Scientists battle 'dark energy' theory
The Australian, 23rd March 2005

I thought that this article was interesting because I am interested in the topic of dark matter. The nature of dark energy is one of the things that remain a mystery to astronomers and so I think that any new revelation concerning it is very interesting. I also found it amusing how in the first sentence they refer to dark energy as the cosmological equivalent of the bogeyman (obviously meant to draw the reader in).

This article is about a new theory that is proposed to explain the cause of the expansion of the universe. However when I read it I was quite disappointed to find that although the article is quite long only two sentences are devoted to actually describing what the new theory is about. It doesn’t give a very clear explanation of the theory but this is expected considering the source of the article. I suppose that most people that read the newspaper are not so much interested in the details but the significance, and this article does that. It explains the significance that the theory would have if it were true – the fate of the universe could be confirmed to be a slow steady drifting apart. The article also gives a general explanation of dark matter and the possible fates of the universe, which I found interesting.

I also found this article very useful, especially the part about Einstein’s theory, because I am planning on doing ‘Changing views in our perspective of the universe’ as my topic for the presentation. I think that it would be interesting to include how Einstein thought that the universe was static and how he introduced a fudge factor into his general theory of relativity to make it so. I also found it very amusing that scientists will sometimes alter their results to fit their beliefs rather than change what they believe to fit the results.

Although I liked the content of the article I did not like the way it was structured. I felt that it was a bit haphazard and contained too many quotes from supposed authority figures. Instead of having proper paragraphs that explain things clearly and in a logical fashion it seems as though they have chopped it up into single sentences, shuffled it around and thrown in a few random quotes to give what they are saying some credibility. Some of the quotes, such as the second last one, don’t seem to make much sense or are not really relevant.

However I will be interested to know how the next lot experiments go and to see if their theory is correct.

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