Dark matter and dark energy proposals: maintaining cosmology as a true science?

Abstract

I consider the relation of explanations for the observed data to testability in the following contexts: observational and experimental detection of dark matter; observational and experimental detection of dark energy or a cosmological constant $\Lambda$; observational or experimental testing of the multiverse proposal to explain a small non-zero value of $\Lambda$; and observational testing of the possibility of large scale spatial inhomogeneity with zero $\Lambda$.

14 pages. Paper for CRAL-IPNL conference "Dark Energy and Dark Matter", Lyon 2008

References in corpus (10)

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• Eternal inflation and its implications
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• Dark Energy or Apparent Acceleration Due to a Relativistic Cosmological Model More Complex than FLRW?
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Cited by in corpus (5)

• General Relativity and Cosmology: Unsolved Questions and Future Directions
• Using a phenomenological model to test the coincidence problem of dark energy
• Measuring the scale of cosmic homogeneity with SDSS-IV DR14 quasars
• Measuring the cosmic homogeneity scale with SDSS-IV DR16 Quasars
• Bayesian model selection for dark energy using weak lensing forecasts