Lambda contibutes to bending (says Wolfgang Rindler)

marcus

http://arxiv.org/abs/0709.2948
The Contribution of the Cosmological Constant to the Relativistic Bending of Light Revisited
Wolfgang Rindler, Mustapha Ishak (The University of Texas at Dallas)
5 pages, 2 figures
(Submitted on 19 Sep 2007)

"We study the effect of the cosmological constant Lambda on the bending of light by a concentrated spherically symmetric mass. Contrarily to previous claims, we show that when the Schwarzschild-de Sitter geometry is taken into account, Lambda does indeed contribute to the bending."

jonmtkisco

Very interesting article. Another example why vacuum space is "something", not nothing.

marcus

maybe a minor paper but post out of interest in and respect for the author

http://www.utdallas.edu/physics/faculty/wolfgang.html

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

you are right that the vacuum is something and does something
it has both geometry
and QFT stuff happening

I didnt mean it to be a big deal, just a nice minor paper by Rindler.

jonmtkisco

Yup.

Here's another data point in the "vacuum is something" discussion:

By my calculation, the mass/energy of the "empty" vaccum in the observable universe, expressed in Kg, is 2.31e+54. That's about 2 1/2 times the combined mass/energy of all matter and radiation in the observable universe, which weighs in at a mere 8.53e+53 Kg. That ratio will grow rapidly in the vacuum's favor in the future.

Sadly, perhaps it's more accurate to say that space is everything and matter/radiation are nothing... But viva la difference!