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arXiv:1211.6338physics.hist-ph

How Einstein Discovered Dark Energy

Alex Harvey

Abstract

In 1917 Einstein published his Cosmological Considerations Concerning the General Theory of Relativity. In it was the first use of the cosmological constant. Shortly thereafter Schrödinger presented a note providing a solution to these same equations with the cosmological constant term transposed to the right hand side thus making it part of the stress-energy tensor. Einstein commented that if Schrödinger had something more than a mere mathematical convenience in mind he should describe its properties. Then Einstein detailed what some of these properties might be. In so doing, he gave the first description of Dark Energy. We present a translation of Schrödinger's paper and Einstein's response.

arXiv comments
Journal reference
DOI
Subjects
physics.hist-phHistory and Philosophy of Physics

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Linked by 2 identifiable commenters in 12 comments across 10 threads, from Feb 2017 to Oct 2024.

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Discussed in comments10 threads

  1. The Unraveling of Space-Time 1 comment

    • Couple minor additions: geodesics are physical in that (i) they are the paths taken by objects in free-fall and (ii) light (massless waves, etc etc) in free space is always in free-fall: all allowable null curves are null geodesics. Massive objects and light may be accelerated…

      raattgiftView on HNParent context

  2. Does the Past Still Exist? 2 comments

    • I agree with all your points except: > QM strongly suggests that it isn't an argument over which is certainly out of scope here (however it did answer my question); and > The Big Bang is not a single point. It's a spacelike line which I think is wrong for the standard cosmology.…

      raattgiftView on HNParent context

    • > Relativity allows some physical distributions of stress-energy to pick out a meaningful set of coordinates. More precisely, with certain distributions of stress-energy, computations become much simpler in particular coordinates. But that does not mean the coordinates have any…

      pdonisView on HNParent context

  3. The Universe Is Expanding Faster Than It Should Be 1 comment

    • It depends on what exactly you mean with "... non-zero energy", but the best answer is probably "no". On the one hand, in vacuum, an accelerating expanding universe's geometry breaks time-translation invariance. Let's look at the vacuum geometry with a pair of test photons in…

      raattgiftView on HNParent context

  4. Scientists say they may have detected dark energy 1 comment

    • Sunny Vagnozzi can't really be said to be suddenly coming up with the idea - there are several obviously related preprints at https://arxiv.org/a/vagnozzi_s_1.html I'd like to give some broad background on the link at the top of this discussion. If one substitutes "dark energy"…

      raattgiftView on HNParent context

  5. New Evidence Against the Standard Model of Cosmology 1 comment

    • Wikipedia covers this sufficiently at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant#Sequence... The five-line tl;dr: non-expanding cosmologies with no big bang but lots of galaxies tend to collapse in finite time. One can avoid collapse with a positive cosmological…

      raattgiftView on HNParent context

  6. What Shape Is the Universe, Closed or Flat? 1 comment

    • The CMB was (and is) observed a lot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cosmic_microwave_backg... The CMB is the evidence for a hot big bang (note, this is not the same as a singularity) although of course observational cosmologists want to trace back from the first starlight…

      raattgiftView on HNParent context

  7. 'Dark fluid' with negative mass could dominate the universe 1 comment

    • Well, so you write down an initial values surface with that approach and let the matter evolve: either you get something physically plausible or you don't. We have some guides as to what is physically plausible, and of course evidence that any of them is wrong would be very…

      raattgiftView on HNParent context

  8. Supernova’s messy birth casts doubt on reliability of astronomical yardstick 1 comment

    • Second thing first: > ... much the same way physicists dislike the standard model in all of its' ugliness - even though it works Personally I think the U(1)xSU(2)xSU(3) group theory of the Standard Model of Particle Physics is quite pretty. AFAIK the problems with the Standard…

      raattgiftView on HNParent context

  9. A Physicist Who Denies That Dark Matter Exists 2 comments

    • The problem is that your "lens" statement doesn't convey much information; if it goes deep, unfortunately it's not obvious. For example, it doesn't tell anyone whether you think that CDM is sparticles or a quantization of a function on the Ricci scalar or of a second metric or…

      raattgiftView on HNParent context

    • > I've seen people create variants of MOND that try to address the Bullet Cluster problem, but you start having to have some sort of really weird gravity memory effect in space or something, where space itself "remembers" that it used to have a lot of matter in it and still has…

      raattgiftView on HNParent context

  10. Will We Ever Know What Dark Matter Is? 1 comment

    • Incidentally, and mostly just for myself here is : https://arxiv.org/abs/1211.6338 in which Schrödinger (in 1918!) describes, "matter in the large essentially as a compressible fluid of constant density at rest under a constant spatially isotropic tension which ... must be equal…

      raattgiftView on HNParent context

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