The 4-Percent Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy & the Race to Discover Reality - Science Book for Cosmology Enthusiasts & Astronomy Students

Richard Panek has given us a serious book about cutting-edge science that reads like a playful mystery. I couldn't put his book down! Panek has the instincts and skills of a novelist. His characters - real people - are complex and engaging, and his comedic timing is perfect. Panek knows how to advance his story in ways that are compelling for readers who know little or nothing about science.When I wrote The Fun of Dying: Find Out What Really Happens Next! I used dark matter and dark energy as a throw-away line. Abundant afterlife evidence suggests that most of reality is not material, and here - sure enough - is scientific evidence that 94% of reality is invisible to us. Hmmm. Could it be...? I confess that my reason for picking up Panek's book was my interest in learning more about this "dark" aspect of reality so I could rule it in or rule it out as possible additional afterlife evidence. What kept me reading was the fun of the book itself, full of amusing insider stories that show that even the most revered scientists are just people, after all. Scientific theorists and scientific observers are often in conflict? Who knew? And particle physicists are frequently at war with macro-scientists? And cosmology wasn't considered a real science until the 1990s - indeed, cosmology and astronomy and astrophysics are three different sciences? Who among us civilians knew that?Watching scientists earnestly squabble like the brainy schoolchildren they once were is wonderful fun, as is seeing their process of working through deducing whatever it is they are deducing from blackboard walls full of calculations and endless gazing at miniscule dots of space on beautiful starry nights. This book offers such a wonderful window on the work habits of modern scientists that it should be read by everyone. I found myself rooting for my favorite characters, hoping they could figure it out, while knowing that wasn't going to happen. Panek tells us that researchers are willing to test literally anything at this point as a possible explanation for dark matter and dark energy, and it begins to look as if figuring this out will require violating science's ultimate taboo. Since dark matter and dark energy are apparently not material, the only way to learn what they are may be to look beyond this material universe.Cosmology was at once time consigned to the outer scientific darkness because its theories could not be used to make predictions. The study of the greater reality that we discover by surveying 200 years of abundant and consistent afterlife evidence likewise is not considered to be a science, and it carries a burden that cosmology lacks. It is apparently not governed by mathematics, which means that it cannot be even on the scientific JV team. All that we have by which to study the part of reality that is not material is an enormous body of evidence delivered by people who once lived on earth and now are alive in a greater reality which they can describe to us in detail. The afterlife evidence is so consistent and so detailed that it is possible to construct a reasonable set of theories now about how the greater reality works, and also how it fits with material physics. It is obvious to those who study this evidence that the greater reality is every bit as real as the part of the universe that we can see, which makes the ongoing refusal of mainstream science to look at all this evidence flat-out bewildering to me. This is not about life after death any more, since we long ago were able to prove that as fact. But studying the afterlife evidence reveals so much about how reality works that until mainstream scientists take all this evidence seriously there will remain great gaps in their knowledge, from what the heck is going on with gravity to whatever might be hiding most of the universe. All the answers seem to be there. But they are being ignored.Having read Panek's wonderful book, I now more firmly believe that the problem he addresses is indeed connected to the reality revealed by studying the afterlife evidence. The reality beyond what we can perceive is composed of and held in place by mind-energy, and it is so enormous that for the "material" parts of the greater reality to be six times the mass of the material universe may be about right. And the mind-energy that supports it is so beyond-amazingly powerful that it easily could be three or four times the volume of the universe and the greater reality put together. Hmmm. A non-material energy combined with a significant amount of non-material matter, all of which exists throughout the universe? That sure looks like dark energy and dark matter to me! This theory comes with a bonus, too. The dark matter of the afterlife levels is full of well-trained scientists who would have a lot of information to share... if only living scientists could expand their minds enough to consider the possibility that they might be there.Mainstream scientists are like the rest of us. We all buy into this material illusion. Most of us can be forgiven for doing so because it is a very good illusion, but the basics of quantum physics are by now so well established that there should be no scientist alive who is not troubled by - and made curious by - the fact that quantum physics intimates that matter, energy, time and space are governed by mind and may not be objectively real. This fact alone should awaken some physicist somewhere to the fact that we are missing something big. And when this insight is combined with the frustrating search for most of reality, perhaps at some point the study of the greater reality revealed by the afterlife evidence will make it to the scientific JV team, after all.Roberta Grimes - Cross-posted at afterlifeforums.com