Physics Blog
on Fundamental Theoretical Physics

July, 2011

Dear Professor, According to Hawking's theorem, black holes radiate out there energy. Couldn't this energy cause the expansion to accelerate?
Cosmic Thinker

Cosmic Thinker, I like your name, but no, this cannot be. FIrst, large black holes (solar mass or bigger) have a very low (black hole thermodynamic) temperature and they emit less energy than a firefly on the Fourth. Also, if they did somehow, we'd observe such a huge amount of energy. But most diabolical is this. Bear in mind that energy is conserved, so the radiation gained is at the cost of the mass lost. It turns out your insights are good, the radiation pressure pushes a little more (cosmologically speaking) than inert black holes, but you still lose. Remember, you need some new kind of energy or field (or theory of gravity), and radiation jusy won't do :(

    Prof. Hammond
            There are a number of fundamental mysteries in physics, one of the most recent being, why is the rate of expansion of the universe increasing?(see brief explanation).

Why is this happening? No known form of energy can account for this, which is why we sometimes postulate the existence of "dark energy." Simply put, "dark energy" is any form of energy that can accelerate the expansion of the universe. But what exactly is dark energy?
No one knows, for sure! Comments...Questions???