Back in the day, Einstein, after discovering a few important implications about gravity, through the theory of relativity, realized that if there is a certain amount of gravitational force between two objects, then, every object in the universe must be pulled towards the other.

Einstein didn’t like this idea much, so he came up with a new force called the Cosmological constant. This force would counter gravity causing the universe to be static, or standing still… Einstein later called this his biggest blunder, when the Hubble telescope was used to discover that the universe is expanding, and definitely not standing still.

Nearly 10 years ago, physicists found out that not only is the universe expanding, but its expansion is accelerating. Now, just think about what that means for a second. That means that gravity is being overcome by something. It’s effect isn’t wholly resisting some other force that is forcing galaxies apart.

Scientists are now finding that there must be some cosmological constant to explain this accelerated expansion. They’re calling it dark energy, and it’s not just enough to overpower gravity, but they’re saying that this ‘dark energy’ makes up roughly 74% of the universe.

Observing these galaxies that are accelerating away from ours, physicists are able to calculate what’s called the “w-parameter” which describes the ‘density’ of this dark energy (or just the cosmological constant) that opposes gravity. In order for Einstein to be correct with the model he created, the w-parameter must be exactly -1.

So what have they calculated? The team doing the research won’t have a final answer until next year, but as of now… it is -1 with a plus or minus 10% error! So, according to these results, Einstein was correct in what he called his biggest blunder. Now this isn’t just it. After this, there is a lot of theorizing and explaining to do.

Physics describes physical phenomena, but there is absolutely no explanation for why this dark energy exists or how it manifests itself without being traced. There are many (currently) untestable theories of the universe that could explain it, but obviously, physicists have a long way to go.

School is going really well. The great thing that happened recently is that I got a job as a tutor in the Math Assistance Center at IUPUI. It’s been going really well. It feels great to be helping students with math. I’ve decided that if the physics isn’t as fun in practice as it is in study, then I’d really like to teach.

I already know my schedule for next semester. I’m kind of taking it easy. I’m only taking 12 credit hours next semester, but those 12 credit hours are composed of Calculus II, Chemistry II, and Mechanics (my first physics class), so I guess it’s not taking it easy. I don’t know. But I’m going to get off school everyday between noon and 1:30. This means I’ll definitely be able to at least help with the musical. And I’m really excited about that.

Not much else has been going on. Olivia and I are coming up on 9 months this Friday. Speaking of Olivia, she and the Marching Woodmen won at the State Championship on Saturday! They were so great! I’m so proud of her!

School has just been going really well. I’m getting straight As from what I can tell.

I picked up one of the physics books I bought a long time ago and started reading it yesterday. I have not read anything of that sort since January, so I figured I better get back on it.

It’s called Faster that the Speed of Light by Joao Magueijo. The basic idea of the book is very rebellious but still respectable in the world of physics. It’s a speculation against Einstein’s great theories of relativity. All books about modern physics have explanations of the special and general theories of relativity before they go into what they’re about. I’ve read about the theories of relativity in like 5 books now, so I just started on the chapter that follows general relativity.

It was the perfect place to start. With every book about physics, I’m always learning new ways of looking at relativity. It’s one of the most “open to the reader” theories ever. That’s why I love it so much. The reader can analyze what’s being said and then play around with the ideas in thought. The first thing I read about was the theory of ether.

Ether was an idea that came up around 1905 when Einstein published special relativity. In every other book I’ve read, it sounds like a really cracked out idea that doesn’t make much sense, but this book did a great job of explaining why they came up with it. Ether is just a substance that exists in the void of space that we cannot see or track down. They said that it exists everywhere that we can see. The reason why we needed to pretend there was “something” in the “nothingness” of space was because light waves were going through nothing. Every other wave has a medium that it vibrates through. Sound waves, ocean waves, etc. But light had no known medium. One might ask, “well, how would you go about proving that there is ether?” There were experiements carried out called the Michelson-Morley experiments. Basically, if there is an ether ocean everywhere, then the Earth is rotating around the sun through it. So the experiments were trying to prove that there is an ether wind, that light travels slower if you point it against the direction of Earth’s rotation around the sun. It makes sense!

Unfortunately, for the ether theory advocates, the light did not change speed. It held one universal speed regardless of where they pointed it. The negative results support Einstein’s special theory of relativity all the way. What’s crazy is Einstein was basically saying that light is a vibration that has no medium. It is the only wave that can propagate through a perfect vacuum. That meant that nothing could change its speed. At least that’s what he thought in 1905. His equation was energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared. It was soon after that he realized… things could bend light- change its path. If light has an energy, then light can be converted into mass, which means it has gravity. Not only does it have gravity, but it is pulled by gravity, as well. Since it moves so quickly, there is a very little effect relative to light flying by Earth because Earth’s pull is relatively weak compared to the sun’s pull.

I’m starting to get off topic, though. As you can see, it’s easy to roam away from the main point when thinking about relativity. It’s pure genius. I hope you enjoyed the lesson and understood!