the cosmological constant was made up by einstein to "fix" his calculations.
it si now being treated as somewhat right IF the theory that there is a Dark Energy causing increased expansion of the universe.

Now, what I am saying is that the entire cycl of the Universe is one thing, and if the initial Inflation has continued un-abated since the big bang, then the fact that space itself is expanded between all the macro-sources of gravitational pull, thereby lessening the collective gravitational pull (going from 2x distance apart to 4x distance apart does not halve the gravitational pull, it quarters it, and so on as the square of the distance involved) would mean less of a "pull-back on the overall expansion of the Universe, allowing that self-same initial Inflation to "seem" to steadily increase from our vantage point.

this wold not require the mystical Dark Energy or a cosmological constant.

I was reading up on Dark Energy..but...ANywho...I have to get back to mindless farming on a very unpopular MMORPG...I'll read the rest later.

dark matter makes for fantastic fuel for your intergallactic space cruiser... if you can lift it!

I'm pretty sure that this is false, Rob. I can't give you the name of the man who realized (or helped realize) that the universe was expanding, but he used the Doppler effect but with light, noting that many galaxies had a red light shift. It is in an episode of Cosmos with Carl Sagan, but I've let my dvds to a friend, so I can't check it now.

Edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM_4w...e=channel_page

Go to about 1:20 and then I think that shows it all...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_L._Humason

I'm gonna have to go with Glice. That whole bold part was a bunch of cosmological clauses in a big run on sentence that was hard to make heads or tails of.

Also, I find your history to be a little off. Hubble discovered the expansion? Hubble was launched in 1990, correct? But apparently they've done 1980s tests that have found that the expansion is accelerating?

a trillion is a shitton. a million millions.

Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 – September 28, 1953) was an American astronomer
He profoundly changed astronomers' understanding of the nature of the universe by demonstrating the existence of other galaxies besides the Milky Way. He also discovered that the degree of redshift observed in light coming from a galaxy increased in proportion to the distance of that galaxy from the Milky Way. This became known as Hubble's law, and would help establish that the universe is expanding.

If you wanna play wiki wars:

Humason
"His observations played a major role in the development of physical cosmology, including assisting Edwin Hubble in formulating Hubble's law."


Also, I retract my second post. I realize you were referring to Hubble the person, not the telescope.

nerdgasm.

why do you all tease me so/

If you were to take into account that the universe could very well be a small part of a much larger 'multiverse', then it would make sense why the expansion of the universe is accelerating. In such circumstances a tug o' war would be inevitable.

If this superstring theory has any truth, big bangs come in many shapes and sizes and are constantly taking place in multiple dimensions.

Read what Nima Arkani-Hamed has to say about it. He might very well have the answers to your questions.

I have read superstring theory and while I hope it may yield some testable hypothesis, as of today it is still pure conjecture, mathematically sound conjecture, but not testable in our world. (not yet maybe)
I have also read extensively of M-theory, and some physicist's ideas that gravity is the one force that traveles from universe to universe, but again, not testable.

True, but the idea of there being other universes beyond ours, makes more sense than a void of nothingness.
At least for me.

me too actually. I can;t wait to see where all this will lead!

fishdom