Key to the universe found on the Iron Range? [WIMP scatters detected?]

Star Tribune ^ | Friday, December 18, 2009 | Bob Von Sternberg

[SunkenCiv]

Scientists announced Thursday that they believe they have detected evidence of dark matter in data collected at an underground physics lab in Soudan... According to the Department of Energy's Fermilab, which is conducting the search for dark matter at the Soudan lab, "judging by the way galaxies rotate, scientists have known for 70 years that the matter we can see does not provide enough gravitational pull to hold the galaxies together. There must exist some form of matter that does not emit or reflect light." In the announcement, the lab said the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment has "detected two events that have characteristics consistent with the particles that physicists believe make up dark matter." But, it cautioned, there is "a chance" that the events could be the signatures of background particles that merely mimic the signals of dark matter... Particle physics theories suggest that dark matter is composed of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). WIMPs would rarely interact with normal matter, but may occasionally bounce off, or scatter from, an atomic nucleus like billiard balls, leaving a small amount of energy that is detectable under the right conditions. The Soudan lab has been searching for WIMPs since 2003. It uses 30 detectors cooled to nearly absolute zero in an attempt to detect WIMP scatters.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks ButThreeLeftsDo!

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[mnehring]

bfltr

[muawiyah]

If true this means all sorts of things that almost no one understands. Kind of like having a “background reality” of which we are but a small reflection. Hmm. I think that’s been intuited before.

[cripplecreek]

OK where’s the picture of Obama at the karate exhibition?

[mamelukesabre]

Hmm, invisible matter that doesn’t interact with visible matter. This is starting to sound like a comic book version of physics class.

cue the twilight zone music:

do, do, do-do. do, do, do-do.

[swatbuznik]

Blue pill please...

[SunkenCiv]

You read it wrong — it’s “Iron”, not “Wood”...

;’)

[JoeProBono]

[grey_whiskers]

OK where’s the picture of Obama at the karate exhibition?

You don't need a weatherman
to know which way the WIMP is blowing...

(Ole Bobby Zimmerman is from up there, more or less.)

Cheers!

[beethovenfan]

I found some dark matter on my lawn this morning.

[mikrofon]

Or, as Tiger may have thought, the keys to the universe are not found on the driving range...

[wideminded]

The Soudan Mine offers tours. Highly recommended.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks wm.

[SunkenCiv]

:’)

[allmost]

The fundamental assumptions are that gravity does not vary (i.e. we understand it completely, completely false). The speed of light does not vary (again disproven in lab experiments on earth), spacetime variations do not affect observations or exist to any great degree outside our speck of space, and we are able to detect all relevant matter to support theoretical modifications due to observations. Dark matter has always seemed like one of the biggest scientific cop outs. It's one thing to say we don't know and develop theories. It's another thing entirely to ‘invent’ upwards by some estimations 90 percent of the Universe out of nothing.

[SunkenCiv]

I grok that.

• Physicists Find Tiny Particle With No Charge, Very Low Mass And Sub-nanosecond Lifetime
• No sign of the Higgs boson
• Single top quark detected
• A lighter Higgs makes particle hunt harder

higgs boson site:freerepublic.com

Google

[swatbuznik]

Oh no... not that “blue pill.” I was thinking of the Blue Pill from “The Matrix.”

[SunkenCiv]

Okay. I fell asleep during that one.