Accelerating Expansion of the Universe: Yes or No?
Bob Day
Keywords: Expanding Universe, Acceleration, Dynamic Universe, Cosmological constant
Over the past decade most cosmologists have come to believe that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. Seeming evidence for this acceleration has been provided by brightness measurements of many newly discovered type Ia Supernovae. These supernovae were discovered to be unexpectedly faint for the distance at which they were according to standard cosmology. If their distances were indeed correct, the unexpected faintness of the supernovae would indicate that the universe is larger than thought. This could be explained by postulating an accelerating expansion, which is the way standard cosmology explains it. Another theory, the Dynamic Universe (DU) theory explains the same measurements just as well as standard cosmology, but without the need for the expansion of the universe to be accelerating. In this essay I will describe both approaches.
