Just wanted to take this opportunity demonstrate how much
smarter I am than everybody else.
This morning (Friday, January 15, 2016) I was perusing the
news stories on my home page so thoughtfully, albeit slowly, provided by
ATT.net. It is my wont to read anything
I find about cosmology (the study of the origins of the Universe, not hair
styling) and physics. Today I hit a
treasure trove of personal validation!
If you tried to read the article to which you were directed
by following the link above but found it just a bit too esoteric, welcome to
the club. So, in my humble fashion, I
will paraphrase and get to the meat of the matter (meat of the matter, that’s a
physics joke… which just goes to show you I am not a humorless nerd). The article quotes Harry Cliff (no, I don’t know
who he is either), “It's the idea that we are reaching the absolute limit of
what we can understand about the world around us through science.” I think
he is just being a whiner; probably got turned down for that last grant
proposal. Every time science stalls a
bit, someone says, “That’s it, we’ve learned everything it is possible to
know. The rest will remain a mystery!” Horse Hockey!
But that is not the point of this special blog entry. The point is for me to brag.
In the article the author references the phenomenon of dark
energy. This is the mysterious force to
which cosmologists assign responsibility for the accelerating expansion of the
Universe. While scientists have been
able to measure the force, they cannot identify the source or cause. It is a mystery. “Still, we don't know what dark energy
is," Cliff admits. "But the best idea is that it's the energy of
empty space itself — the energy of the vacuum."
I now refer you to my blog posting of April 16, 2014, The Big Suck! in which I wrote:
I will propose that perhaps there is
nothing out there; just a big vacuum. And that our universe is expanding
into the void. That would explain how the expansion is
accelerating. As the stuff in our universe is expanding in all directions,
the gravitational attraction of galaxies is weakened by the increasing distance
between them, therefore allowing the expansion to accelerate. The
universe is not being pushed from within, but pulled from without!
Huzzah! Yes, I’m
tooting my horn. Basking in my own
self-generated spotlight. You are so
lucky to know me. Nobel nominations
should be submitted by September one. Now,
if only I could do the math.
As a very wise man was wont to say, "I don't understand everything I know about that."
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