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A Physicist Who Denies Dark Matter

nautil.us

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Re: A Physicist Who Denies Dark Matter

#71

Post by maratd »

joeberon wrote: post #65
maratd wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we're confronted with something we can't explain using our existing equations and theories, the conclusion is that there must be some mysterious thing there that fixes our current equations and makes them work again? A thing we can't detect or see or have any other evidence of ... other than our equations and theories need that thing there for them to work? > In other words situations where we see twin images of…

Firstly, they function well enough to predict that gravitational waves exist, the ones which we measured being produced by an extreme gravitational event. Secondly, many other areas of physics have worked this out. The prime example of Quantum Field Theory and the Standard Model, which has been incredibly successful in predicting the existence of new types of particles from purely mathematical equations and theories…

> Firstly, they function well enough to predict that gravitational waves exist, the ones which we measured being produced by an extreme gravitational event.

I don't think that aspect of the theories is in dispute? Newtonian physics well enough at certain scales, but breaks down at others. The question is if there's something better out there and if we adopt something better, would it remove the need for all this "dark matter".

> Secondly, many other areas of physics have worked this out. The prime example of Quantum Field Theory and the Standard Model

Wait, what? Quantum Field Theory suggests the existence of dark matter?

Re: A Physicist Who Denies Dark Matter

#72

Post by autokad »

joeberon wrote: post #65
maratd wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we're confronted with something we can't explain using our existing equations and theories, the conclusion is that there must be some mysterious thing there that fixes our current equations and makes them work again? A thing we can't detect or see or have any other evidence of ... other than our equations and theories need that thing there for them to work? > In other words situations where we see twin images of…

Firstly, they function well enough to predict that gravitational waves exist, the ones which we measured being produced by an extreme gravitational event. Secondly, many other areas of physics have worked this out. The prime example of Quantum Field Theory and the Standard Model, which has been incredibly successful in predicting the existence of new types of particles from purely mathematical equations and theories…

"there are no politics involved in this kind of research"

While it might not be true in this case, you couldn't be further from the truth. there is an EXTREME amount of politics. people's careers are based on entire assumptions, thesis', papers, and work could be all for not if based on false assumptions.

Re: A Physicist Who Denies Dark Matter

#73

Post by hwillis »

gaius wrote: post #66
douche wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't understand how matter acrually works on a large scale. Inventing imaginary terms that we can't observe to satisfy the equations in the models to match the observed reality seems a poor practice.

Right it's like when people say, I don't believe in Creation, that stuff is just nonsense. And you say, so what's your alternative theory then? And they reply, well there was a "big bang" and everything just sort of appeared, for no reason. Really, that's the alternative explanation?

Well yes, if you ignore all the evidence of something then you can confidently say there is no evidence.

Christian genesis: There was a garden of Eden, and a god.

Evidence: No garden of Eden, no evidence of angels or god, no reason those things would suddenly stop being apparent. Direct contradictory evidence that YHWH[1] was a minor god in the original jewish pantheon rather than an actual creator god.

Big Bang: The universe started for an unknown reason and rapidly expanded outward.

Evidence: The universe is visibly expanding outwards and formed in a way consistent with an explosion.

Did you think that the big bang theory was just something someone thought of, and then they looked for evidence? Evidence came first, then the big bang was proposed.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh

Re: A Physicist Who Denies Dark Matter

#74

Post by douche »

gaius wrote: post #66
douche wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't understand how matter acrually works on a large scale. Inventing imaginary terms that we can't observe to satisfy the equations in the models to match the observed reality seems a poor practice.

Right it's like when people say, I don't believe in Creation, that stuff is just nonsense. And you say, so what's your alternative theory then? And they reply, well there was a "big bang" and everything just sort of appeared, for no reason. Really, that's the alternative explanation?

When you get down to the bedrock, there's very little difference between theistic and atheistic explanations for creation.

Re: A Physicist Who Denies Dark Matter

#75

Post by jrvidal »

vivekd wrote: post #53
_ph_ wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>How do you explaining gravitational lensing with no visible mass, without dark matter? >Black holes? Well, black holes are not really black, you can see their accretion disk. Also, a centralized huge mass would create a different velocity profile from what we are seeing. So black holes are pretty much out.

I am not certain about the mechanics of it, but one of the most prominent theories right now is that dark matter is actually primordial black holes 1 . 1. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-scientist-sug...

Sorry, but I don't understand your argument. When asked 'how do you explain lensing without dark matter?', your answer is 'with this particular flavor of dark matter'?

