Posted on 08/02/2002 8:14:32 PM PDT by medved
The new issue of the "Scientific American" contains an article which appears to amount to hedging its bets on the question of "dark matter", and at least recognizing the potential which the idea (dark matter) has for making scientists look stupid.
In the universe at large, things which appear roundish or which lack any particular shape are dominated by gravitational forces, while things which appear orderly such as spiral galaxies, are necessarily controlled by something vastly stronger, such as electromagnetic forces. In some cases, this is glaringly obvious.
A good example is the spiral galaxy shown above. The arms, particularly the upper arm, show material being held in a straight line until some point at which the field breaks down, after which material very quickly trails away and dissipates.
Again, this is obvious and nobody should need to be Albert Einstein to comprehend it. There is no conceivable way gravity could do something like that.
Astronomers, however, are for the most part wedded to a sort of an ideological doctrine which states that all such phenomena are controlled by gravity and inertia, and within the framework of that doctrine, things like dark matter are mathematically necessary.
Scientists not wedded to the doctrine refer to dark matter and similar notions as "Fabricated Ad-hoc Inventions Repeatedly Invoked in an Effort to Defend Untenable Scientific Theories", or FAIRIE DUST.
One internet resource for people looking for more serious answers to cosmological problems than "dark matter" is Don Scott's Electric Cosmos Site.
"Scientific American" is on the list of things which I do not patronize but what I gathered looking at the thing in the magazine rack at WallMart this morning is that the article looks into the possibility of dumping "dark matter" and simply changing the equations governing the cosmos, i.e. changing the laws of physics. The term "MOND", or MOdified Newtonian Dynamics occurs. Scott and others like him of course take a sort of a dim view of all such machinations
Except ducts. It doesn't bind ducts worth a damn... ;)
He can decide whether he loves electromagnetic theories, i.e. Hannes Alfven, or hates them, i.e. Maxwell. It does not matter. Long range electrical forces in the universe are screened by the self-shielding properties of plasma's which is why gravity is dominant.
MACHO's have been observed so they are not FAIRIE DUST.
Another philistine/luddite calling a major-league physicist a "nutcase". Sad....
Well, of course.....
Put your mind at ease? What has you worried, friend?
Is it the possibility that insufficient dark matter exists
to prevent the universe from expanding forever until
there is nothing but a cold, dark void? Or are you
worried that too much dark matter will bring
a collapsing universe in a fiery death? Please,
breathe easy. We won't be around in either
case.
To learn more about spiral arms formation,
why not start here?
He further believes that some special "electromagnetism" from Saturn allowed humans to telepathically communicate with the animals (who are just as smart as we are, but who can no longer communicate that to us after the loss of the telepathy-enducing waves).
So, when "Medved" deigns to "correct" scientists on some point, take it with a few tankerloads of salt.
I like that sort of liquid comparison. It's like a photographic negative of what I was thinking. I imagined it as a viscous liquid mixture starting with a distribution of randomly spinning syrupy filaments criss-crossing, and if quickly spinning filaments cross with slower spinning filaments, the slower filaments are drawn in, forming spiral paths as they go.
I was thinking that much of the distributing and interaction among such filaments could have occurred before matter and light separated. I believe that's an epoch not understood by modern science.
When the messenger is a long-time crackpot on scientific issues, it saves a lot of time to just point out his past (and present) crackpottery.
He purposely exploits the readers' unfamiliarity with cosmological physics by spouting nonsense peppered with impressive-sounding buzzwords. To a reader who has such a background, his nonsense is obvious on its face. To readers who don't have such a background, a direct refutation would sound no more or less plausible than his original twaddle -- the reader would have no basis for choosing one over the other.
So rather than educate everyone to the point where they would have the background to understand a proper refutation, it's a lot simpler to just point out the times that "Medved" has spouted such nonsense that *everyone* can see for themselves, even without a physics degree, what a kook he is on these topics.
Liberals smear people unfairly, inventing charges against them. Conservatives simply point out the facts when a person has shattered their own credibility (e.g. Clinton, Arafat, etc.)
The way this is presented amounts to lying by telling too little of a story. You and one or two others on FR present this as if I were just sitting around in a tree one day and determined that the Earth used to orbit Saturn, i.e. as if I were the ONLY person on Earth who believes this.
Now, in actual fact, it turns out that a lot of people believe this and that there are real reasons for it, and that the same basic body of evidence has produced several different versions of a "Saturn thesis" and not just one. Anybody interested in reading about this stuff can follow any of the links I have provided:
Given standard theories wrt the history of our solar system and our own planet, nobody should be finding cities and villages on Mars, 2100 feet beneath the waves off Cuba, or buried under two miles of Antarctic ice.
How old are you, Day? Do you actually not know the difference between reasonable debate tactics and making that sort of a claim?
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