expansion of the universe appears to be accelerating so it's hypothesised that some kind of energy is responsible for this to counteract the force of gravity which ought to be slowing it down. It could be that dark energy doesn't exist and there is a completely different explanation for what we observe.
YIOSTHEOY
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Re: Why is gravity a force and dark energy is energy?

Post by YIOSTHEOY »

Blake 789 wrote:No-one knows what dark energy is only that the expansion of the universe appears to be accelerating so it's hypothesised that some kind of energy is responsible for this to counteract the force of gravity which ought to be slowing it down. It could be that dark energy doesn't exist and there is a completely different explanation for what we observe.
I know exactly what dark energy is -- it is more of Hawking's B/S ("bad science").
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Atreyu
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Re: Why is gravity a force and dark energy is energy?

Post by Atreyu »

Blake 789 wrote:No-one knows what dark energy is only that the expansion of the universe appears to be accelerating so it's hypothesised that some kind of energy is responsible for this to counteract the force of gravity which ought to be slowing it down. It could be that dark energy doesn't exist and there is a completely different explanation for what we observe.
Yes, obviously.

And what I call the "Inflation Model" dispenses with any need for "dark energy" or "dark matter". Once science learns to regard expansion and growth as a fundamental property of the Universe, this dilemma will be resolved...
Steve3007
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Re: Why is gravity a force and dark energy is energy?

Post by Steve3007 »

When you say "fundamental property" I presume you mean "something which needs no deeper explanation or description. It just is.". Or something like that. If the universe's expansion is indeed accelerating then it's not doing it for any reason. That's just what universes do.

I think we could save ourselves a lot of bother and just say everything that ever happens is just a fundamental property. No need for any scientific investigation at all then.
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Rr6
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Re: Why is gravity a force and dark energy is energy?

Post by Rr6 »

Steve3007 wrote:I think we could save ourselves a lot of bother and just say everything that ever happens is just a fundamental property. No need for any scientific investigation at all then.
Ive stated it more accurately in previous posts. Everything is a resultant of the fundamental property of space-time, gravity.

I believe pushing-OUTward expansive, dark energy, is also a resultant of pulling-INward contractive gravity.

https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/a ... .dyeoi066j

..."Models that tie these two fields together, the inflationary field and the dark energy field, are known generically as quintessence.

....It’s pretty easy to make a quintessence model that works. The problem is, it’s pretty easy to make two separate models — one for inflation and one for dark energy — that work, too. We have two new phenomena and they require the introduction of at least two new “free parameters” to make the theory work. You can tie them together or not, but in no way are these models distinguishable from each other.

.....All we’ve been able to do, to date, is rule out certain classes of models where the early-time or late-time rates of expansion don’t agree with observation. But observations are also consistent with inflation is a thing on its own, and dark energy arises from a completely different source. I hate having to go through the full explanation of what we know, to have one phenomenon (inflation) occurring at an energy scale of around 10^15 GeV, to have another phenomenon (dark energy) at an energy scale of around 1 milli-eV, and then to have to say “we don’t know if they’re related,” but that’s the situation here.

.....Unfortunately, even with all the proposed missions we have — James Webb, WFIRST, LISA, and the ILC — we don’t anticipate this question being answered from the data anytime soon. Our best hope is for a theoretical breakthrough. And as someone who’s worked on this problem myself, I have no idea how we’ll get there."....

r6
"U"niverse > UniVerse > universe > I-verse < you-verse < we-verse < them-verse
YIOSTHEOY
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Re: Why is gravity a force and dark energy is energy?

Post by YIOSTHEOY »

Nova on PBS rebroadcast their feature on the Hubble space telescope yesterday (6/2/2016) and there were several interviews of professional academic astronomers and astrophysicists.

They all admitted that nobody knows why the galaxies have been expanding faster and faster over the past 5 billion years.

We did not even know this until the Hubble scope gave us the red shift data on it.

They called it "dark energy" but nobody knows what that really means -- it's just a hollow name for something that nobody knows anything about.

That's your answer then.
Steve3007
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Re: Why is gravity a force and dark energy is energy?

Post by Steve3007 »

YIOSTHEOY:
They all admitted that nobody knows why the galaxies have been expanding faster and faster over the past 5 billion years.
Do you regard an open declaration of lack of knowledge on a subject as a failing?
YIOSTHEOY
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Re: Why is gravity a force and dark energy is energy?

Post by YIOSTHEOY »

Steve3007 wrote:YIOSTHEOY:
They all admitted that nobody knows why the galaxies have been expanding faster and faster over the past 5 billion years.
Do you regard an open declaration of lack of knowledge on a subject as a failing?
If you don't stop belaboring things I am going to be forced to put you onto the ignore list just in order to clean up the threads with your seemingly useless posts.

Then you will have one less person to discuss philosophy with.

Consider this a suggestion for you to add substance to your rhetorical pseudo-dialectical questions.
Steve3007
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Re: Why is gravity a force and dark energy is energy?

Post by Steve3007 »

YIOSTHEOY wrote:
Steve3007 wrote:YIOSTHEOY:

(Nested quote removed.)


Do you regard an open declaration of lack of knowledge on a subject as a failing?
If you don't stop belaboring things I am going to be forced to put you onto the ignore list just in order to clean up the threads with your seemingly useless posts.

Then you will have one less person to discuss philosophy with.

Consider this a suggestion for you to add substance to your rhetorical pseudo-dialectical questions.
Your philosophy is really weak.

How's that?
YIOSTHEOY
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Joined: May 25th, 2016, 5:34 pm

Re: Why is gravity a force and dark energy is energy?

Post by YIOSTHEOY »

Steve3007 wrote:
YIOSTHEOY wrote: (Nested quote removed.)

