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Hubble Space Telescope Detects Ring of Dark Matter
mknewman wrote with a link to a story on the NASA site indicating that they may have finally found dark matter using the Hubble telescope. We've discussed the stuff a few times in the last year, with the Hubble actually mapping out the dark matter in the universe in January. This, though, may be our first 'sighting' of the elusive substance. "NASA will hold a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT on May 15 to discuss the strongest evidence to date that dark matter exists. This evidence was found in a ghostly ring of dark matter in the cluster CL0024+17, discovered using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The ring is the first detection of dark matter with a unique structure different from the distribution of both the galaxies and the hot gas in the cluster. The discovery will be featured in the June 20 issue of the Astrophysical Journal."
"We find no luminiferous aether.
Not all scientific predictions are made equal."
that was a very useful prediction.
We predicted luminous aether: it was a logical theory. We had good reason to believe that light was a wave, we had no reason to imagine that a wave could exist without a physical medium (air, water, etc.)
It was a falsifiable theory.
For a long time people tried to prove it, but measurements weren't sensitive enough. Finally, a sensitive enough experiment was developed, and it found-- nothing!
This was far more useful than if they had found something.
On discovering that the theory was wrong, they didn't try to argue that it was really still correct. They puzzled about what it could mean: how can a wave exist without a substance to wave through?
Many incredibly significant scientific advances of the next few decades came out of this enigma. If there had been no luniniferous aether theory, there would have been no enigma, and perhaps many of these discoveries would not yet have come about.
The usefulness of a theory is not in whether it's correct or not. The usefulness of a theory comes from what you learn while trying to discover whether or not it is correct.