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Hello, this is the Mad Scientist Supreme, talking today about dark energy.

Dark energy—this mysterious force scientists came up with to explain the accelerating expansion of the universe—has always seemed, to me, a foolish endeavor. Let me explain why.

At the time of the Big Bang, an incomprehensibly massive amount of energy was released. From that explosion, only a tiny fraction—about 2%—was converted into matter. And of that 2%, nearly half—roughly 48%—was antimatter. Naturally, matter and antimatter annihilated each other, leaving just 4% of the original 2% to become the matter that makes up all galaxies, stars, planets, and you and me.

That means more than 99.9% of the energy from the Big Bang wasn’t converted into matter. It simply traveled outward from the center of the universe at the speed of light. But here's the thing: light is energy, and energy has mass equivalence—E = mc². That means energy has gravity.

So, think about it: a colossal gravity wave—an ever-expanding shell of energy—is still racing away from the center of the universe. That gravity is pulling us toward it. It’s not some mystery force pushing galaxies apart. It’s gravity from the energy that already left.

Yes, astronomers discovered that galaxies are not only moving away from each other, but they’re accelerating. When that was observed, the immediate assumption was that something unknown was forcing this acceleration—so they named it dark energy.

But to me, the explanation is far simpler: we’re not being pushed apart—we’re being pulled outward. The gravity of that vast, outward-racing wave of energy is dragging us along. Not only is that wave still expanding, but it’s doing so with the full might of the energy that was never converted into matter.

It’s still out there. It’s invisible, because there’s nothing to reflect its light. But it's real. It’s electromagnetic energy—and likely other forms too—still dense, still massive in scale, still exerting gravity.

If you want to visualize it, picture a spherical shell—a boundary of energy at the universe’s edge—pulling everything within toward it. Perhaps even two shells, if you factor in the initial matter and the antimatter blasts. Either way, that gravitational pull explains the acceleration we see.

So yes, the energy is dark—not because it’s mysterious, but because it can’t be seen. That doesn’t make it magical. It makes it understood.

This has been the Mad Scientist Supreme. Signing off.


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Ready whenever you are for Episode 3.