Science
Related: About this forumThe Universe Is Made of Tiny Bubbles Containing Mini-Universes, Scientists Say
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'Spacetime foam' might just be the wildest thing in the known universe, and we're just starting to understand it.
By Carly Minsky
Oct 24 2019, 7:00am
A persistent cosmological puzzle has been troubling physicists since 1917: what is the universe made of?
Complicating this already-mind-boggling question is the fact that our best theories conflict with our observations of the universe. Albert Einstein, according to scientific folklore, felt a unique responsibility for introducing this entire problem, reportedly referring to it as his "biggest blunder."
Essentially, Einstein's novel theory of general relativity didnt hold up when used to describe the universe as a whole. General relativity described the "geometry" of spacetime as being a trampoline-like surface; planets are heavy bowling balls that distort the surface, creating curves. If a less heavy ball (like a marble) was placed near the bowling ball, it would roll along the surface just like the motion of planets in orbit. Thus, orbits are explained not by a gravitational force but by curvature in spacetime.
This proposal worked when considering small regions of spacetime. But when Einstein applied it to the entire universe, its predictions didn't fit. So, Einstein introduced the "cosmological constant," a fixed value that represents a kind of anti-gravity, anti-mass, and anti-energy, counteracting gravitys effects. But when scientists discovered that the universe was expanding rather than static, as Einstein had believed, the cosmological constant was set to zero and more or less ignored. After we learned that the universes expansion is accelerating, however, scientists could no longer conveniently cancel out Einsteins anti-gravity suggestion.
More:
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/j5yngp/the-universe-is-made-of-tiny-bubbles-containing-mini-universes-scientists-say?utm_source=vicefbus&fbclid=IwAR0AVA7s61NcoyZIhQiOZ22P8VeacKIcIgH16EzOpbWrNpwWq3gax2_2bxw
Botany
(70,617 posts)So that is where my sun glasses went. I have always though that the area where things go
when they are lost is a curvature in spacetime of behind my couch.
Jarqui
(10,131 posts)Wounded Bear
(58,755 posts)Javaman
(62,534 posts)keithbvadu2
(36,970 posts)This stuff is way beyond my ken.
I need the Reader's Digest or USA Today version.
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)and then they make a theory about it that cannot be either proved or disproved. It's sort of like religion.
Javaman
(62,534 posts)pscot
(21,024 posts)than the notion that we're all NPCs in computer simulation.