dark energy
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.82 in modern English
19
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
4
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A hypothetical form of energy thought to be spread uniformly throughout space (and time) and to have anti-gravitational properties: it represents a possible mechanism for the cosmological constant, and thus is one of the possible explanations for the current accelerating rate of expansion of the universe; and it is estimated to account for about 74% of the mass-energy of the universe.
Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "Even Albert Einstein, who first proposed it as the Cosmological Constant in his 1916 General Theory of Relativity, doubted dark energy existed. He called it his "greatest blunder". Now, after a five-year survey of nearly 240,000 galaxies reflecting eight billion years of cosmic history, a team of astrophysicists has shown the elusive force exists. The data were obtained using the Anglo-Australian Telescope, and 26 scientists contributed to the so-called WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey."
Etymology
Coined by American cosmologist Michael Turner in 1998, in reference to the earlier term dark matter.