A little bit of what you like does you good...

Well at least it has allowed us to get where we are. Where we are seems less each year. Confused? Ok I challenge you to read to the end of the article and then click on some links. I’m talking about understanding the Universe! Not heavy maths, just getting a feel for current thinking. I have a passing interest in the Universe: we all do, in more ways than one.  When I was but a lad, the Universe was a pretty big place. As I grew older there was more and more of it discovered and it became weirder and weirder. "Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think."  and that was back at the turn of the last century.  We can do, see and have thoughts about a lot more since then.

So what’s new about the Universe?

It’s dark, dark and now more dark. It appears that dark is this year’s black. Over the last century we started with something dark matter: it’s there, we can’t see it. We can see that it apparently causes stars to move in ways they would not if it wasn’t there. It also causes light to bend. This is called gravitational lensing.  Then we then got dark energy: to distinguish this from dark matter, dark energy is apparently what is causing the Universe to expand. What is more it appears the Universe is expanding more quickly now than it did in the past. The common or garden stuff we can see, feel and touch directly (matter and light) only forms about a twentieth of the observable Universe. We can’t find this exotic dark stuff. Put it another way scientists have found they have lost the majority of the (exotic) stuff in the universe: which is quite careless when you think about it.

So what’s really new about the Universe?

Now there may be more darkness. Something now called ‘dark motion’ has recently been measured. This like dark matter and energy is a measurable effect of which we can find no directly observable cause.  Basically numbers of Galaxies may be moving in a way they should not. If they are: something must be causing this. If it is: it’s not part of the observable Universe. It’s a bit like seeing the headlights of a car approaching from around a bend at night. You can see the effect of the cars headlights as the bend is illuminated, but the car its self is hidden from view. There is something attracting distant galaxies but we can’t see what.
The real problem is that until now the Universe appeared balanced and surprisingly uniform. If there is something ‘off to one side’ that is measurably pulling part of the Universe one way then it isn’t balanced. Recent accepted theories about how the Universe formed have so far been based on the observation that the Universe appears very uniform. These would all be wrong. Ooops! If you’d like to find out more there is a programme in the Horizon series: Is everything we know about the Universe wrong?   I’m looking forward to it.

For more about dark energy and matter:

http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=1272
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_040712.html
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/81035932.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100211141146.htm

For more on dark motion:

Horizon: Is everything we know about the Universe wrong?
Space com
New Scientist

Quotes:
Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.       Werner Heisenberg
Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.       Sir Arthur Eddington