But that seems to open for the “dark matter” has to be a particle folks. And some of those, it’s got to be a particle folks seem to be getting very frustrated with their necessary messengers exploring particles.

Yes, that’s right; let’s shot the particle physics who can’t find the particle that we want them to find. And since a primary candidate for a “dark matter” particle is a WIMP particle; let’s shoot the supersymmetry theory!

Fortunately the experimental physicsists looking for WIMP have not shoot the supersymmetry thoery (at least not all of the varieties of supersymmetry)

Dark Matter Search Results Using the Silicon Detectors of CDMS II, Apr 15, 2013 http://cdms.berkeley.edu/CDMSII_Si_DM_Results.pdf
“There is now overwhelming evidence that the bulk of the matter in our universe is in some nonluminous, non-baryonic form. Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) form a leading class of candidates for this dark matter… After unblinding, extensive checks of the three candi-date events revealed no data quality or analysis issues that would invalidate them as WIMP candidates. The signal-to-noise on the ionization channel for the three events (ordered in increasing recoil energy) was measured to be 6.7, 4.9, and 5.1, while the charge threshold had been set at 4.5 from the noise.”

Well excellent research searching for a fallen supersymmetry particle!!

The rumor of supersymmetry’s death is greatly exaggerated!!

Not sure Big Rip and Crunch are needed. If I remember, you did several good posts on that some time ago. But the nature of DE would be good.

What I meant to say (maybe wasn’t clear enough), is that if you say DE is in fact cosm. constant, this needs much further defending on your part. I was mainly talking about the value QM places on vacuum energy, and the value from cosmology. 10^-120 issue and all that. That’s what I meant when I said I don’t know of any theoretical work that firmly solves this rather big issue.
Also wiki states problems in the appearance of solutions with regions of discontinuities (I admit I don’t understand all of it).
I do agree that at the moment, from things we know, lambda is the only thing that seems to at least fit into DE ballpark. Am just disagreeing with a statement that from late 90′s Λ=DE, in a settled way.

Mind you, I think there are other blunders out there, and other examples of people fooling themselves. Take a look at the cosmological constant article on wiki, and you’ll see that Λ is “equivalent to an energy density in otherwise empty space”. Then look at Lambda-CDM and note that “The model uses the FLRW metric”. Then look at the that and note “The FLRW metric starts with the assumption of homogeneity and isotropy of space”. Bad move. Because if you assume the energy density of space is homogeneous, you’re ignoring what Einstein said a gravitational field is, and dooming yourself to spending twenty years down a mine looking for WIMPs that just aren’t there. The fine-structure constant isn’t constant. So why do people assume that the cosmological constant is constant? They know about the raisins-in-the cake expansion and conservation of energy. And that “the energy of the gravitational field shall act gravitatively in the same way as any other kind of energy”. They also know that energy has a mass-equivalence. And that space is dark. And there’s a lot of it about.

Though I think one does have to give Einstein credit for creating a framework in General Relativity that so easily accommodated a non-zero vacuum energy.

A coincidence. Mario Livio has a book on science blunders, and this issue is discussed. He mentions that he found no record of Einstein himself ever saying or writing that this was his biggest blunder, so your tentative mention of that event seems to be spot on in terms of caution.

Thank you for that comment. I had no idea that what your perception of the situation is was a common one; I think this will absolutely require a follow-up post on the Big Crunch, the Big Rip, and the nature of dark energy.

As far as I know, the debate is still on if Lambda is in fact DE. If taken at face value there’s a HUGE issue of value it takes. And I haven’t come across solid theories of lambda really being DE.

Other than that.. great job again!