Is dark matter real?

[pecksniff]

Or is it just one of those unnecessary hypothetical placeholders, like phlogiston or caloric fluid or luminiferous aether?

 

[rae121452]

Or is it just one of those unnecessary hypothetical placeholders, like phlogiston or caloric fluid or luminiferous aether?

it was posited by einstein, so i tend to believe it's real. but then, you're drawn into the whole debate of opposites...if there's a god of goodness, there must be a satan of darkness, yadda, yadda, yadda. astronomers are reporting sightings of dark matter. why couldn't it be a real thing?

 

[pecksniff]

it was posited by einstein, so i tend to believe it's real. but then, you're drawn into the whole debate of opposites...if there's a god of goodness, there must be a satan of darkness, yadda, yadda, yadda. astronomers are reporting sightings of dark matter. why couldn't it be a real thing?

News to me anyone ever reported a sighting of it. As I understand it, dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter which has mass and generates gravity, but does not otherwise interact with normal matter and does not emit or reflect electromagnetic radiation. Its existence is hypothesized to account for the fact that the measured mass of galaxies is much greater than their visible/perceptible matter can account for.

 

[unspoilt_princess]

How someone explained it to me was normal matter accounts for such a small part of the universe that maybe the known universe is the abnormal part. He also told me that though dark matter and dark energy can't be seen, their effect can be felt and until we know more at least that effect can be attributed to this big unknown.

 

[Champakian]

Bingo princess...

 

[rae121452]

Possible Link Between Primordial Black Holes and Dark Matter
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-scientist-suggests-possible-link...

May 24, 2016 · NASA Scientist Suggests Possible Link Between Primordial Black Holes and Dark Matter. Dark matter is a mysterious substance composing most of the material universe, now widely thought to be some form of massive exotic particle. An intriguing alternative view is that dark matter is made of black holes formed during the first second of our universe's existence, known as primordial black holes.

Dark matter could be made of black holes from the ...
https://www.livescience.com/dark-matter-made-of-black-holes.html

Apr 01, 2021 · Dark matter, the mysterious substance that exerts gravitational pull but emits no light, might really consist of vast concentrations of ancient black holes created at the very start of the...
Could Dark Matter Be Black Holes? - Sky & Telescope
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/black...

Apr 03, 2019 · Astronomers are reconsidering primordial black holes as an answer to the invisible matter mystery, but recent observations disfavor at least some sizes of black hole. Dark matter is a thorn in astronomers’ collective side. This stuff, detectable only by its gravitational effect, appears to make up more than 80% of the universe’s matter.

Reviews: 9

Estimated Reading Time: 6 mins

Controversy Continues over Black Holes as Dark Matter
https://physics.aps.org/articles/v11/99

Oct 01, 2018 · Recent calculations have shown that if dark matter were made up of black holes weighing between 10 and 300 solar masses, then LIGO should have detected hundreds more mergers in its first run . Turning the argument around: multi-solar-mass black …

Estimated Reading Time: 9 mins

 

[Dribble]

Well....something is real. But what it is... is unknown. So then...is it really real if you can't even name it? So...it is a placeholder until we can define it better.

 

[scrymettet]

Prove it real or prove it not real and get a Nobel price.

 

[pecksniff]

Thing is, nobody's even clear on what DM is supposed to be. Candidates:

The proposals for what this dark matter is are subdivided into MACHOs, WIMPs and axions, very vaguely indicating (for persons with a gymnastic imagination) what is referred to:

MACHOs, Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Objects, are heavy compact objects that make a great deal of noise when colliding with something, which they seldom do because of their diminutive size,
WIMPs, Weakly Interactive Massive Particles, are exotic fairy particles of fat constitution that are too shy to be seen and to interact with matter that we see in daily life,
axions, branded after an extinct detergent, cleans away the other two, and instead presumes a very low-mass particle existing in large numbers.

MACHOs
MACHOs are ordinary compact objects of very low luminosity, for example brown dwarfs, white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes,[3] known or inferred from other well-known research.

WIMPs
WIMPs are truly exotic massive elementary particles of kinds that we don't know … yet … for sure, what it is. Some of the more important candidates are:

micro black holes, a.k.a. holeums,
neutralinos, a particle expected to exist if supersymmetry is a viable replacement for the Standard Model,
sterile neutrinos, one or a few particle types expected to exist if the see-saw mechanism is viable as a replacement for the standard model,
neutral electron, a particle inferred (beside two kinds of neutrinos) by the not very popular or well known Heim theory, mostly because it uses too complicated mathematics.

Neutrinos are already WIMPs, but are too "hot" to account for the way dark matter has been seen to act in e.g. the Bullet cluster; a proper dark matter candidate must be massive enough not to go nearly the speed of light with even a relatively small momentum.

The Standard Model of current quantum physics crashed when the solar neutrino problem was solved. The solar neutrino problem occurred when first the neutrino emission of the Sun was measured up to only a third of what stellar fusion models and standard model physics predict. It took decades till the problem was solved: the Sun really did produce enough neutrinos to defend stellar fusion models, but the neutrinos morphed themselves back and forth between the three known kinds of neutrinos: electron, muon and tauon neutrinos. That implies that neutrinos have mass, which they don't, according to the standard model.

