end of darkness

7/29/2019 End of darkness

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26 March 2013 | Magazine issue 2909

End of darkness: The stuff that really rules the cosmos

by Andrew Pontzen

Dark matter is the Goliath that supposedly dominates our galaxy. But it might already have met its David

YOU'D think Carlos Frenk would be pleased that no one calls him a crackpot any more. He wasn't always so lucky.

"I would stand up at conferences and have people almost throwing rotten tomatoesat me," he says.

His offence was to be an ardent advocate of a then controversial idea that mostof the universe's matter comes as a cold, heavy soup of invisible "dark matter".Today that is the orthodoxy. Wherever dark stuff accumulates, so the standard story goes, normal matter meekly follows, irresistibly drawn in by its overbearing gravity. This matter forms stars, and then galaxies are born meagre pricks oflight in a domineering dark empire.

But the confidence of such statements now has Frenk worried. "I suddenly realise

d that young scientists were taking dark matter for granted, and was absolutelyscandalised," he says. You can see his point. Experiments that are supposed to conjure up dark matter have so far produced nothing. Searches for its particles streaming through the Earth have thrown up confusing, contradictory results. Models of how the stuff shapes the visible cosmos veer between triumphant confirmation and abysmal contradiction.

As a young theoretical cosmologist myself, I am among dark matter's disciples. To my mind there is just too much in the universe we can't explain without the stuff. But there is perhaps a way out of its worst dilemmas. Dark matter really does exist; we just need to rethink the idea that it holds all the power in our star-spangled cosmos.

It was about a decade ago that my undergraduate physics lecturer casually introduced me to the idea that five-sixths of the matter in the universe is invisible.Dark matter was originally invoked to explain the observation in the 1930s thatclusters of galaxies whirl around too fast for the amount of ordinary matter inthem. In the 1970s it was also used to explain why galaxies themselves are spinning too fast, as if subject to an extra gravitational tug. Even so, I recall thinking that you might as well base explanations of the cosmos on magic fairy dust.

But experience made me a true believer. The way galaxies and other massive objects bend light vindicates the idea that there is more to the cosmos than meets the eye. Patterns in the cosmic microwave background, the big bang's afterglow, reveal matter in the early universe caught in a finely balanced competition betwee

n gravitational contraction and expansive pressures in a way that agrees with dark matter theory in stunning detail. In my own research on how galaxies form, toreproduce anything like the web of galaxies spun across the cosmos we need darkmatter just as Frenk and others ordered it: a cold soup of stuff that barely moves at all.

Wimping outPleasingly, particle physics supplies a ready recipe for this soup. The theory of supersymmetry is a favoured step beyond our current "standard model" of particles and their interactions. It holds up a mathematical mirror to reality by asse


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rting that every particle so far discovered has a generally heavier partner. Some of these super-partners are weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs. These have mass (and so produce and respond to gravity) but do not interact with light (and so can't be seen). The number of WIMPs that should have been created in the big bang coincides tidily with the density of dark matter inferred from cosmological observations a happy conjunction sometimes known as the WIMP miracle.

But do miracles really happen? No experiment that might have produced supersymmetric particles, not even the Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland, has seen a hint of them so far. The simplest supersymmetric theories have already been ruled out, and more complex versions await their fate when the LHC restarts at a higher energy, probably in 2015. "After that, if they don't find supersymmetric particles within about a year, I think it'll be dead," says Ben Allanach, a particle theorist at the University of Cambridge. "I'll start to work on something else, and I think a lot of other people feel the same way."

That's not the only difficulty. Fiddly experiments looking for the fingerprint of cosmic WIMPs as they stream from space are producing highly confusing results.The DAMA experiment at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in central Italy hasseen a signal that changes on a yearly cycle. That is what we would expect if Earth is moving relative to a placid cold dark sea as it trundles round the sun but other experiments flatly contradict the finding. Space-based missions such asthe PAMELA satellite and the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) aboard the International Space Station have measured excesses of antimatter particles that might

be produced when two WIMPs collide but these don't really fit our expectations.Overall, "there's huge scepticism about the claims of dark matter detections because other experiments rule that out," says Frenk.

Perhaps the most damaging blow, however, is that when we look at the details WIMP-based cold dark matter doesn't seem to be the consummate galaxy sculptor we thought. Last year Michael Boylan-Kolchin, a cosmologist at the University of California, Irvine, was running simulations of standard cold dark matter's effect onthe formation of dwarf spheroidals, mini galaxy-ettes that swarm around the Milky Way. Boylan-Kolchin could infer the dark matter content of these dwarf galaxies by watching how stars move around inside them (Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol 415, p L40). "It didn't seem to make sense: things weremore massive and dense in the simulation than the things we see in the real uni

verse," he says.

Is it time to change our dark matter order?

A warmer brothThere are alternatives on the menu. If, rather than a cool gazpacho, dark matterwere a hot broth of zippier particles, it would lump less readily and so form more diffuse galaxies. In the 1980s, measurements of neutrinos convinced some researchers that the collective mass of these oddball particles, which race aroundat close to the speed of light, would be enough to explain dark matter. But thismass turned out to be a huge overestimate, and neutrino-based hot dark matter had the opposite problem to cold dark matter: it moved around too fast to settledown into relatively compact structures like galaxies at all.

There is a third way. A couple of years ago, Frenk set his team to work on a "Goldilocks" solution: dark matter that is not too hot, not too cold, but just right (see diagram). To their surprise, they could make a lukewarm variant of dark matter produce the right, wafty dwarf spheroidal galaxies without ruining the rest of cosmology (Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol 420, p 2318).

That still has consequences. The leading candidate for a warm dark matter particle is a heavier, more elusive sibling of the neutrino known as a sterile neutrin


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o. The LHC might manufacture sterile neutrinos indirectly in its particle collisions, but their signature is so subtle it wouldn't necessarily know it had. Ourbest hope of spotting sterile neutrinos is when normal neutrinos spontaneously turn into them and disappear off a detector's radar.

So if warm dark matter is the solution, experiments such as DAMA have been looking in the wrong place. "From an experimental point of view it would be very tragic because there's been a huge investment, particularly in the direct detectionof WIMPs," says Frenk. The idea has consequences for theorists, too: warm dark matter is divorced from the sort of particles predicted by supersymmetry, leavingboth ideas considerably weaker.

In the meantime, Jorge Pearrubia of the University of Edinburgh, UK, and his colleagues have been looking at how dark matter is distributed within nearby dwarf spheroidal galaxies. It seems to be evenly spread across their diameter (The Astrophysical Journal, vol 742, p 20). "This constant density was something we did not expect," Pearrubia says. Simulations with any temperature of dark matter cold,hot or warm produce dwarf galaxies that are more densely packed towards their centres. This discrepancy between theory and observation repeats itself in slightly larger, more distant galaxies.

Some exotic flavours of dark matter might help out, such as "self-interacting" dark matter, feisty particles that constantly ricochet around and so resist beingsculpted into tight central cusps. But we are at a loss as to what hypothetical

particle would bounce around just the right amount in dwarf galaxies and not too much in galaxy clusters. To me, this particular soup smells a little fishy.

So we are at an impasse. Cold dark matter does not quite do all the jobs we askof it but then again, nor does anything else.

My own hunch is that, oddly, cold dark matter might be the right stuff after all. The price we must pay is to stop assuming that it is the totalitarian force inthe governance of galaxies. Stars generate huge amounts of energy in their lifetimes. When their time is up, they explode in supernovae. Gas spiralling into black holes generates vast amounts of heat. The energy from either of these sources is enough to send enormous quantities of gas swirling violently around insidea galaxy. Dark matter is not immune to these huge gravitational ructions: it beg

ins to move in concert. Simulations I and a number of colleagues have been performing over the past few years suggest that, if the normal gas is shaken enough,it sends dark matter into a real funk, swirling it around like snowflakes in a snow globe (Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol 421, p 3464).

Dark matter particles could then be cold and supersymmetric again, and simply get hot under the collar when bullied by exuberant normal matter. The increased energy of this protogalactic soup stops it coalescing too densely, so the structure of the Milky Way's dwarf satellites makes sense again. The only remaining puzzle is why direct searches for dark matter have produced such ambiguous results so far. Perhaps cutting-edge particle physics experiments are just hard.

Pearrubia thinks it a credible enough picture. "The redistribution of dark matter

requires vast amounts of energy, and supernova explosions are the only plausible source," he says. But he cautions against thinking that supernovae are enoughon their own, especially to produce dwarf spheroidal galaxies of the right density. "The small number of stars in these galaxies limits the supernova energy tovalues that are only just sufficient," he says. Boylan-Kolchin is also scepticalthat jumbling everything up with cosmic explosions solves all the problems. "Mypersonal feeling is that it's unlikely that these effects can save cold dark matter theory," he says.

Hidden signals


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Of course I think he's being pessimistic and would point to other, albeit highlytentative, evidence for the idea of rambunctious normal matter kicking dark matter around. It comes from NASA's gamma-ray satellite telescope Fermi, which hasbeen on the lookout for visible signals given off by dark matter since 2008. That might seem futile; the whole point is that you can't see dark matter. But evencold dark matter theory suggests you can see indirect signs of the stuff if, for instance, its particles collide and annihilate in a puff of energy and a veryvisible flash of gamma-ray light.

The Milky Way's dwarf satellites are again a good place to look. They are closeby, and naturally very dim, meaning any gamma-ray photons from them are likely to come from dark-matter annihilations. Officially, we haven't seen any yet. "Thebottom line is that so far we have not detected any signal," says Fermi team member Andrea Albert of Ohio State University in Columbus.

Last April, however, a researcher from outside the Fermi collaboration, Christoph Weniger of the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich, Germany, set astrophysics afizz with the suggestion that Fermi had indeed seen a dark matter signal not from dwarf galaxies, but from near the heart of the Milky Way itself. His work indicated that a significant excess of gamma rays from that general direction, all with the same energy of around 130 gigaelectronvolts, was buried in publicly released data from the Fermi satellite (Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, DOI: 10.1088/1475-7516/2012/08/007).

The signal is weak, and where it is strongest is not at the Milky Way's centre,where you would expect dark matter to accumulate, but around 1 degree off-centre. This misalignment nourishes a suspicion that it is the product of some obscuremiscalibration of the telescope.

Alternatively, normal matter might be buffeting the dark stuff around. That at least is the implication of simulations by Mike Kuhlen from the University of California, Berkeley, last year (arxiv.org/abs/1208.4844). "It surprised me, but you almost immediately see the dark matter gets offset in the simulation when gasand stars are included," he says.

So, all is well with standard cold dark matter, as long as you factor in the effects of normal matter. Not so fast, says Frenk. If supersymmetric particles anni

hilating each other were the source of the gamma rays, they would be producing them not with one standard energy, but with a spread: the annihilation mechanismgenerates electrons and positrons, which gradually give up their energy in unpredictable fits and bursts. "The case is absolutely fascinating, but I don't thinkwe've found anything yet," he says.

Things might change in a moment if the many experiments looking for dark matterwere to start producing consistent results. But that will take years at best. Inthe meantime, the discord is music to Frenk's ears. "We don't know whether colddark matter's right," he says. "If everyone just buys into an idea, things don't progress."

