Maldacena Questions Whether Dark Energy Below Negative One Would Survive Scrutiny

What was said

"Some of the DESY fits have suggested that the value of the dark energy could be, of the equation of state could go below -1. That would be a more severe blow to our understanding of physics. I suspect that that probably will not be true. There are deep principles, the principles of no negative null energy. So these principles that enforce causality, that enforce traversability or large or traversability of wormholes. I find them very sacred. If it was true that they're violated, it would be super interesting and it would be the biggest news in the last 100 years."

Maldacena expressed skepticism about recent DESI cosmology results suggesting the dark energy equation of state parameter w might be less than -1. Such a finding would violate fundamental principles of causality and energy conditions that Maldacena considers sacred. He predicted the result will not hold up under further analysis, but acknowledged that if confirmed, it would represent the biggest physics discovery in a century.