The Cosmological Constant: a New Law

[Erasmus00]

The new law of nature attached to lambda is an obvious one. It had been overlooked because space is thought of as nothing. Space is not nothing. Space has very specific qualities. Space is everywhere present. Objects and fields interact with each other inside space. Matter, field, spacetime are thus attached inextricably. There is more...

 

If the constant is 0, as you claim, then the energy density of vacuum is, in fact, 0. Space is nothing. That lambda is 0 is not a new idea. Only quite recently, in order to explain accelerating expansion has lambda been brought back into the picture as a nonzero entity.

-Will

[coldcreation]

If the constant is 0, as you claim, then the energy density of vacuum is, in fact, 0. Space is nothing. T00?005{000000000 not a new idea. Only quite recently, in order to explain accelerating expansion has lambda been brought back into the picture as a nonzero entity.

-Will

 

If space were nothing, as is often claimed, there would be no polarization of the vacuum, orbits would all be unstable, and no one would be here to write about it. Space obviously has properties that need to be defined. Space cannot be streched endlessly. There is a fundamental limit to the vacuum.

 

Yes the zero value has been suggested. The most common error is to say the lambda is vacuum energy, especially of the dark, mysterious or kooky kind. The fact is, energy density is omega not lambda. Vacuum energy is zero point energy or ground state energy. The confusion between the two is fueled by physicists themselves, in the attempt to fix the outcome of predictions vs. observations (it has not worked).

 

To be clear: vacuum energy is vacuum energy, i.e., ZPE, or Casimir energy as it is sometimes dubbed. It is a minimal amount, or irreducible amount of energy that pervades all regions of space. Lambda is something else. Lambda is the space that would otherwise be left over when all that fills space is removed. The cosmological constant represents the pure vacuum state; the 'stage' within which all actors (ZPE, ZPF, gravity, material objects, fields, both electromagnetic and atomic forces) operate.

 

The difference with this lambda and prior definitions is that the zero value is absolute, in a way similar to the absolute zero of temperatures on the Kelvin scale. It is not like the zero centigrade.

 

This concept leads to the following statement: Gravity (spacetime curvature) is a departure from flat, Euclidean, special relativistic, field-free, Minkowski space. Lambda describes the empty (flat) space from which gravity is a deviation. In another way, lambda is a state of zero gravity.

 

The postulate above is simple. When the concept is extended to gravitating systems it explains equilibrium configurations. It explains why the universe is stable against collapse ot expansion. Einstein had been correct in his initial deduction that lambda was needed to stablize the universe, though he never physically explained it.

 

Gravity and lambda are tightly associated with each other. One with out the other is unthinkable. The implications are profound. There are no negative values for curvature. Lagrange points (especially L1) are where lambda acts (only apparently) as a repulsive force. At L1 gravity equals zero....more to come...

 

Coldcreation