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Saveman
04-Mar-06, 01:37
They can't see it. They don't know what it is. They have never detected it. It is however the most abundant substance in the universe.....apparently.

Pseudo-science?

unicorn
04-Mar-06, 01:39
saveman have you been on the drammies.... way too late friday nite for my brain to figure that out!! I will see dark matter soon when I close my eyes and put my head on my pillow :)

connieb19
04-Mar-06, 01:42
saveman have you been on the drammies.... way too late friday nite for my brain to figure that out!! I will see dark matter soon when I close my eyes and put my head on my pillow :)I doubt whether my brain could work it out on a wednesday afternoon.. :eyes Selective thinking...I think..:confused:

Rheghead
04-Mar-06, 01:47
They can't see it. They don't know what it is. They have never detected it. It is however the most abundant substance in the universe.....apparently.

Pseudo-science?

You can detect 0.25% of something yet you know there is 100% of everything, so there is 99.75% of something else.....apparently.

Pseudo-Maths?

Saveman
04-Mar-06, 01:53
saveman have you been on the drammies.... way too late friday nite for my brain to figure that out!! I will see dark matter soon when I close my eyes and put my head on my pillow :)

No I've not....unfort......
I just think about these things 24/7.... :D

Saveman
04-Mar-06, 01:55
You can detect 0.25% of something yet you know there is 100% of everything, so there is 99.75% of something else.....apparently.

Pseudo-Maths?


Hmmm.....I like your thinking.
Though "something else" is better than "dark matter."

unicorn
04-Mar-06, 01:55
saveman we need to get your mind occupied your brain will surely explode with such deep thoughts all the time.... you need a wife and 8 kids!! lol

Saveman
04-Mar-06, 01:57
saveman we need to get your mind occupied your brain will surely explode with such deep thoughts all the time.... you need a wife and 8 kids!! lol

A wife and a cat is enough thanks! :lol:

fred
04-Mar-06, 10:46
They can't see it. They don't know what it is. They have never detected it. It is however the most abundant substance in the universe.....apparently.

Pseudo-science?

You don't have to be able to see something to know it is there. They can work out the mass of the universe from the amount of ambient light. Light is a transfer of energy just like any other, like lightning going from a cloud to earth, if the earth wasn't there the lightning wouldn't jump because it would have nowhere to go and it's the same with light from a star. Even though the light may be travelling billions of centuries before it eventually hits matter and is converted to heat the matter it hits is just as much a part of the equation as the star is. So they can work out the mass of the universe, work out the mass of the things we can detect and subtract one from the other.

Geo
04-Mar-06, 11:02
Hmmm.....I like your thinking.
Though "something else" is better than "dark matter."

Why does the name make it less believeable as a theory? I'm guessing most theories atarted off as "something else" until they needed an official name for it. If every theory was known as "something esle" it would be a right mess trying to work out what people were on about!

Dark Matter may or may not exist however the name seems apt to me. It is alleged to be some king of matter and as you can't see it in the black of space it must be dark. :)

_Ju_
04-Mar-06, 13:48
They can't see it. They don't know what it is. They have never detected it. It is however the most abundant substance in the universe.....apparently.

Pseudo-science?
It has been mathematically proved to have to exist. The foundations of nuclear energy were theoretically proven long before any use could be made of it. There are many nuclear particles whose existance was theoretically proven before being detected in accelerators. I have more difficulty dealing with strings that vibrate in 10 dimensions.

weeboyagee
04-Mar-06, 14:01
.....good job I wasn't on the org last night - this would have made me think that you guys were all partaking of something illegally! Such heavy thought, such challenging material, such.....

.......where's my pint, liquid matter.......sometimes dark, sometimes not, depending on how much water there is in it and how much light is hitting it! :D

Saveman
04-Mar-06, 14:03
It has been mathematically proved to have to exist. The foundations of nuclear energy were theoretically proven long before any use could be made of it. There are many nuclear particles whose existance was theoretically proven before being detected in accelerators. I have more difficulty dealing with strings that vibrate in 10 dimensions.

No that's true....I had a guitar like that once....

Saveman
04-Mar-06, 14:07
I'll post my official reply to all your support of current science when they change their minds .....:)

JAWS
04-Mar-06, 14:19
I have more difficulty dealing with strings that vibrate in 10 dimensions.

We now live in a Multiverse with, I understand, 11 dimensions.
Until somebody invents another new version that is.
Just think about it folks, there are millions of me, living out every possible version of my life.
If anybody finds the one where I'm a genuinely nice person please let me know because then I'll believe in miracles. :D

DrSzin
04-Mar-06, 16:49
No, it's not pseudo-science, it's ongoing research. Wikipedia has a half-reasonable account (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter) of the current situation.

