Crisis in cosmology: Universe expanding too fast?

From Dennis Overbye at New York Times:

There is a crisis brewing in the cosmos, or perhaps in the community of cosmologists. The universe seems to be expanding too fast, some astronomers say. Recent measurements of the distances and velocities of faraway galaxies don’t agree with a hard-won “standard model” of the cosmos that has prevailed for the past two decades. The latest result shows a 9 percent discrepancy in the value of a long-sought number called the Hubble constant, which describes how fast the universe is expanding. But in a measure of how precise cosmologists think their science has become, this small mismatch has fostered a debate about just how well we know the cosmos. “If it is real, we will learn new physics,” said Wendy Freedman of the University of Chicago, who has spent most of her career charting the size and growth of the universe.

Michael S. Turner of the University of Chicago said, “If the discrepancy is real, this could be a disruption of the current highly successful standard model of cosmology and just what the younger generation wants – a chance for big discoveries, new insights and breakthroughs.” More.

Okay, but the thing is… crises don’t usually go on for years. Some law governs that. Meanwhile, for alternative cosmology crises on offer…

See also: BBC: Inflation (multiverse) theories only work if supplemented by “exotic physics” (2015)

Planck satellite data says that big BICEP2 cosmic inflation multiverse was just dust (2014)

and

 

Rob Sheldon: There isn’t a single model of inflation that works (2014)

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