Inexhaustible Dark Energy

What would happen if there was a source of energy that was never exhausted? Our everyday experience would suggest it is impossible to have a limitless supply of anything. However, one of the most uncomfortable conclusions in modern astrophysics is that we live in a universe that seems to be suffused with a limitless and ever-growing dark energy. This mysterious cosmic ingredient appears to account for almost three-fourths of the entire mass+energy recipe of the universe. Steve Rodney, from the University of South Carolina, will explore the evidence that has led astronomers to accept this unsettling model, and we’ll look for clues to the nature of dark energy in the earliest epochs of cosmic history, where we will see something like this cosmic acceleration may all have happened before.

Sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities.