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'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years

phys.org

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Re: 'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years

#41

Post by dventimi »

rhdunn wrote: post #26
vihren wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do have a pretty substansive evidence that dark matter exists: from the cosmic background radiation, gravitational lensing, galaxy formation simulations, galaxy rotation curves, etc. Why is it so hard for people to believe that there are some particles that are not interacting with electromagnetism that we haven't detected directly yet? It's not even a precedent, the neutrino is just like that. I guess the name "d…

We have concrete evidence that either a) a new type of matter and energy exists, or b) our theories need to be modified in some way. The orbit of planets in our solar system have hinted at missing matter several times -- one time it lead to the discovery of a new planet (Uranus or Neptune, IIRC); one time it lead to the discovery of General Relativity. Until we either detect dark matter/energy, or develop a theory th…

"We have concrete evidence that either a) a new type of matter and energy exists, or b) our theories need to be modified in some way."

a new type of matter is a modification to our theories

"Until we either detect dark matter/energy, or develop a theory that accurately predicts the behaviour we're attributing to dark matter we cannot say one way or the other which is the correct approach."

"We" the general public isn't in the business of saying one way or the other is the correct approach, and scientists aren't, either. Scientists conduct experiments and propose theories in whatever lines of inquiry interest them, subject to the constraints of getting somebody to pay for it. Many scientists have been interested in refining the theory of Dark Matter and subjecting those refinements to experimental tests, partly because the theory has withstood and only grown stronger by those refinements and tests. That's a success by any measure, and that success is partly why public funding agencies have been willing to pay for it. Like anybody else, they try to pick winners.

It could also be that we are not accurately modelling EM/SR/GR effects at a large scale, such as how they are warped by the different stars orbiting the arms of the galaxies. Or that when we extend QED/QCD to accelerating reference frames (general relativity) that dark matter won't be needed, just like how QED was formulated by extending electromagnetism/QM to special relativity (non-accelerating reference frames).

It could be. Anything's possible.

Re: 'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years

#43

Post by dventimi »

tekla wrote: post #32
DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not trying to be a mindless skeptic but your “why is it so hard” question seems bizarre to me. It seems quite understandable that it’s hard for people to believe there’s a particle responsible for a significant percentage of all matter in the universe that we have no direct evidence of and the only reason it’s believed to exist at all is because a lot of otherwise well-understood equations and observations require it…

If people understood that the last 200 years of science has shown that we are still utterly ignorant about the underpinnings of the universe, they might accept it better. But we are not very well educated so yeah, they will doubt it for no good reason other than "it doesn't feel right"

"If people understood that the last 200 years of science has shown that we are still utterly ignorant about the underpinnings of the universe"

That's a bit of an exaggeration, don't you think?

"But we are not very well educated so yeah, they will doubt it for no good reason other than "it doesn't feel right"

That's also an exaggeration. Laypersons are under no more obligation to understand the details of the scientific professions than scientists are to understand the details of, say, the legal profession. A healthy skepticism within the general public is harmless and even helpful if it maintains an interest in science. I would just gently urge people not to veer from skepticism into dogmatism.

Re: 'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years

#44

Post by dventimi »

mr_mitm wrote: post #36
notfed wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had we named it "invisible matter", perhaps not as much controversy would surround it.

The controversy exists only in laypeople cirlces to be honest. Consesus among actual scientists is pretty firm.

Yeah, but it might've tamped down any perceived controversy even among laypeople, which would've saved many priceless electrons being spent debating the issue on the internet.

Re: 'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years

#45

Post by dventimi »

DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #24
vihren wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do have a pretty substansive evidence that dark matter exists: from the cosmic background radiation, gravitational lensing, galaxy formation simulations, galaxy rotation curves, etc. Why is it so hard for people to believe that there are some particles that are not interacting with electromagnetism that we haven't detected directly yet? It's not even a precedent, the neutrino is just like that. I guess the name "d…

Not trying to be a mindless skeptic but your “why is it so hard” question seems bizarre to me. It seems quite understandable that it’s hard for people to believe there’s a particle responsible for a significant percentage of all matter in the universe that we have no direct evidence of and the only reason it’s believed to exist at all is because a lot of otherwise well-understood equations and observations require it…

"the only reason it’s believed to exist at all is because a lot of otherwise well-understood equations and observations require it to exist."

