Posted by Jonathan (68.14.212.239) on October 12, 2003 at 03:05:19:
In Reply to: A 'Cosmic Jerk' That Reversed the Universe posted by Scott Ellis on October 11, 2003 at 00:20:41:
I haven't actually read the article, but could it be that the equation for gravity changes digitally at some distance so that the 'G' of F=GM1M2/d^2 suddenly becomes negative and nonlinear? (Like G=-x^2?)
: A 'Cosmic Jerk' That Reversed the Universe
: By DENNIS OVERBYE (The New York Times)
: Published: October 11, 2003
: Astronomers said on Friday that they had determined the time in cosmic history when a mysterious force, "dark energy," began to wrench the universe apart.
: Five billion years ago, said Dr. Adam Riess, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, the universe experienced a "cosmic jerk." Before then, Dr. Riess said, the combined gravity of the galaxies and everything else in the cosmos was resisting the expansion, slowing it down. Since the jerk, though, the universe has been speeding up.
: The results were based on observations by a multinational team of astronomers who used the Hubble Space Telescope to search exploding stars known as Type 1a supernovas, reaching back in time three-quarters of the way to the Big Bang, in which the universe was born. The results should help quell remaining doubts that the expansion of the universe is really accelerating, a strange-sounding notion that has become a pillar of a new and widely accepted model of the universe as being full of mysterious dark matter and even more mysterious dark energy.
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