The current consensus amongst those in the field is that that dark matter exists, most of the evidence coming from data on galactic rotation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Galactic_rotation), and there are lots of hypotheses as to what it consists of. Some of these hypotheses are complementary, others are not. But not everyone is 100% convinced yet.

Dark energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy) is a different matter (no pun intended). Coincidentally, I was talking to a cosmologist about dark energy just yesterday, and he isn't 100% convinced by the conclusions based on supernova red-shift data.

Scientists and (in particular) the scientific media often don't do a very good job of distinguishing between well-established science, half-established science, and way-out hypothesis. IMHO dark matter is the obvious explanation for galactic rotation curves, but dark energy is not well-established - it's one of several possible explanations for the unexpected supernova red-shift data.

There are alternatives to both the dark matter and dark energy hypotheses, and these generally involve small corrections to Newton/Einstein gravity at large distances. It'll probably be some time before we solve these problems. As I said, this is ongoing research - if you're interested, then join in! You too can go to Yorkshire and spend your life in a big hole-in-the-ground (http://hepwww.rl.ac.uk/ukdmc/pix/boulby.html) looking for the stuff.

Eleven-dimensional M-theory, the string-theory landscape and the "multiverse" are more-speculative still. I wouldn't bank of any of them.

Physical science doesn't stand still. Most of atomic Physics has been well-understood for decades, but there are many other areas where there's still lots to do and understand - astrophysics is one, biophysics is another. Most of the time we have evolution of understanding. Occasionally, we have revolutions in understanding. But the revolutions tend to build on what went before. Boring old Newton's F = m a still holds for describing the dynamics of snowballs and cars, as does Coulomb's law for the force between the electrons that are bombarding the atoms of your screen if you're reading this on a crt monitor.

Kenn
05-Mar-06, 01:29
Dr Szin..it's allright for you to ponificate about such things but us mere mortals who have to deal with the problems of a nagging cat, what should I wear today,do I need to put a shovel in the boot of the car, do I have a lemon to add to the gin and tonic, are more inclined to think that dark matter..is the bill that we just got for our electricity!

Rheghead
05-Mar-06, 01:38
I thought a 'dark matter' was a death in the family?

golach
05-Mar-06, 17:09
No, it's not pseudo-science, it's ongoing research. Wikipedia has a half-reasonable account (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter) of the current situation.

The current consensus amongst those in the field is that that dark matter exists, most of the evidence coming from data on galactic rotation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Galactic_rotation), and there are lots of hypotheses as to what it consists of. Some of these hypotheses are complementary, others are not. But not everyone is 100% convinced yet.

Dark energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy) is a different matter (no pun intended). Coincidentally, I was talking to a cosmologist about dark energy just yesterday, and he isn't 100% convinced by the conclusions based on supernova red-shift data.

Scientists and (in particular) the scientific media often don't do a very good job of distinguishing between well-established science, half-established science, and way-out hypothesis. IMHO dark matter is the obvious explanation for galactic rotation curves, but dark energy is not well-established - it's one of several possible explanations for the unexpected supernova red-shift data.

There are alternatives to both the dark matter and dark energy hypotheses, and these generally involve small corrections to Newton/Einstein gravity at large distances. It'll probably be some time before we solve these problems. As I said, this is ongoing research - if you're interested, then join in! You too can go to Yorkshire and spend your life in a big hole-in-the-ground (http://hepwww.rl.ac.uk/ukdmc/pix/boulby.html) looking for the stuff.

Eleven-dimensional M-theory, the string-theory landscape and the "multiverse" are more-speculative still. I wouldn't bank of any of them.

Physical science doesn't stand still. Most of atomic Physics has been well-understood for decades, but there are many other areas where there's still lots to do and understand - astrophysics is one, biophysics is another. Most of the time we have evolution of understanding. Occasionally, we have revolutions in understanding. But the revolutions tend to build on what went before. Boring old Newton's F = m a still holds for describing the dynamics of snowballs and cars, as does Coulomb's law for the force between the electrons that are bombarding the atoms of your screen if you're reading this on a crt monitor.

Ohh my heads hurting now, Doc you have brought on my migrane, I'll just go and lie down in a dark room in a nice pub I think, and quietly think about contemplating my navel

JAWS
05-Mar-06, 20:03
Eleven-dimensional M-theory, the string-theory landscape and the "multiverse" are more-speculative still. I wouldn't bank of any of them.

Dr.S. you've shattered my hopes. And there was I, thinking that in the millions of Multiverses out there I might exist in one of them as a really nice person.
Ah well, back to reality! :cry: