February 5, 2005: Cosmological Theories - Charles Seife

Art Bell speaks with Charles Seife, a science journalist and author who covers physics and cosmology for Science Magazine. Seife explains how the discovery of dark energy in the late 1990s upended decades of assumptions about the fate of the universe. Rather than gravity slowing the expansion of the cosmos, distant supernovae observations revealed that the universe is accelerating apart, driven by a mysterious repulsive force that Einstein once predicted and then dismissed as a mistake.

Seife describes the theoretical scenario known as the Big Rip, in which dark energy grows so dominant that it tears apart galaxies, solar systems, planets, and eventually atoms themselves, leaving nothing but lifeless radiation. He discusses zero-point energy, the force generated by particles and antiparticles constantly being created and destroyed in the vacuum of space, noting that a toaster-sized volume theoretically contains more energy than all nuclear arsenals combined. Despite this, he explains, the energy appears impossible to harness.

The discussion moves to parallel universes, the ecpyrotic theory of colliding dimensional membranes, and the mathematical proof that infinities come in different sizes. Art presses Seife on why most scientists reject the existence of God, and Seife responds that science simply runs out of explanatory power at its boundaries, leaving both belief and disbelief as matters of where one places the mystery.