Andrew Pontzen is a theoretical cosmologist at the University of Oxford

comments

Thu Mar 21 by Damir Ibrisimovichttp://home.pacific.net.au/~damir-dsl/In the science, there was always a simple rule: Observe, observe and observe. In


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other words, it is all right to theorise, but without a shred of empirical evidence --- you can kiss all of yours "theories" goodbye. Unfortunately, we have started to theorise knowing in advance that they hinge on unobservable "evidence"...It is not only dark matter, dark energy or multiverses that are raising serious concerns. Our tendency to interpret even hints of "evidence" as supporting ourcase --- also resembles fortune-telling from tea leaves...Conjuring dark matterup seems to be like another epicycle upon epicycle upon --- Ptolemaic system. In other words, geocentric system is OK --- all we need is to add few epicycles.Even today, with enough epicycles we can predict quite well where Mars will be,for example...Our main problem is that our universe obviously does not behave aswe would like it to behave. In this, I would rather question some of the basicassumptions in our models of universe. This may require rethinking about our current concept of gravity, but it is still better than conjuring ghosts up...Havea nice day,Damir Ibrisimovic

Thu Mar 21 by ullrich fischerIt does look kinda epicyclical right now, but lets not kiss any hypotheses goodbye which are self-consistent and explain what we've seen so far until somethingcomes up to falsify them.

Fri Mar 22 by Damir Ibrisimovic

http://home.pacific.net.au/~damir-dsl/Dear Ulrich,Normally, disproving a hypothesis by empirical evidence to the contrary is the right way of doing science. However, when hypothesis hinges upon (per definition)unobservable ghosts --- empirical disproval is also (per definition) not possible. So, we have here a stalemate that resembles rather non-scientific, discussions about: Do ghosts exist? That said, we may have, one day in the future, equipment able to detect hints of ghosts. Meanwhile, I think we would be much better off looking much closer at more likely models that do not require ghosts in theirequations...Have a nice day,Damir Ibrisimovic

Wed Mar 27 by trevtare we treating the dark matter issue in a similar way to that of "the ether"...light needed the ether....gravity needs dark matter....coincidence ??1t appearedbeyond question that light must be interpreted as a vibratory process in an elastic, inert medium filling up universal space. It also seemed to be a necessaryconsequence of the fact that light is capable of polarisation that this medium,the ether, must be of the nature of a solid body, because transverse waves are not possible in a fluid, but only in a solid. Thus the physicists were bound to arrive at the theory of the ``quas-irigid'' luminiferous ether, the parts of which can carry out no movements relatively to one another except the small movements of deformation which correspond to light-waves.

Wed Mar 27 by DreamerDamir, you seem to have misunderstood properties of dark matter. Nobody has saidit's unobservable; it's not in the definition of it at all. What has been saidis it's unobservable in the electromagnetic spectrum. We cannot SEE it, but that's not the only method of observation we have. In fact, the whole reason we're talking about it at all and not instantly dismissing it as undetectable ghost particles is because there IS an observed difference in GRAVITY from our theories.Thus, we have observed something, and are working out what could be in it. It'sequivalent to a silent fan blowing air in a dark room. You can't see it, but yo


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u can observe there is something there having an effect. You might decide it's adragon, a fundamental air-flow in the universe, or a fan, and that is what we're debating.

Thu Mar 21 by Gene Boydhttp://dsplus.comIf the universe is a Klein Bottle {3(+t)-d Moebius Strip}, one would expect to see it folded back on itself and to see an event horizon (that "strange cold spot") in the image. That would imply a cyclical U vs the "one-off" singularity w/inflation. The tipping point would look like a singularity.

login and reply report this comment Are We Conjuring Ghosts Up?Fri Mar 22 01:09:25 GMT 2013 by Damir Ibrisimovichttp://home.pacific.net.au/~damir-dsl/Dear Gene,

You are also introducing unobservable Klein Bottle {3(+t)-d Moebius Strip assumption. In addition, this assumption is hard to reconcile with empirically confirmed uniformity of background radiation...

When I mentioned rethinking of gravity/mass, I have been looking at phenomenon much closer to our home: orbital resonances in our solar system. In simple terms,celestial objects are either nudged towards specific orbital (whole number) rat

ios --- or simply kicked out of the system...

