[perihelion]

I'm going to echo Vega here.  Dark Energy has most emphatically NOT been confirmed.  The accelerating expansion of the universe has been confirmed, and there is a whopping big difference between confirming that and confirming the existence of Dark Energy.  Root cause for this acceleration could be some pervasive anti-gravitational something-or-other (the Dark Energy hypothesis), or it could be that gravity behaves differently over extremely large distances (MOND hypothesis, among others), or it could be an intrinsic property of space-time itself (in Einstein's equations for General Relativity, he used a cosmological constant / fudge factor to put space-time in "tension" to force a static or unchanging universe to emerge from the equations.  Even though he was obviously wrong about the static universe bit, making the tension an artifact of space-time itself and not the things existing in it may have been a move in the right direction.)

Or it could be none of the above.  We don't know.  All we have are some observations that do not easily lead themselves to conclusions except in needlessly sensational journalism.  [/rant]

And the Large Hadron Collider may be able to give us some insight into dark matter, but I do not think we know enough about this supposed "Dark Energy" to even posit what kind of properties it might have.  That makes looking for it via high-energy particle physics like looking for a needle in a hay stack.  The biggest contribution the LHC could make (IMO) is proving or refuting the existence of the Higgs Boson, a hypothesized carrier particle that gives matter it's most fundamental property: mass.  Either way that goes, it will be awesome.

[Mongoose]

Dark energy "exists" in that what the term describes, i.e. the as-yet-unobservable element that's driving the accelerated expansion of the universe, has been confirmed to exist.  The term can cover any of the possibilities you mentioned; it's essentially a placeholder for the concept at the moment.

[Nuke]

i just want to know one thing, can we blow stuff up with it?

[Bobboau]

I'm sure we can find a way.

though now that I think about it, it is, at this moment, in the process of blowing absolutely everything in the universe up all at once.
it just seems kinda small because we are so small.



I still saty dark energey violates the law of conservation of energy.

[neoterran]

Whatever "Dark Energy" is, it has something to do with the large scale structure of what we call "spacetime" and so therefore, probably we'll never come to any appreciable understanding of what it is.

[Kosh]

I still saty dark energey violates the law of conservation of energy.

In this house we follow the laws of thermodynamics!

[General Battuta]

Whatever "Dark Energy" is, it has something to do with the large scale structure of what we call "spacetime" and so therefore, probably we'll never come to any appreciable understanding of what it is.

Don't be so pessimistic. We are quite a capable species when it comes to understanding these things.

[Grizzly]

Cool. So what can we do with it?

Start naming it Mass Effect?

[General Battuta]

I think that was dark matter.

[Spicious]

Quoting just in case someone decides that they look like they don't have a life again:

this dark energy/matter talk sounds similar to matter vs anti-matter in which they annihilate each other. This brings up that the so-called vacuum of space isn't empty space but has what we call virtual particals coming into existence and annihilating each other out of existance at a very fast rate. about 10 ^ -43 seconds, at plank time speeds. I also read about this quantum theory and it talks about zero point energy bursts at this space-time foam level (like the Kayser primary weapon description in FS2). All of this including space-time foam seems connected, called quantum theory. But all science and branches of science are connected to themselves in some way. The talk of the universe being binded seems similar to string theory too in which gravity could be strings that are unimaginably small like space-time foam. Gravity could also be space-time distortions and some theorize a partical called a graviton (what makes up gravity). But there is no way to prove the existance since the laws of physics make it so we cannot see things smaller than a photon (light partical) since that is the universe's limit of visual resolution. All of this is very interesting and I like to learn about this via the science channel and internet. I never took physics classes. I like topics like this.

Another thing is gravity has a limited range, I believe, but it travels at the same speed as the speed of light. they say for example that if you have the planets orbiting the sun and the sun was to somehow all of a sudden disappear, the planets would continue to orbit this emptiness until a little while (about the time it takes the light to tavel from the sun to here (about 8 minutes and 40 seconds)). I guess this is what they mean when they say ripples through space-time. Sudden changes in gravity.

