WardXmodem

I love listening to the podcast of NPR "Science Friday". I caught one on "dark energy", which discussed such things as determining the speed (acceleration?) of very distant (and thus old) galaxies, etc. The perhaps single most interesting thing is that they computed that dark energy - the stuff that pushes the universe apart - appeared about 7 billion years ago! This means, that up until 7B years ago, the universe expanded at a rate consistent with big bang theory, and ... ummm... relatively traditional physics, BUT, starting then at 7B, the remote galaxies start accelerating -- the expansion of the universe accelerates. The idea that there is "vacuum energy", and that that may be "dark energy" is fascinating - but perhaps the vacuum needs to be "more complete" or "have stuff further away to start this phenomenon", which would explain why there is a time frame where the vacuum isn't empty enough? Anyway, fascinating discussion. _____________ Since this is my first post, I will add that I'm Ward Christensen, then inventor of the world's first BBS, that Randy Suess (HW) and I put together in the late 70's. I patterned it after a "cork board and push-pins" kind of physical bulletin board, and the term (BBS) stuck. This was a bit after I did the modem.exe file xfer program, later renamed Xmodem, the first popular protocol between "microcomputer".