What is Dark Energy and Why is it a Mystery?

[Kea]

Dark energy: Mystery of the Millenium
T. Padmanabhan
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0603114

This is an impressive paper, based on a talk and quite readable.

 

[Chronos]

Indeed, Kea. I read that one yesterday. Padmanabhan has a way with words.

 

[selfAdjoint]

I just finished reading it. What a lot of good solid MEAT in that paper. Obviously based on decades of deep thought by himself and semingly everybody else, it really does give us a general NECESSARY framework for evaluating quantum gravity programs.

 

[Kea]

...it really does give us a general NECESSARY framework for evaluating quantum gravity programs.

Yes, I thought so too. I must put some time aside to go through some of his papers.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Yes, I thought so too. I must put some time aside to go through some of his papers.

He's got his references nicely organized by topic, I noticed. I liked the way he synthesized holography, thermodynamics, and special viewpoints to get his "model that works". Very convincing.

I was especially diverted by his choice of variables for the action: the metric, the Christoffel symbols, and the curvature tensor. Noting also that the curvature tensor, in this representstion, depends on the Christoffel symbols but not the metric. I wonder how many decades of pondering the common wisdom of GR it took to come up with that!

 

[Chronos]

Yes, I thought so too. I must put some time aside to go through some of his papers.

What I really like is his ability reach a broad audience. Modern theorists tend to target a very narrow audience possessing great expertise in the subject material. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It's an efficient way to publish new research. Unfortunately, it leaves most of the rest of us slack-jawed. Here are some of his other papers I like:

http://www.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0602280
Issues in the Philosophy of Cosmology

http://www.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0602117
Advanced Topics in Cosmology: A Pedagogical Introduction

http://www.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0510492 :
Darker Side of the Universe

http://www.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0510015
A new perspective on Gravity and the dynamics of Spacetime

http://www.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0503107
Understanding Our Universe: Current Status and Open Issues