They would have used this collector of dark particulate matter, but Nature abhors a vacuum ....
Posted on 11/12/2013 6:08:01 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
Scientists at the Homestake Gold Mine in South Dakota running the biggest, most sensitive dark matter detector yet released its first round of results yesterday -- and they found nothing. The Large Underground Xenon dark matter experiment, or LUX, consists of a vat of 368 kilograms of liquid xenon to minus 110 degrees Celsius, surrounded by a tank of water. LUX sits 4,850 feet underground at the old mine, shielded from cosmic rays.
An international team of researchers watched for three months to see if any WIMPS -- weakly interacting massive particles -- would pass through the rock and reveal themselves by interacting with the xenon, as predicted by previous experiments.
But they discovered nothing -- and scientists on the team are proud of how little they saw.
"In 25 years of searching, this is the cleanest signal I've seen," said Richard Gaitskell, physicist and researcher on the team.
The discovery of nothing is significant in that, if confirmed, it would rule out one theory about dark matter, which astronomers have said makes up a quarter of the cosmos.
So far scientists are more clear on what dark matter isn't, rather than what it is, and now they know it isn't high-mass WIMPS, as LUX should have detected more than a thousand such particles.
The LUX experiment will run through all of next year. Researchers will next move to add another factor of sensitivity to the device, and run the experiment again.
“Just because we don’t see anything in the first run doesn’t mean we won’t see anything in the second,” Gaitskell said.
Without disagreeing it could be more fun to let dark matter, matter which is invisible, exist and to have started life in a dark matter pond on a dark matter planet and to have evolved..... because then we could have an explanation for all the various otherworldly phenomena.......
Just rooting for scientific anarchy.....
They would have used this collector of dark particulate matter, but Nature abhors a vacuum ....
Amen, Brother!
String Theory has such a cult following...that I figured I'd swim counter to the current, and I read this, which you may also like:
Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law
Most likely is that the current model, the entropic universe, is a false model. A workable model, to be sure, but not necessarily “true”. After all it doesn’t work in the chem lab. That’s called a clue. And when one of your “best” theories (multiuniverse) cannot under any circumstances be verified.... what are we paying for? Still, it ensures a never ending supply of grant money for fancy toys and fat salaries and bonuses which is the real goal.
It is nonetheless an interesting result, IIRC, WIMPS was one of the favorite candidates, maybe its the MACHOs?
“And I don’t say that lightly, but with the utmost gravity...for the situation, that is.”
I see what you did there. :)
Does it matter?
As an adult I have anxiety whenever I hear a vacuum cleaner running. It’s attributed to triggers formulated in my childhood. You see, whenever Mom was pissed off she would run the Electrolux. I was very attuned to the tension and how she would clamp her lips between her teeth in the “Mom is pissed off again” expression she has, banding the wand into every table leg and piece of furniture. It turns out she hated the Electrolux because it was so heavy, but she had to have it because that’s what her sister had.
10 years ago she finally got one of those 7lb Oreck XL units... but the damage is done. Just the sound of any vacuum cleaner triggers a flight response... like when I visit home and Dad gets out the vacuum and cleans aroundnthe litter box after scooping cat turds... oh, man, I have to go outside the house... weird but it is what it is.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.