As far I know, nobody has yet explored the phenomenon in detail; apart from talking about ghost-like gravitational waves --- nobody was able to detect yet. Consequently, I prefer talking about combined gravitational pulls. It is actually quite simple and I will try to exemplify in oversimplified terms:

Imagine how Sun and Moon impact tide on our planet. When they are aligned, tidesare the highest and getting lower with each degree of offset from alignment. Inan abstract way, the combined gravitational pulls oscillate in approximately 29.5 days. Now, as we add other celestial objects to the system --- we have different oscillations of combined gravitational pulls. Frequencies that tend towardsresonance seem to stabilise the system as a whole --- while destabilising freque

ncies seem to be gradually eliminated by the system as a whole...

Now, this might be just a crazy idea of mine. But, a system with more orbital resonances than dissonances might exert greater gravitational pull as a whole thana simple sum of celestial masses within it. If I am correct, this might help toexplain Pioneer 10 & 11 anomaly, for example. On the larger scale, orbital resonances might help to explain "missing" mass --- but without ghosts...

In general: Any system has something more than a simple sum of its parts. This may be true for gravity as well.

Have a nice day,

Damir Ibrisimovic

login and reply report this comment Are We Conjuring Ghosts Up?Fri Mar 22 06:18:11 GMT 2013 by Eric KvaalenDamir, the Pioneer anomaly has been explained now (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_anomaly ).

I am curious -- what is your field?

login and reply report this comment Are We Conjuring Ghosts Up?


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Fri Mar 22 10:30:10 GMT 2013 by Damir Ibrisimovichttp://home.pacific.net.au/~damir-dsl/Dear Eric,

I am aware of proposal that might explain Pioneer anomaly in different terms (heat loss). I am also aware that explanation is in 18% range. And I am inclined toaccept it, but (as always) I like to look at alternatives. In this particular case, I like my idea that could explain both, Pioneer anomaly and "missing" mass...

I have been considering mass as emergent property for quite a while and outlinedthe idea on my old website in October 2000. Since then, I have been looking into orbital resonances. If I am correct, combined gravitational pulls of celestialobjects orbiting in, let us say, harmonic ratios --- gravitational pulls couldamplify each other. I am also entertaining a thought that something similar might be going on in quantum arena also. At least, properties of God particle (or field) seem to indicate so...

As for "my field", I used to be IT consultant. And this helped me to look acrossvariety of fields --- often drilling down into details to resolve contradictions. And, believe me; people (scientists included) are able to generate (mostly unknowingly) mountains of contradictions. Once for example, I asked a physicist what she meant by speed of information? In few minutes, I was able to list 22 contradictory "explanations"...

More than four decades of similar experiences taught me to look beyond jargon ofany particular field and always ask for clarifications. This helps in forming my own opinion that is not always in line with what specialists say. But, sometimes I am lucky leaving some specialists to mull about suggested alternatives...

Have a nice day,

Damir Ibrisimovic

login and reply report this comment view threadAre We Conjuring Ghosts Up?Mon Mar 25 15:51:57 GMT 2013 by MC

When there is no evidence to decide one way or the other, there's only one thingleft to do: use our imagination and see what could work. Now, we need to imagine ways to figure out how we could test the theories

login and reply report this comment Are We Conjuring Ghosts Up?Mon Mar 25 23:58:24 GMT 2013 by Damir Ibrisimovichttp://home.pacific.net.au/~damir-dsl/Dear MC,

The most of the time, we already have empirical evidence. In this case, we havesome clusters of galaxies whirling around too fast. To resolve the discrepanciesbetween observations and theory, we obviously need to change something. This article supports the preservation of the current concept of gravity/mass by adding

ghost-like dark matter. And, it is not only that we cannot (per definition) detect this ghost. We also have a problem with other clusters whirling around too slow. Of course, we can explain these anomalies with uneven distribution of ghostly mass, but...

