[Ali_n_Steve]

Ali_n_Steve  asked the Naked Scientists:
   Hi Chris

Thanks for the show

I have been listening to a number of podcasts recently re the expanding universe and dark energy and it has prompted some questions:

If the universe has been expanding from the time of the big bang 14 billion years ago and the driving force is dark energy:

You would expect anything that has been under constant acceleration for that amount of time to be approaching the speed of light which means applied energy should be converted to mass rather then more velocity??

You would also assume dark energy can't be converted to baryonic matter??

Or if the expansion is due to space expanding, rather then the matter being thrown outwards, we should also be moving away from everything in our solar system as well as the rest of the universe??

Steve Thompson

What do you think?

[ScientificBoysClub]

No it must be the same ...I mean  mass and energy combined density .....

if u consider only Mass than it must get heavier !!

[akhenaten]

Logically unless something is pouring into this closed system it cannot gain weight. And wouldn't you have to measure the total weight from outside the Universe anyway, which i guess would be difficult. But having said that we all know someone who keeps gaining weight yet never eats anything!

[lyner]

Could we use the word MASS, please, where appropriate?