About the wormholes: One theory about time travel is at the smallest subatomic level, we encounter the basic fabric of this reality called space-time foam caused by the energy of the virtual particals. They say that these wormholes are at this smallest subatomic level (like strings) and in order to stabilize the wormhole and enlarge it, not only do we need a massive structure like a partical accerlator (time machine) near a high gravitational source like a blue giant, but we need to contain a miniscule wormhole in an orb onboard this massive ship (time machine structure) and need to keep firing high energy lasers into it to heat it up to 10 trillion degrees. This gets into time travel, wormholes, and quantum theory. Sounds similiar to this so called dark energy and dark matter.

By the way, I heard these massive partical accelerators fire small particals at each other at almost the speed of light and collide with each other to realese an enormous amount of energy. They say it is to somehow discover the secrets of the possible big bang theory to enable us to create new technologies and systems someday after understanding new scientific info.

They also say that whether or not the universe expands forever or contracts into another big bang depends on whether the acceleration force exceeds that of the dark matter's gravitational force, if dark matter exists.

The first law of Thermo-dynamics says that energy cannot be created nor destroyed and it can only change from one form to another and into each other (energy being a very low density form of matter), but they also say that at the smallest subatomic level where these virtual particals come into and out of existance, that these particals do this somehow without violating the conservation law. The second law of thermo-dynamics says that as the universe ages, entropy increases. Which means over time, energy becomes less usable and eventually will no long change form. Things decay and age and can't last forever, in other words.

Of course this is from a pure scientific point of view, not including the spiritual possibilities. No one knows. People only think they know. Theory = something that can't be proven nor disproven. I keep an open mind and say no one knows for sure. To be a religious fanatic is close minded but to be an athiest or physical modest who says that what you can't see can't exist, including spiritual stuff, is also close minded. If you want to think of it from a scientific point of view, the spirit world could be an overlapping alternate dimension (part of the theory of multi-verse and the 11th dimension). Another universe means another place cut off from this universe. Otherwise it would be in the same universe.

I just found this neat website. Here:  http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/presentations/whatisconsciousness.html

Dark energy and dark matter have nothing to do with anti-matter. Nor are particle accelerators time machines. Blue giants aren't the best sources of gravity.

Your idea of spiritual in this context is super-natural which by definition does not exist in this universe and hence is at best a waste of time but more likely hindering the progress of science and probably mankind as a whole. You've also decided to use the wrong definition of a theory. Why would you want a mind so open that it'll accept any old tripe thrown at it?

[Lucika]

Dark energy must have a connectionwith Shivans... 

OFF: Do you think that the kind of subspace travel what is used in FS possible?

[Grimper]

Wormholes are theoretically possible..but whether it can done with the limitations we have, no one knows.

Wormholes are pretty much the same as subspace in Freespace I think.

[Lucika]

Wormholes are theoretically possible..but whether it can done with the limitations we have, no one knows.

Wormholes are pretty much the same as subspace in Freespace I think.

If am know it well, wormholes has an A entering and a B exiting (or reversed) point.
You can enter and exit subspace where and whenever you want.
Thus - I guess -  its highly unprobable that you can equal subspace and wormholes (by the way, I guess everyone knows this though, subspace was originally named freespace - thus this is the origin of the game's name).

[von Pilsner]

The Freespace/Subspace  synonym comes from the From the Descent FreeSpace: The Great War Reference Bible (Copyright ©1998, Volition, Inc.).

Introduction
When scientists discovered what used to be called “FreeSpace” (now referred to as “subspace”), an alternate plane of existence allowing ships to traverse great distances of space in little time, our minds reeled with the possibilities. When humans first discovered they were not alone in the universe, there was dancing in the streets...

Shivans
...The Shivan’s familiarity with Jump Node locations and their desire to gain control of them leads Terran Intelligence to believe that they know more about FreeSpace than anyone else.

But I think that is the only place I've ever seen it called FreeSpace.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

FreeSpace = Subspace.

In other words, it is theorised that the Shivans know the most about subspace and its workings than any other civilisation and/or species in existence.