Based on the current best measurements of the large-scale structure of the universe, 73% of the total mass-energy is cosmological constant, a.k.a. dark energy; of the remainder, 90% is dark matter of various sorts. The remainder is 90% intergalactic gas, and the rest luminous matter.
For short: 97% of the universe is poorly understood; 3% is hot air; and the rest is on fire.
Any resemblance to other projects is purely coincidental, I promise.
Yonatan Zunger’s Blog 
Hot in this case meaning exceeds zero degrees kelvin by epsilon?
Hot in this case meaning exceeds zero degrees kelvin by epsilon?
Its posts like these that remind me how much I miss talking to you on a regular basis.
Thanks for making me smile.
Its posts like these that remind me how much I miss talking to you on a regular basis.
Thanks for making me smile.
Also, “air” seems a bit of misnomer for a near-perfect vacuum with no molecular nitrogen or oxygen.
So basically the universe is similar to, but different from, the internet, which is 97% hot air, but also 97% poorly understood.
Rambles: Cosmology, Life, Universe, Everything
In updating my science education these past three years I’ve gone back to Occam’s Razor (and occasionally Occam’s Brillo Pad) in sorting chaff from wheat. When a theory (Big Bang, extended) proposes that 90+% of the kosmos en toto is “invisible, undetectable, dark,” and entirely there because the equations demand it to be for the aging model to work…
Well, aren’t there alternate models? Ones that don’t stretch so far to make observable evidence work?
I’ve been digging into some of the Plasma Cosmology stuff; seems to explain stellar as well as galactic mechanics much better. Basic premise that electromagnetism plays at least as great a factor as gravity in the large-scale structure of the universe. I’ve wanted to ask you if you have any thoughts about it.
The only hard part for me (still) to swallow is the mindbendingly stypefying evidence from Halton Aarp of cosmologically-age-based redshift as an addition to the standard trading time-for-space kind. Though once accepted, Quasars make an uncanny sort of sense as baby galaxies with young-age-redshift. Drop onto most of the kosmological-time-is-infinite-(no-beginning-no-end) models and suddenly you have a kosm of galaxies born, growing, birthing, and dying in a never-ending kosmic play. Time without end. (Arrow of Time questions still abound, though.)
What was it Charles Fort once said? “Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense.”
I didn’t get a chance to have a cosmology chat with you last visit; we should have one as soon as the prevailing winds of Eris are calm upon the seas of life.
As promised, my contact info is updated and open to you from my userinfo profile. Good luck with the mounting preparations! Much love to you and yours. See you this Summer!