Re: A Physicist Who Denies Dark Matter

#76

Post by kradem »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #50
kradem wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I [too] don't think it's about bad wording, yet pure bad logic. The article is positioned on the principle that was imagined based on wrong assumtions of other theory and which acceptance will dissmiss the other theory. I'm not even being close to think of being positioned on a side there, but afaic one could easily take one in this subthread. TL; DR yep, dark matter could be denied no matter of the state of its unde…

Acceptance doesn't dismiss theories, evidence does. A physicist shouldn't truly deny anything, just look at the evidence and say it is not the best theory. Even with a better explanation, we can't be sure more information won't see the return of dark matter. Milgrom should understand this well, he's suggesting the return of the cosmological constant.

Forget dark matter, use the analogy from the article: afaik nobody has ever proven ether is not existing.

I know nothing about dark matter, but I could play a zero-sum game based on this article content - just the way anybody else could play - and outcome of that game is according to this article proven theory of this guy denies dark matter and dark energy theory.

And that's all, we could prove bad logic here without waiting for the third season of Dark Matter to be broadcasted.

Re: A Physicist Who Denies Dark Matter

#77

Post by pharrington »

roywiggins wrote: post #20
wayn3 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's exactly what dark matter is. Journalism misleads people very hard about physics research. Physicists dont run around claiming they've observed dark matter. That's the wrong direction. Physics has a problem with gravity because some things don't behave in such a way that makes theory agree with observation. Since we are talking about gravity here, we call the thing we are observing "matter". Simply because…

But dark matter is theorized to he a particle that we haven't observed yet, which sounds like "matter" to me. The specific idea to fix up the discrepancies is, there are huge clouds of invisible particles. There are competing theories on what sort of particle they might be, but dark matter theories predict that these particles are out there.

Dark matter isn't theorized to necessassrilly be a particle either (finding new symmetries in the standard model would be extremely surprising)- it's literally just a placeholder name for a massive (as in, exhibits mass) unknown.

Re: A Physicist Who Denies Dark Matter

#78

Post by joeberon »

autokad wrote: post #72
joeberon wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly, they function well enough to predict that gravitational waves exist, the ones which we measured being produced by an extreme gravitational event. Secondly, many other areas of physics have worked this out. The prime example of Quantum Field Theory and the Standard Model, which has been incredibly successful in predicting the existence of new types of particles from purely mathematical equations and theories…

"there are no politics involved in this kind of research" While it might not be true in this case, you couldn't be further from the truth. there is an EXTREME amount of politics. people's careers are based on entire assumptions, thesis', papers, and work could be all for not if based on false assumptions.

Yeah there's a huge amount of politics in research IN GENERAL, but not so much in physics. Like there are no big questions covered up because they're inconvenient or anything.

Re: A Physicist Who Denies Dark Matter

#79

Post by _ph_ »

euyyn wrote: post #62
_ph_ wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>How do you explaining gravitational lensing with no visible mass, without dark matter? >Black holes? Well, black holes are not really black, you can see their accretion disk. Also, a centralized huge mass would create a different velocity profile from what we are seeing. So black holes are pretty much out.

> Also, a centralized huge mass would create a different velocity profile from what we are seeing. Doesn't need to be centralized, no? They can orbit the galaxy as the other bodies.

Well, right. You could have a distribution of black holes. But that would mean a lot of black holes - all of them in space so void of other matter that they have no accretion disks. Also, with black holes so common, we would see many collisions with plain stars - and those would be very visible.

Re: A Physicist Who Denies Dark Matter

#80

Post by joeberon »

maratd wrote: post #71
joeberon wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly, they function well enough to predict that gravitational waves exist, the ones which we measured being produced by an extreme gravitational event. Secondly, many other areas of physics have worked this out. The prime example of Quantum Field Theory and the Standard Model, which has been incredibly successful in predicting the existence of new types of particles from purely mathematical equations and theories…

> Firstly, they function well enough to predict that gravitational waves exist, the ones which we measured being produced by an extreme gravitational event. I don't think that aspect of the theories is in dispute? Newtonian physics well enough at certain scales, but breaks down at others. The question is if there's something better out there and if we adopt something better, would it remove the need for all this "dar…

>The question is if there's something better out there and if we adopt something better, would it remove the need for all this "dark matter".

I'm not sure about this, personally I don't know enough about quantum gravity to comment on that. Dark energy is a tricky question though because it is somewhat explainable within our current theories, and it is unobservable.

> Secondly, many other areas of physics have worked this out.

I don't know why I put this. I meant to put that QFT is an example of a theory which predicts many more phenomena than it was originally invented to describe.

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