Episode
What If Dark Energy is an Undiscovered Quantum Field?
- Podcast
- PBS Space Time
- Published
- Jul 20, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1324
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://traffic.megaphone.fm/VG9166999520.mp3
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Summary
PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime What is Quintessence? Well we know that something is up with the way the universe is expanding - there’s some kind of anti-gravitational effect that’s causing the expansion to accelerate. We don’t know what it is - just that it competes against the inward-pulling effect of gravity. And it’s winning - it looks like the universe will expand forever, at an ever-increasing rate. We call this mysterious influence dark energy, but while we’ve talked a lot about how it behaves, we’ve never really explored what it is. So, what is dark energy, really? One strong possibility is quintessence. Quintessence is a hypothetical form of dark energy, more precisely a scalar field. Watch the episode to learn more. Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Sign up for the mailing list to get episode notifications and hear special announcements! https://mailchi.mp/1a6eb8f2717d/spacetime Search the Entire Space Time Library Here: https://search.pbsspacetime.com/ Want to Learn More About Dark Energy? Check out the Dark Energy Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsPUh22kYmNAv1_8MA9-USkY6f2lfr1hb Hosted by Matt O'Dowd Written by Matt Caplan & Matt O'Dowd Post Production by Leonardo Scholzer, Yago Ballarini, Pedro Osinski, Caique Oliveira, Adriano Leal & Stephanie Faria GFX Visualizations: Ajay Manuel Directed by Andrew Kornhaber Associate Producer: Bahar Gholipour Executive Producers: Eric Brown & Andrew Kornhaber Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing Assistant Director of Programming for PBS: Joh…