Cosmological Constant and Dark Energy has been in the news for months.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1iA8haPBe0In this weekly science news, from May 2023, we see an institution made news by conducting an experiment, which supports Quantum Loop Gravity.The CMB is somewhat consistent with some aspects of Loop Quantum Gravity.The physicist in the video shoots this news story down, a bit.On that note, a roundtable in London, will be looking at Dark Energy and the ailing Cosmological Constant

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Cosmologists convene to question accepted view of the universe - Thred Website

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Cosmologists convene to question accepted view of the universe
TECH
SCIENCE
Posted 15 April, 2024

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By Jamie Watts
London, UK

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Some of the world’s top cosmologists are meeting at London’s Royal Society to scrutinise an accepted theory on the universe’s formation. The view, formed in 1922, suggests that the universe is a vast, even expanse with no notable features.

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In recent years, though, a backlog of astronomical observations has cast doubt on the accepted science and raised the question of whether humanity’s current cosmology model needs revising – or perhaps throwing out entirely.

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‘The theoretical basis is past its sell-by date,’ declares Oxford University cosmologist Professor Subir Sakar, who is co-organising a crunch meeting including some of the field’s biggest brains at London’s Royal Society.

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Many of the conference’s attendees are ready to posit alternative views with file-binders of evidence in-hand. ‘More and more people are saying the same thing and these are respected astronomers,’ Sakar clarified.

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These anomalous findings include observations that suggest the universe is expanding quicker in certain regions than others, evidence of cosmic flows – huge celestial tracks where the universe should be smooth and featureless – and a ‘lopsided’ view of the cosmos that could undermine the basis for dark energy.

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Cosmological Constant in trouble, unless gravitational clusters are reason for differing speeds:

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Top Astronomers Gather to Confront Possibility They Were Very Wrong About the Universe

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TOP ASTRONOMERS GATHER TO CONFRONT POSSIBILITY THEY WERE VERY WRONG ABOUT THE UNIVERSE

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A number of researchers have found evidence that the universe may be expanding more quickly in some areas compared to others, raising the tantalizing possibility that megastructures could be influencing the universe's growth in significant ways.

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Sarkar and his colleagues, for instance, are suggesting that the universe is "lopsided" after studying over a million quasars, which are the active nuclei of galaxies where gas and dust are being gobbled up by a supermassive black hole.

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The team found that one hemisphere actually hosted slightly more of these quasars, suggesting one area of the night sky was more massive than the other, undermining our conception of dark energy, a hypothetical form of energy used to explain why the universe is expanding at an accelerated rate.

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Other researchers have suggested that the cosmological constant, which has been used for decades as a way to denote the rate of the universe's expansion, actually varies across space, which would contradict the standard model of physics.

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Daily Star Lebanon gives details:

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Cosmologists poised to challenge universe-viewing standards

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At this conference, taking place from April 15th to 16th, leading cosmologists will explore the implications of recent astronomical discoveries that suggest inconsistencies in this long-held assumption. Professor Subir Sarkar from the University of Oxford, one of the conference’s organizers, noted in The Guardian that new high-profile observations indicate the universe might expand at different rates in different areas and contain massive structures that defy existing theories.

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One of the intriguing presentations will be by Dr. Nathan Secrest from the US Naval Observatory, who will discuss findings from over 1 million quasars. His research suggests a slight asymmetry in the distribution of these quasars across the universe’s hemispheres, a potential challenge to the concept of dark energy which accounts for two-thirds of the universe.

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Additionally, Dr. Konstantinos Migkas from Leiden University will present data suggesting that the Hubble constant— the rate of the universe’s expansion—varies in different parts of space, contradicting predictions based on the standard model.

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PhD student Alexia Lopez from the University of Central Lancashire will introduce discoveries of cosmic megastructures like the Big Ring and Giant Arc, which exceed the scale at which the universe is expected to be homogeneous and featureless. These findings prompt questions about the fundamental assumptions underpinning all cosmological theories.

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In conclusion, as cosmology faces potentially paradigm-shifting evidence, Professor Wendy Freeman points out the “tantalising threads” revealed by the James Webb Space Telescope that necessitate further investigation to determine where the standard model might fall short. This conference promises to be a significant event in the ongoing exploration of our universe’s mysteries.

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In light of all this, here is a recent study which, on reflections, seems amusing.https://phys.org/news/2024-03-precise-dark-energy-ai.htmlNot at all what the really big 2024 studies have been showing us. Amazing contradictions, no? Crazy.Back to the avalanche:Here is yet another study that contradicts what was thought about Dark Energy

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The Universe
Surprise! The universe's expansion rate may vary from place to place
News
By Mike Wall published April 9, 2020

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The new results challenge a core tenet of modern cosmology.

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The universe may not be the same in every direction after all.

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The expansion rate of the universe appears to vary from place to place, a new study reports. This finding, if confirmed, would force astronomers to reassess just how well they understand the cosmos.

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"One of the pillars of cosmology — the study of the history and fate of the entire universe — is that the universe is 'isotropic,' meaning the same in all directions," study lead author Konstantinos Migkas, of the University of Bonn in Germany, said in a statement. "Our work shows there may be cracks in that pillar."