The only other alternative is to change the current concept of gravity/mass so that it explains the current empirical evidence without adding ghosts to our equations. Unfortunately, we tend to measure according to our present theories and discard the data that does not fit as anomalies...


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I have been looking into orbital resonances, especially at Jupiter system flybys. Unfortunately, publically available data does not include trajectory correction engine bursts --- so data about potential anomalies in gravitational pulls mayhave been lost. (Trajectory corrections are standard procedure and I doubt thatcomplete records are still kept somewhere.)

Changing our current concept of gravity/mass also faces another problem. Namely,how we presently estimate the mass of a celestial object. If orbital resonancesamplify the gravitational pull of the system as a whole, then current estimatesof individual masses within the system might be greater than actuals. However,if we establish the ratios between orbital resonances and dissonances and link them with galaxies whirling too fast or too slow --- we may find empirical evidence for different concept of gravity/mass...

We also need a closer look at how changing fine structure constant (?) might impact our current estimates of mass of very distant celestial objects...

Have a nice day,

Damir Ibrisimovic

login and reply report this comment Are We Conjuring Ghosts Up?Tue Mar 26 17:24:49 GMT 2013 by greengeekdamir,

why is exclusively reexamining our theory of gravity better than looking--at thesame time--to alternate theories that cannot be confirmed by direct observation? subatomic particles as well as atoms and molecules were all (correctly, as faras we know at present) all proposed long before we had the ability to confirm their existence. so too the bulk of mathematics.

login and reply report this comment 1 more replyAre We Conjuring Ghosts Up?Tue Mar 26 19:56:28 GMT 2013 by MCDamir,

This may be heretical as cosmology goes, but what if gravity and mass were not n

ecessarily tied together? Could there be what I would call ''free attractors''.In other words gravity wells with nothing inside or so little actual matter thatit couldn't be seen? Such empty gravity wells would exist where no matter or protomatter would be available?

I know I'm way out on a limb here, but I wonder. How would you see a gravity well if nothing was inside? And I'm not talking black holes. Such gravity wells could have very tiny but in large number, they might accound for the so called missing mass.

login and reply report this comment 2 more repliesAre We Conjuring Ghosts Up?Tue Mar 26 05:46:51 GMT 2013 by Eric Kvaalen

Damir, what do flybys have to do with orbital resonance?

login and reply report this comment Are We Conjuring Ghosts Up?Wed Mar 27 00:54:49 GMT 2013 by Damir Ibrisimovichttp://home.pacific.net.au/~damir-dsl/Dear Eric,

The Jupiter system has 3 moons in highly resonant orbits: Io (1:1), Europa (1:2)and Ganymede (1:4). If I am correct, the flybys may indicate slightly greater gravitational pulls while approaching to or leaving the system. In addition, ther


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e could be changes in combined gravitational pulls as a probe crosses a hypothetical fourth (and maybe even fifth) resonant orbit within the system...

The gaps in the asteroid belt are also result of orbital resonances with the Jupiter system. That is why I would love to have data about correctional engine bursts...

Have a nice day,

Damir Ibrisimovic

login and reply report this comment view threadAre We Conjuring Ghosts Up?Wed Mar 27 10:11:41 GMT 2013 by MarkjbYet again, another article that seems to think there should be a single answer to dark matter (despite there being not one scrap of evidence or reason to support a theory along those lines)

There are two (plus) possible explanations for dark matter.

1) A mond like gravitational effect on galaxy rotations caused by the cosmos being surrounded by infinite other cosmoses (that we cannot see because of gravitational black-shift). This explanation is also consistent with (and predicted) theaccelerating expansion of our cosmos (misleadingly referred to as 'dark energy'

)

2 Matter, within our cosmos, that is dark /non electromagnetically interactive because it has a different harmonic Planck value - and thus, also, a different Gconstant (you can call these ghost matter(s) if you like) There would be a harmonic range from weak to strong (and our matter would be mid range). The strong Grapidly forms the seeds of galaxies and is there in the supermassive dark coresof galaxies. The weak G stuff resides in outer space (halos).

