science fiction hour

IF you believe old and distant supernovae behave like more recent ones

THEN the expansion of the Universe is accelerating ( ie. further pushing since the Big Bang )

AND IF you believe General Relativity applies at cosmic scales

THEN this effect is labelled "dark energy" ( due to the position of a factor in the GR equations )

BUT no one knows why ..... :-) :-)

{ NB General Relativity does not specify which sort of Universe you are in, but given that you have one at all, it will define how it evolves. }

Cheers, Mike.

Yes we will all be one with the environment by then, ashes to ashes ... dust to dust.

But in reality, for most of us, The Universe may as well be emitted from the left nostril of the Great Green Arkleseizure or the Easter Bunny's Favorite Uncle or whatever .... :-)

Cheers, Mike.

The key here is somewhat buried in the subtle wording :

and

... or if you like in plainer speak, this theorist has embedded repulsion in his extension to classic GR. Not surprisingly this then gives the appearance of 'predicting' universal expansion when that was actually his input to the theory for that purpose. More accurate writing/reporting/rephrasing might be :

"a newly constructed extension to general relativity predicts that the gravitational interaction between matter and antimatter is mutually repulsive"

whereas :

is absolutely plain wrong, given that Einstein constructed GR two decades prior to the discovery, or even postulation, of anti-matter. By all means extend GR, or not, as you please for some current purpose. But let's not pretend that GR had Villata’s predictions embedded all along.

Now there is nothing wrong per se with such speculation etc, that's what theorists do. At least he admits the biggest issue :

So who has the "woolly concept" now, eh ? Undetectable antimatter replaces undetectable energy. What a huge stride forward.

In any case he lets drop that he is sci-fi author looking for a publisher, with his latest novel exploring the implications of his theory ......

.... and maybe, just maybe, phys.org ought take a few breaths before propagating ideas from anyone who thinks contradiction by reality is merely prejudicial to a theory :

Hey .... the word your looking for is wrong by the age old measure in physics -> reference to reality. Or is that metric being redefined now ? This 'explanatory' technique is so common now, just buff the meanings of words to advocate away the real world. Yes, anything might be true inside a human mind ( that's what groupthink & cults are for ). Cue Area51 ....... absence of evidence becomes proof ..... I assert therefore you must disprove ..... future/unspecified evidence will arise to rebut ..... if only the universe was different then I would be right ....

Cheers, Mike.