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It's possible that this result has a relatively prosaic explanation. For example, perhaps galaxy clusters in the anomalous areas are being pulled hard gravitationally by other clusters, giving the illusion of a different expansion rate.

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Such effects are seen at smaller spatial scales in the universe, the researchers said. But the new study probes clusters up to 5 billion light-years away, and it's unclear if gravitational tugs could overwhelm expansion forces over such vast distances, they added.

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If the observed expansion-rate differences are indeed real, they could reveal intriguing new details about how the universe works. For instance, maybe dark energy itself varies from place to place throughout the cosmos.

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"It would be remarkable if dark energy were found to have different strengths in different parts of the universe," study co-author Thomas Reiprich, also of the University of Bonn, said in the same statement. "However, much more evidence would be needed to rule out other explanations and make a convincing case."

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The new study appears in the April 2020 issue of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. You can read it for free at the online preprint site arXiv.org.

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Surprise! The universe's expansion rate may vary from place to place | Space

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Above was just amazing.Here is another study based on a study published December 2023 in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, in which researchers from the University of Copenhagen and the Tokyo Institute of Technology, which challenges Dark Energy's details. (Not as powerful observational evidence as the might studies above)Our Universe Is Swallowing Baby Parallel Universes As It Expands, Scientists SuggestWhat a (fatal?) year for the Cosmological Constant.My God!

It has been my long held view, as my past posts, at EvC, demonstrate.But the avalanche of negative evidence - only this year - has been unreal.Simply unreal.

The discussion surrounding the potential challenges to the established views of the universe, particularly related to Dark Energy and the Cosmological Constant, is fascinating. The fact that top cosmologists are convening to question these long-held assumptions and proposed theories like Loop Quantum Gravity and the potential variability of the expansion rate of the universe is truly mind-boggling.The idea that the universe may not be isotropic and that there could be variations in the expansion rate from place to place raises significant questions about our current understanding of cosmology. The potential implications of these findings, if confirmed, could revolutionize our understanding of the universe and how it operates.With studies challenging the details of Dark Energy and proposing theories like the universe swallowing baby parallel universes, it seems like we are on the cusp of a paradigm shift in cosmology. It will be interesting to see how these discussions and findings unfold and how they shape our future understanding of the universe.

I don’t understand what your problem is with evolving scientific knowledge. Yes, our understandings about reality change and may recycle then change again. But, your tone seems accusatory towards new science. I’m lost to your overly emotional angst with this.Humans are, of course, at our species’ pinnacle of scientific knowledge. And we are learning more faster than ever before. Ray Kurzweil’s technological singularity was in our past. We are well beyond the elbow on the upward curve in his graph. Every discipline in every science is staffed by hundreds, thousands, of our species best really smart people. We add literally millions of new data points of evidence across all the scientific disciplines each day. Millions of new papers with new analyses are added to our knowledge pool constantly.We are living in the midst of the greatest scientific epoch in human history. We should be celebrating each and every revelation reality shows us, even if it’s something we saw 100 years ago in a different light. It is good. Not evil.I do not understand, as I perceive, your hard, mocking, almost fearful emotional angst over changes in our scientific understanding. There shouldn’t be any emotional component to this stuff at all.If some form of cosmological constant is needed to make our models more accurate, or if no cosmological constant is necessary to the models at all, is something the universe will tell us as we collect more accurate data with stronger analysis. And that view and that math and that model may change yet again 100 years hence. It is what it is.The goal is to learn the reality not fear it.Seriously, what is this emotional angst you seem to feel so strongly about the presence, absence, history of the cosmological constant?

I was watching a Brian Greene interview from late 2023 or early 2024.He covered some issues he would talk about in the multi-hour program.He said he needs to explain to people the difference between Dark Energy and the observational evidence for Dark Energy.He never got around to it.I was upset he did not.Because it has been a pretty big problem for people to understand the difference.Do you have a clue, why I feel concerned that NOT ONLY the general public does not understand the nuances, but EVEN those who understand (a little) MORE than the general public fail to understand.It is not about UNKNOWN unknowns.It is not even what the scientific community possesses in the KNOWN UNKNOWNS category.It, actually, it the non-scientific community being very very confused, that has earned my concern.(That is just the beginning of my concerns)(conCERN)

That lay people do not understand the technicalities of a complex physical system does not impact the data at all. Most lay people don't understand the physics of their refrigerator. What big problem? I see. I think your concerns may be ill founded. The public doesn't care how it works as long as the beer is cold. And, frankly, as far as I can see, scientists have better things to do than track and correct all the media misunderstandings of their work. They don't think any more about the public understanding than the public thinks about understanding.If you're so emotionally injured by Brian Greene's talk you should go find someone else. The internet is blessed with a lot of good science communicators covering all the hard science in enough detail for good, if not expert, understanding. If what is available is not in depth technical enough for your wants then you are going to have to engage in concentrated self-study.I still don't see how this elicits such a strong emotional reaction. Are you naturally this high strung about (what I consider) mundane topics?

I like Brian GreeneHis book on the Many World's Interpretation, was the one that made the case that eternal inflation was a major impetus for the possibility of the Many Worlds Interpretation being true.(Green accepts its ultimate truth)Green has been accused of being a big promotor of String Theory, when the evidence isn't quite so stellar.Eric Weinstein says Greene and Kaku are "out of control".

Ok. Good. Thank you.