Another Expansion Question..

[Jay-qu]

Ok so the universe is expanding, can someone please explain to me what is happening to the gravitaional potential energy of, well everything... I would say its going up - so where is all this energy coming from?

[damocles]

The gravitational potential energy should be going DOWN as the universe accelerates its rate of inflation and space flattens.

 

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9802/27/accelerating.universe/

 

Some physicists are looking for a fifth inflationary force to explain this anomally.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_force

 

However, the current best observations and theories does not support the existence of a fifth force at the moment.

 

Here are some guys out to test the observations and try to get a better fix on the accelerating universe,

 

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.html

 

More specifically;

 

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni/uni_101accel.html

 

I don't see how vacuum energy can act as an inflater, but there it is.