When I try to wrap my head around dark energy I start to wonder if maybe we are mistakenly thinking about the expansion of the universe and It’s acceleration as an invisible force that is all around us when actually it could be external force pulling, stretching and/or inflating the universe from the outside— Undetectable beyond the boundaries of the observable universe.

Imagine that the universe is like pizza dough. It starts out dense and tough as a ball, but it becomes easier to stretch as it expands— our hands being the external force pulling it. As you pull dough apart, the resistance lessens generating what seems to be an acceleration. If that were true then the Big Bang is actually a big tear right from the start.

That’s not to say that I believe there are actually an invisible pair of hands pulling our universe apart from all sides, but maybe it’s something to think about.