The Cosmological Constant and the Dark Energy

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We know some of its properties and we have a really good candidate for what it is. We're in this weak understanding phase where there are also other candidates. Different theories are going to be constrained by different experiments. There might very well be some experiment that we could easily do for $100,000 that would instantly let us detect the dark matter.

Physics is in crisis, what else is new? That's what we hear in certain corners, anyway, usually pointed at "fundamental" physics of particles and fields. (Condensed matter and biophysics etc. are just fine.) In this solo podcast I ruminate on the unusual situation fundamental physics finds itself in, where we have a theoretical understanding that fits almost all the data, but which nobody believes to be the final answer. I talk about how we got here, and argue that it's not really a "crisis" in any real sense. But there are ways I think the academic community could handle the problem better, especially by making more space for respectable but minority approaches to deep puzzles.

Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2023/07/31/245-solo-the-crisis-in-physics/

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