Now combine the models of 1 and 2, make a lot more observations, use the power of computers that have not yet been built, and we may see these theories (which are part of a theory of everything (physical) based on a multi-cosmos universe ),fit the bill.

By the way, this article gives the impression that the idea of dark matter is anew thing, but long before the author was born (I guess) Einstein and co were aware of the problem of the 'missing mass', as it was then referred to.

login and reply report this comment view threadWarped Space/time Quanta Generate Mass/gravityThu Mar 21 18:53:05 GMT 2013 by Gene Boydhttp://dsplus.comA space/time of warped quanta would create both mass and gravity...dark matter/enerty and gravity. Property/anti-property (e.g., matter) react violently and warp space/time like a Moebius strip...in 3(+t)-d (a Klein Particle) of say Plancklength, the massive warp of s/t=mass/grav.

login and reply report this comment Mickey MouseTue Mar 26 11:17:59 GMT 2013 by SteverThere is an old joke told about a similar practice as is followed by mainstreamastrophysics.

'Mickey Mouse visits Donald Duck and finds him on his hands and knees in the middle of the room under the light looking at the bare floor, "What are you doing?"Mickey asks, "Looking for my silver dollar" [aka proof of the current paradigm]. "Where do you think it might be?" asks Mickey, "Well here obviously" says Dona


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ld. "Why not over there in the shadows or down the back of the settee?'" asks Mickey, "Because this is where the light is best" replies Donald [i.e. where it ispossible to get plenty of research funding].

Until there is an acceptance that we haven't explored all avenues of conventional physics, the fact that gravitationally driven cosmology fails to provide sensible answers to how the universe is is not a reason to keep inventing imaginary physics. Even worse it is plain wrong to invent an imaginary physics to 'fit' misinterpretations of observations that should be interpreted in the light of the physics that we do understand.

login and reply report this comment Mickey MouseTue Mar 26 20:06:00 GMT 2013 by Tom AndersenAs a 'for instance' - gravitons have never been observed, and worse no one can make a theory that uses gravitons work in areas of high fields, etc. So its possible that gravity is not a particle. Perhaps dark matter is also not a particle,so experiments will get negative or self - contradictory remarks.

Of course saying that gravity is not a particle means a total collapse of basically everything that physics stands on, so no one gets funding for it.

The number of truly speculative papers that are actually printed in journals from arXiv to Nature is vanishingly small, and as the Carlos Frenk points out, youare subject to ridicule for something as innocuous as an idea.

The internet is full of information, but it can also provide 'idea lock-in'

login and reply report this comment Mickey MouseWed Mar 27 03:38:41 GMT 2013 by Damir Ibrisimovichttp://home.pacific.net.au/~damir-dsl/Dear Tom,

Saying that gravity is not a particle does not really mean a total collapse of everything that physics stands on. It simply means that we cannot have a particlefor practically everything --- free will or consciousness, for example...

This madness in chasing particles for practically everything is, in my opinion,

painting physics into the corner of irrelevance. Penrose et al, for example, arestill selling their book about backward causation (quantum physics) to accountfor Benjamin Libet's .5 sec delay --- even though their proposal was empiricallyrefuted *before* they wrote about it...

If physicists really want to re-establish the relevance of physics --- they really need to start connecting the dots across disciplines. For the beginning, I would really like to see a convincing math that derives saltiness from propertiesof sodium and chlorine...

Have a nice day,

Damir Ibrisimovic

login and reply report this comment Mickey MouseWed Mar 27 16:33:12 GMT 2013 by FR33L0RDHi,

Just a small word to tell my appreciation about the last 3 comments by Stever, Tom & Damir.

It is very refreshing to see rational, logic & imaginative ideas wrapped up tights like this.


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I think that the new brand of math/scientist will make great use of these precious qualities.

In a sense,for many of us, it is possible, now, to think out of the box in a decent logical way.

end of darkness

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