If you don't stop belaboring things I am going to be forced to put you onto the ignore list just in order to clean up the threads with your seemingly useless posts.

Then you will have one less person to discuss philosophy with.

Consider this a suggestion for you to add substance to your rhetorical pseudo-dialectical questions.
Your philosophy is really weak.

How's that?
Goodbye Steve3007. I warned you.
Steve3007
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Joined: June 15th, 2011, 5:53 pm

Re: Why is gravity a force and dark energy is energy?

Post by Steve3007 »

Yes, I realize I have only myself to blame. Ta ta.
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Mark1955
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Re: Why is gravity a force and dark energy is energy?

Post by Mark1955 »

Rr6 wrote:I've been very clear, concise and precise. The problem lies with those who cannot accept truth when it is presented to them in clear, concise and precise definitions ergo most refined.
Well maybe I'm just thick, I'd like to understand what you're trying to say but I'm afraid it doesn't make sense so a claim to be 'clear' seems unreasonable.
If you think you know the answer you probably don't understand the question.
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Atreyu
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Re: Why is gravity a force and dark energy is energy?

Post by Atreyu »

Steve3007 wrote:When you say "fundamental property" I presume you mean "something which needs no deeper explanation or description. It just is.". Or something like that. If the universe's expansion is indeed accelerating then it's not doing it for any reason. That's just what universes do.

I think we could save ourselves a lot of bother and just say everything that ever happens is just a fundamental property. No need for any scientific investigation at all then.
No. What I meant by "fundamental property" is something like the idea of "force". The four known forces are "fundamental properties" of the Universe.

What I mean is that if the Universe can be regarded as having the fundamental property of expansion/growth, i.e. if we can regard this expansion/growth as something like one of the four known forces of the Universe, then we can dispense with needing to make current particle theory conform to what we see happening. We no longer need to assume that some particle is involved in the accelerating expansion. We can just say that this fundamental property overrides, or takes precedence, over the force of gravity (another fundamental property) at the most macro-level of the Universe. Much like gravity takes precedence over electromagnetism when we are explaining the behavior of large cosmic bodies. We don't need to make electromagnetism fit in with the behavior we see in large cosmic bodies. We merely say that the force of gravity is more applicable here, that it applies to large bodies, while electromagnetism, another fundamental property, only applies at the atomic level. The force of gravity overcomes any concerns we might have concerning the charges of electrons and protons, because on that scale (large cosmic bodies) the force of gravity plays a much bigger role than the force of electromagnetism does.

Now just apply the same general principle to the phenomena of accelerating expansion. The force of expansion is more applicable at the most macro-level of the Universe than gravity is. It's a more applicable force there. It overrides the force of gravity. Once the force of accelerating expansion (or, more simply, just the general force of expansion/growth) is regarded as a fundamental force (fundamental principle), we will no longer need to posit whether or not the Higgs-boson is involved.

But since expansion is not viewed as a fundamental force (fundamental property) like the other four known forces are, this is not how science proceeds. No such fundamental force is acknowledged, only the known four are said to be possibly at play (and in this case, only gravity, due to the scale taken), and so there must be some kind of missing matter....
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Rr6
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Re: Why is gravity a force and dark energy is energy?

Post by Rr6 »

We know, or believe there exist a pushing-OUTward and away phenomena is identifed as dark energy, that, Ive repeated, over last year now, I believe is a 2nd property of space-time. We do not get any more fundamental than space-time properties. imho


I believe pushing-OUTward expansive, dark energy, is also a resultant of pulling-INward contractive gravity. Stars are believed to be resultants of gravity and some stars push-OUTward photons of radiation.

Some stars expand as larger red stars ex Sol is believed to become a red giant.

Some stars go nova on us. Some go super-nova on us an some go hyper-nova on us, and all of those expansive, pushing-OUTward phenomena are believed to be resultant of pulling-INward contractions of gravity.

The brain sends only one signal to muscles and that signal is to contract INward. The womb contracts and fetus/baby is expelled etc....

OUTward expanding, finite occupied space Universe, leads to alledged heat death of occupied space Universe. The Universe is believe to become one/single very large, lowest frequency ( longest wave ) photon.

This phase of Universe is the weakest state/phase, and gravity now takes over. Gravity is the ultimate determiner of the fate of Universe, not dark energy and not inflation. Gravity is like the tortise that is eternally trudging INward, even as the rabbit of dark energy and or inflation speed-off and OUTward only to eventually burn out and the gravity tortise pulls-these weaken ones back INward.

https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/a ... .dyeoi066j

..."Models that tie these two fields together, the inflationary field and the dark energy field, are known generically as quintessence.

....It’s pretty easy to make a quintessence model that works. The problem is, it’s pretty easy to make two separate models — one for inflation and one for dark energy — that work, too. We have two new phenomena and they require the introduction of at least two new “free parameters” to make the theory work. You can tie them together or not, but in no way are these models distinguishable from each other.

.....All we’ve been able to do, to date, is rule out certain classes of models where the early-time or late-time rates of expansion don’t agree with observation. But observations are also consistent with inflation is a thing on its own, and dark energy arises from a completely different source. I hate having to go through the full explanation of what we know, to have one phenomenon (inflation) occurring at an energy scale of around 10^15 GeV, to have another phenomenon (dark energy) at an energy scale of around 1 milli-eV, and then to have to say “we don’t know if they’re related,” but that’s the situation here.

.....Unfortunately, even with all the proposed missions we have — James Webb, WFIRST, LISA, and the ILC — we don’t anticipate this question being answered from the data anytime soon. Our best hope is for a theoretical breakthrough. And as someone who’s worked on this problem myself, I have no idea how we’ll get there."....
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