I mean...those are pretty good reasons. If a particular theory successfully predicts more out of "a lot" of observations than any other competing theory does, and is a smaller departure from "a lot" of existing theory than any other competing theory is, would you choose to spend your career researching those competing theories?

Re: 'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years

#46

Post by sightbroke »

fasteddie31003 wrote: post #16

Am I wrong to assume that science that is harder to prove will have less impact on human wellbeing? Electricity is easy to run experiments on and prove, meaning humans can manipulate it for our benefits easy. However, the Higgs Boson was extremely difficult to prove and I see no way that it could ever benefit humanity's wellbeing. Now how could humans improve our wellbeing by manipulating dark matter?

I hope I am not wrong in imagining you may consider grouping quantum mechanics (QM) with research that has no way to ever benefit "humanity's well-being". (Even if I'd argue like art pure science & maths benefit humanity's well-being for it's own sake). This is relevant since accelerators like which was used for the Higgs Boson discovery are also used in general QM research:

https://www.energy.gov/science/doe-explainsquantum-mechanics

> Quantum mechanics led to the development of things like lasers, light-emitting diodes, transistors, medical imaging, electron microscopes, and a host of other modern devices.

Additionally, it's ironic that you mentioned the Higgs-Boson, while perhaps many years before it's discovery and maybe not research CERN was anticipating in doing it did come up with the first webserver:

https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web/short-history-...

Re: 'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years

#47

Post by ck2 »

"15 years" seems like an oddly specific number?

https://m.xkcd.com/678/

But invention of gravity-wave detectors (laser interferometers) have been the most exciting thing and can't wait for them to build the space version, so maybe go for it?

Won't be funded in US this decade though, they are even cancelling space-telescopes ready to launch, sigh

Re: 'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years

#48

Post by EA-3167 »

kevindamm wrote: post #21
fasteddie31003 wrote: post #16

Am I wrong to assume that science that is harder to prove will have less impact on human wellbeing? Electricity is easy to run experiments on and prove, meaning humans can manipulate it for our benefits easy. However, the Higgs Boson was extremely difficult to prove and I see no way that it could ever benefit humanity's wellbeing. Now how could humans improve our wellbeing by manipulating dark matter?

Sometimes we don't know the improvements until we have done enough experiments to provide a model that aids in discovering improvements. Electricity was hard (even fatal) to experiment with before it was understood (and frontier work in electricity when running at extreme frequencies or energies is still difficult to understand, and if we're counting all EM in there it goes beyond being easy to manipulate and experim…

To wit, consider the case of Charles Parsons, inventor of the steam turbine engine. He was able to do this because of the lifetime work of Henri Victor Regnault (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Victor_Regnault) characterizing the behavior of steam under pretty much every possible regime. At the time Regnault's work was largely ignored, and later forgotten, since it was only of minor academic interest.

It was only years after his death that Parsons would use his work to determine the necessary geometry of the rotors and stators in his new and revolutionary engine. Regnault certainly didn't see that coming, the people who overlooked his work didn't either, but that pure science for the sake of science helped to change the world.

So as you say, we often don't realize what we're going to do with the results of pure science until engineering catches up, sometimes decades or centuries later. Still without the pure science we'd never get the engineering.

Re: 'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years

#49

Post by DerekL »

fasteddie31003 wrote: post #16

Am I wrong to assume that science that is harder to prove will have less impact on human wellbeing? Electricity is easy to run experiments on and prove, meaning humans can manipulate it for our benefits easy. However, the Higgs Boson was extremely difficult to prove and I see no way that it could ever benefit humanity's wellbeing. Now how could humans improve our wellbeing by manipulating dark matter?

*well-being

Re: 'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years

#50

Post by naasking »

Hikikomori wrote: post #29
rzz3 wrote: post #28

I’ve always felt like (as neither a mathematician nor a physicist) that “dark matter” is simply just something that suddenly makes a math problem work to model the universe-—and that in reality, that math problem just doesn’t work. Is my theory even _possible_ here, or am I missing something. Really fundamental?

Well you have things like the bullet cluster that can't be explained by math being wrong.

Of course they can. The whole reason you think they can't is just more math.
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