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Pastimes : IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Don Pueblo who wrote (110)	12/21/1998 6:39:00 PM
From: kinkblot	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 480

ZPfollowup, "Cosmological Antigravity", by Lawrence M. Krauss. SeeScientificAmericanJan99, page53. [notonline] Quick Summary: Albert Einstein's notorious cosmological constant could offer the antigravitational push needed to explain the acceleration that astronomers see. Gapexists: E{known}versusE{flatcosmos}. Missing~sameorderE{known}. FillwithZPE? Excerpt, showsglitch: If virtual particles can change the properties of atoms, might they also affect the expansion of the universe? In 1967 Russian astrophysicist Yakov B. Zeldovich showed that the energy of virtual particles should act precisely as the energy associated with a cosmological constant. But there was a serious problem. Quantum theory predicts a whole spectrum of virtual particles, spanning every possible wavelength. When physicists add up all the effects, the total energy comes out infinite. Even if theorists ignore quantum effects smaller than a certain wavelength--for which poorly understood quantum gravitational effects presumably alter things--the calculated vacuum energy is roughly 120 orders of magnitude larger than the energy contained in all the matter in the universe. ............................................................................. Need120ordersmorebrainpower, tosolve? OnlineDec97SciAm, skepticalof "Exploiting Zero-Point Energy": sciam.com