Various replacements for the standard model are prepared for test: the supersymmetry models, the seesaw mechanism fix on the standard model and various quantum gravity models. Many particle physics experiments are currently running in order to replace the Standard Model collapse with a better model, to solve the dark matter problem and other tough physics problems; some tough questions, "such as why do we have mass (except eating too much junk food, that is)?", have been answered, by the discovery of the higgs boson, confirming the existence of the higgs mechanism that gives many elementary particles their mass (though most of the mass of baryonic beings such as all life comes from the strong binding energy of nucleons--protons and neutrons).

 

[Wok]

In classical mechanics, lamda was assumed to be zero for a really long time. If memory serves, dark matter was not considered. Although Einstein called lamda the biggest blunder of his life, inclusion was not wrong.

 

[hobbit.]

...............And back in the real world............. does anyone give a shit?

 

[stickygirl]

...............And back in the real world............. does anyone give a shit?

If it's dark shit you're drinking too much guinness

 

[hobbit.]

If it's dark shit you're drinking too much guinness

if its green my ulcer has burst.

dark shit does exist, but white dog poo is still rare.

 

[stickygirl]

if its green my ulcer has burst.

dark shit does exist, but white dog poo is still rare.

White dog poo is a sign of liver trouble for the pooch... and prolly the owner

 

[BoyNextDoor]

It is Velveteen Matter.

If enough scientists believe in it and love it enough it will become real.

 

[Fuzzy1975]

Or is it just one of those unnecessary hypothetical placeholders, like phlogiston or caloric fluid or luminiferous aether?

To put it in the simplest layman's terms I can come up with; The Observable Universe and the Mathematical Universe do not align, unless DM is used in the equations.

As such the search to "prove" DM exists....

 

[Chernosoth]

I wonder how much knowledge is missed due to labeling. Matter can act like particles, but that's not exactly what matter is. Trying to make all matter behave as particles misses what it does that's not particulate.

 

[Dribble]

We know that at the center of most galaxies, there exists a super-massive black hole. It takes an enormous amount of time to get to the sizes they need to be to form and organize a galaxy. Except one problem...how did this happen with ancient galaxies? Those too old...that not enough time passed to allow the math to work? Yet...there those galaxies are. And we can measure the effects of the super-massive black holes in the center of them.

We know that most of the universe consists of dark matter...and dark energy...cause we see the effects of both. Yet we can't see...or measure either directly...only by how they interact with mass we can see.

It is likely...that early in the universe life, this dark matter interacted with mass we can see, and helped formed the super-massive black holes...thereby speeding up the timescale. But as eons passed, less dark matter existed, so the process slowed down to what we can measure today. Much of the dark matter is locked into the black holes. Now why that happened...why it happened preferentially...that is really the question.

One does not need to see something to know it exists. What is dark matter? I have no clue. But something is warping the fabric of time and space and it isn't dilithium.

Edit...link added. https://stardate.org/radio/program/2021-07-26

Now for some fun. Ever notice how as we age...time slows? A year seems like it takes longer to pass than when we were young. This is because it does. See, when you are young, your brain works faster and more efficiently than when you age. Neurons travel at near the speed of light. Now we all know, the faster things travel, the slower time is. And this time dilation expresses itself as "time flies" or the summer is over already? As we age...our neurons slow...making summers and years seem longer. Einstein was a fucking genius.

 

[Champakian]

No, to the very young as well as the very old, time passes slowly.
It is only when we are teens and in our middle ages
that time speeds up for us; too busy...

 

[Dribble]

No, to the very young as well as the very old, time passes slowly.
It is only when we are teens and in our middle ages
that time speeds up for us; too busy...

Google can be your friend. Or you can remain ignorant. Choice is yours. Based on your history...you will remain ignorant. Your choice will not change measurable facts

 

[Champakian]

Not everything that pops up on your Google search is valid...


My memories of being a kid tell me more than your Google "facts."

And, as a PSA, you should switch to DuckDuckGo
because it is not biased and because it maintains your privacy...

 

[Chernosoth]

...............And back in the real world............. does anyone give a shit?

Astrophysicists will be challenged to continue getting paid as the world shifts priorities. They might reinvent themselves as astrologers, weapons engineers, etc.

 

[JohnnySavage]

Sometimes I wonder what an Astrobiologist does in a typical work day.

Have a cup of coffee, look and see if any aliens were found over night, call it a day?

 

[Zeb_Carter]

it was posited by einstein, so i tend to believe it's real. but then, you're drawn into the whole debate of opposites...if there's a god of goodness, there must be a satan of darkness, yadda, yadda, yadda. astronomers are reporting sightings of dark matter. why couldn't it be a real thing?

But if they can see it, then it's not "dark" matter, is it?

 

[Zeb_Carter]

It is Velveteen Matter.

If enough scientists believe in it and love it enough it will become real.

It all depends on who is paying them and what results the person paying want to see.