On 14/11/2012 9:21 AM, dlzc wrote:
Dear Yousuf Khan:

On Wednesday, November 14, 2012 12:14:44 AM UTC-7, Yousuf Khan
wrote: ...
After calculating the amount of Dark Energy there was in the past
vs. Dark Matter, that galaxies in the early universe had not only
had less Dark Energy (as expected), but they also had more Dark
Matter (not expected).

I don't see how they can conclude that. If they expect to see
Dark-Matter-as-WIMPs, then interactions will reduce the number of
WIMPs in forward time, and they'd see exactly this. If Dark Matter
is really just heavily ionized normal matter, as the Universe heats
(in reverse time), less ground state matter should be visible, so it
would look like an increase in Dark Matter.

We have no idea whether Dark Matter is WIMPs, and since we've never seen
WIMPs, then chances are likely that they aren't. Not having seen WIMPs,
we have no idea if they interact and annihilate each other.

I can't see highly ionized normal matter being enough to explain Dark
Matter either. There simply can't be enough to make up the shortfall,
although it might be able to make up some small percentage of it.

So if DM is not either of these things, then it's got to be an effect of
vacuum energy, just like DE is supposed to be.

Scientists thought that Dark Matter should remain more or less the
same in magnitude, since it's supposedly a type of matter, while
the Dark Energy component grows. But they're finding that the Dark
Matter component might have been higher in the past than it is
now.

If that is the case, then Dark Matter cannot be a type of stable
particle, it is just another form of fleeting energy like Dark
Energy is.

Doesn't follow.

Dark Matter shouldn't go up and down in magnitude, only forms of energy
can do that by transforming between one type and another. Matter is
mostly stuck in its own form most of the time.

In fact, it would mean that theories such as Dark Fluid would be
right, i.e. Dark Energy and Dark Matter are just two sides of the
same coin,

Additionally, Dark Energy is uniformly distributed in any epoch (so
far), so it is no sort of "stuff".

Yup.

and when one goes down, the other goes up, and vice-versa.

It also puts a kibosh on particle physics theories like
Supersymmetry, as we'll never see superpartner particles like
neutralinos or photinos, as the Standard Model is all that is
necessary to explain the universe as it is now.

Was flavor oscillation predicted for neutrinos, or was the
observation that they change mass as they change "state" observed and
then described later?

Neutrino mass is still not firmly established except indirectly.
Basically they believe that neutrinos must have mass because they change
flavour. But they still don't have any specific idea what the actual
mass of any neutrino would be.

With the Standard Model, the vacuum energy is all that is necessary
to create the pushing effect of Dark Energy,

Dark Energy is not energy, in the Standard Model. And somehow *less*
Dark Energy, produced the initial inflation?

Well, we're not talking about Big Bang conditions, at that time, it's
likely the energy at that time was all converted to a push-type energy
before settling down to become pull-type again.

and similarly the same vacuum energy would be all that's necessary
to create the pulling together effect of Dark Energy.

Dark Energy repulses. Dark Energy drives inflation, expansion,
acceleration of expansion.

Yes, that was a typo, I meant Dark Matter in that case.

Yousuf Khan