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Astronomy and Cosmology
Cosmology
Internal energy of a comoving volume increasing as space expands?
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[QUOTE="PeterDonis, post: 6819774, member: 197831"] Both of these interpretations are found in the literature. The first (the "dark energy" one) is the one that seems to get more pop science mentions nowadays. But the second (the "cosmological constant as intrinsic curvature of spacetime" one) is the one that was used more often in the first couple of decades after GR was discovered. Also, the difference between these two interpretations is fuzzy. Suppose that the reason for the lambda term in the EFE turns out to be quantum zero point energy. Is this "mysterious energy causing curvature" or is it "intrinsic curvature of spacetime"? After all, if there's a vacuum, the stress-energy tensor is zero. So the zero point energy isn't a property of any "stuff" that's there, it's an intrinsic property of spacetime itself. Most physicists today would probably favor the first of the two interpretations of quantum zero point energy, but the real message of the math--the fact that the lambda term can be put on either side of the EFE and the equation is still valid (not just mathematically valid but [I]physically[/I] valid, the covariant divergence of both sides is still zero so physical conservation of stress-energy is still valid)--is that [I]neither[/I] interpretation is "right" or "wrong"; [I]both[/I] are valid interpretations and neither one can be "proved" or "disproved" by the theory. [/QUOTE]
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Astronomy and Cosmology
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Internal energy of a comoving volume increasing as space expands?
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