My Theory on What Dark Energy Is

It's the 3 dimensional "stretching effect" that happens when a 3 dimensional world lives inside a 4 dimensional world that is expanding.

This works perfect when compared to a "2 dimensional" model of how the universe expands -- put dots on a balloon. As you blow into the balloon the dots will move away from each other and expand. The surface of the balloon is 2 dimensional, where the stretching affect is achieved by the expansion of the 3 dimensional balloon.

So, if the universe is a mere 3 dimensional surface / plane ... inside / surfacing / a part of a 4 dimensional reality... as the reality expands, so does the universe. It's been shown that gravity can't pull the universe back together because of an invisible force called "dark energy" that is stronger than the gravity that pulls everything together, causing the universe to expand at an ACCELERATING RATE. The universe is PROVEN to be EXPANDING at an ACCELERATING RATE.

Let's go back to the balloon -- would the dots ACCELERATE away from each other as more stretching occurred?

What about when we consider that the 4th dimension is NOT commonly thought of as "spacial", but is actually TIME. A dimension, after all, is a strait line that connects with points -- and time is a line that connects to all three dimensions perfectly. Time is what allows the three "space dimensions" to move, and movement controls time (at light speeds, time runs much slower, which has been proven by particles in the atmosphere that couldn't possibly make it down to earth before dissipating - but since they travel past the speed of light, time moves slowly enough to allow them to get much farther than they could if time were a constant.)

If TIME is the 4th dimension, not space, this would explain why time always runs forwards. In physics, time can run forward or backward without any problem. But time always runs forwards. This is because the 4 dimensional universe is expanding -- if it were shrinking, time would run backwards... all the way to creation itself.

Thus, my theory is that dark energy is a very different force than anything single force we know of - more like, what happens to all the forces / elements when stretched 4 dimensionally.