Ditching Dark Matter

The Guardian ^ | Thursday February 13, 2003 | Marcus Chown

[Phaedrus]

Deja vu happening here. Comments?

[Phaedrus]

ping ...

[Phaedrus]

The orbital speed of stars remained constant as far out from the centre as it was possible to see.

This is amazing. I had no idea.

[balrog666]

This is amazing. I had no idea.

No surprise there.

[norton]

It's comments like:
"The main objection to Mond is that it is merely empirical and has no fundamental basis in physics..."
That make you wonder how anyone might discover fire 'scientifically'.

'If the theory don't fit - ain't havin' none of it!'

[Glenn]

Bump for later reading.

[Alamo-Girl]

This is fascinating, Phaedrus! Thank you for the heads up!

Einstein said I have deep faith that the principle of the universe will be beautiful and simple.

This theory strikes me as beautiful and simple and therefore I am drawn to it. The dark matter theory, OTOH, feels "kluged" - like plugging in a variable just so the equation will work. Moreover, we have much to learn about matter - even the existence of the Higgs boson is yet to be confirmed. The Higgs boson is the presumptive explanation for most matter.

[Grand Old Partisan]

"If you can't explain your idea to a child, you don't understand it yourself." -- Albert Einstein

When asked to explain the theory of relativity, he said: " You sit on a hot stove, and a second is a minute. A pretty girl sits on your lap, and a minute is a second. Time is relative."

!!!!!

[GOPJ]

Moving like an old 45 RPM record?

[Alamo-Girl]

LOLOL! That is precious! Thank you for sharing!

[Phaedrus]

It intrigues me that standing, doing nothing, is identical to experiencing 1 "g" of acceleration. Why would this be? Well, call me stupid, I suppose ... ;-}

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your post!

It intrigues me that standing, doing nothing, is identical to experiencing 1 "g" of acceleration. Why would this be?

I suspect it is the same reason we only see in 3 dimensions. Here's what a four dimensional perception would "look like." BTW, that website has excellent graphics and animations to help understand the theory of special relativity!

[Physicist]

"The dark matter explanation was perfectly reasonable," admits Milgrom.

"But it was the assumption of minimum daring."

What's the opposite of Occam's Razor? Occam's Flatiron? Occam's Bludgeon? Help me out here.

[Tallguy]

All this scientist did was manipulate the basic formula from the Newtonian model to fit the data. Basically, he is fudging the numbers without understanding the physical mechanism is that underpins his equation. Maybe he will be the one to describe a new theory of Gravitational Motion, but he hasn't done it yet.

[onedoug]

The gravity of this "dark matter" holds on to the fast-orbiting stars and stops them going AWOL.

Easier to understand if galaxies are "seeded" by black-holes. Otherwise, this dark matter should be all around us, so massive as it would seem detectable. But alas....

[Phaedrus]

Do you have a philosophical "take" on this?

[Phaedrus]

Of possible interest. Comments?

[fporretto]

Occam's Blunderbuss.

"Theory doesn't have to be right. It only has to be interesting." -- Gregory Benford.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason:
http://palaceofreason.com

[tjg]

But there is nothing wrong with writing an equation to fit the data. The only problem is that you have show that many, many examples fit your equation. Then people will start looking for examples that don't work. After about 50 years of nobody being able to find an example that doesn't work, your equation becomes scientific fact.