Possible Dark Matter Signs At the Core

Scientific American has a piece on speculation that dark matter may be behind diffuse radiation in the galactic center. Beginning in 2003, researchers led by Douglas Finkbeiner noticed a curious excess of microwave radiation in the WMAP data, after all known sources of such radiation were accounted for. Data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope resulted in a similar anomaly in gamma rays. "A paper posted to the physics preprint Web site arXiv.org on October 26 and submitted to the Astrophysical Journal points to a possible signature of dark matter in the Milky Way, although the study's authors are careful to keep their observations empirical and table such speculation... In the new paper [the researchers] describe the Fermi gamma-ray haze and make the claim that it confirms the synchrotron origin of the WMAP microwave haze. And as with the microwave haze, the authors argue that the electrons responsible for the gamma-ray haze appear to originate from an unknown astrophysical process. ... 'We are absolutely in the process of exploring the Fermi haze in the context of dark matter physics,' [one of them] says."

Comments

One word:

[Anonymous Coward]

Foreskin Configuration. New in Meatloaf's next generation Linux scheduler.

Re:One word:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd post something about the Electric Universe as in what that theory says, but the people who are willing to take a hard look at gravity-only cosmology and the Electric Universe and apply a little Occam's Razor and common sense and refuse to allow the authority of establishment science or the naysaying and name-calling of people who just parrot what the mainstream says are already aware of it. Never before have I ever seen anyone declare that the Electric Universe is wrong who also knew the slightest thing about it. Usually they refer to claims that the EU theory never made and then use that to declare that it's utter bullshit. They don't know the history because they are so certain they are right that they can't be bothered to study it, so they don't realize that magnetohydrodynamics is fatally flawed and that the person who invented it was the first to say so. They don't know that ad-hoc revisions of a theory to fit newly discovered facts mean that it is not a scientific theory, because then it is never wrong and therefore can never be truly falsified. They don't know that EU accurately predicted the behavior of various comets while mainstream cosmologists were "amazed" at "startling discoveries." They really don't know that many millions of people who formed a mainstream belief and had all sorts of authority, credentials, and prestige have been dead wrong before and that this has happened numerous times throughout history, even in science. In short, they don't have questioning minds. They have minds that want answers. Silly narrow-minded bastards who speak about what they know nothing about are one of the biggest obstacles to progress. Them and institutional authority.

Re:One word:

[Cassius Corodes]

I think humanity is at a pretty shit state when one hopes that a statement is a troll rather than sincere opinion

Re:One word:

[roguetrick]

Welcome to the internet, how long will you be staying?

Re:One word:

[aristotle-dude]

I have mod points but I decided to reply instead. You have a valid point and I do not understand why you are being modded as flamebait.

Science is supposed to be testable by even disinterested third parties. I would also like to put out there the suggestion that science is unable to definitively state how old a particular strata is using any dating methods. All stated ages of strata are guesses.

None of the dating methods have been verified using a known control and scientists recently had to admit that the decay of radioactive isotopes are affected by bombardment by cosmic radiation.

What this means in layman's terms is that scientists have no known control to calibrate measurements for a "zero" setting of a particular strata, there is no way to be certain that the concentration of an isotope is consistent during different geological events (eruptions) and cosmic radiation can make rock just recently cooled from a new eruption appear as if they were millions of years old.

Finally, the age of the earth stated by scientists is not based on any measurements or "hard science" but rather is number someone made up because it was thought that life would require such a long time to "evolve" to the point that we are at know. Even if you believed that their measurements were accurate, no measurement exists because they conveniently explain that the earth's surface had erupted again at some point hiding the actual age of the earth. Again, that claim is also void of any "proof" and we are all expected to believe it because a scientist says so.

Re:One word:

[arminw]

....Never before have I ever seen anyone declare that the Electric Universe is wrong ....

That is because it is right! The universe, both on the inter-atomic matter, such as chemistry and all life, as well as the large-scale cosmos is dominated by the electric force. This force is 36 orders of magnitude greater than gravity. A number with 36 zeros is unimaginably big. Even the national debt, counted in pennies, is tiny compared to such a number.

Gravity operates on neutral matter, but the universe as a whole is not electrically neutral by any stretch of the imagination. Most of the matter in the universe is in the form of plasma, a highly ionized, charged form of matter.

So far at least, the laws of physics appear to be the same in the distant reaches of space as they are here on earth. To make any form of electromagnetic radiation here on earth, requires the movement of electric charge, electricity if you will. No method of generating electromagnetic radiation, such as gamma rays, has ever been discovered or invented, that does not involve electric charges in motion. Gravity has never been shown to be involved in any way shape or form in the generation of electromagnetic radiation.

Therefore, the presence of gamma radiation is testimony to the fact of an electric origin.

The electrical explanation of these phenomena makes fictional constructs such as the dark matter and dark energy as well as black holes unnecessary. They have never been shown to exist, only inferred by mathematics. All those mathematical models that operate only by gravity and do not take into account the much stronger electrical force are just plain wrong, that's all there is to it. All astrophysicists should be required to take some courses on electrical fields and electrical theory.

The gamma rays however are real measured quantities, not mathematical fiction.

Re:One word:

[NoSleepDemon]

So because gamma rays are generated by electricity, the electric universe theory must be correct? It is well known that the force of gravity is the weakest of the four forces, and there are theories as to why, but this does not disprove modern physics and prove the electric universe theory.

Re:One word:

[masshuu]

O dear, i didn't find a return ticket recipt when digging trough his tax returns and bank account logins.
on a side note i got a new 60" tv, so i assume he won't be buying a ticket to leave anytime soon.

Re:One word:

[arminw]

....disprove modern physics and prove the electric universe theory...

Nothing is ever proved or disproved in science, but we can weigh the evidence and see which theory has evidence for or against it. Because we have never discovered a means of generating electromagnetic waves, such as gamma rays, by any other means than movement of electric charges, it is reasonable to assume that there is no other way. To explain the gamma rays and the movement of galaxies by the electric theory, it is unnecessary to come up with complicated fictional constructs such as dark matter and energy as well as black holes.

To postulate that the majority of all matter in the universe cannot be directly discovered by any instruments it is ridiculous to put it mildly. It's not the math, but it is the data that science is all about. Math must be the servant of science, not its master.

Generally speaking, a simpler explanation is the better, usually correct one. Scientists know much more about electricity than gravity. Applying what is known about electricity to the data can and does explain that data very well.

Re:One word:

[Anonymous Coward]

The trouble is, despite the disdain with which EU proponents hold the mathematics of gravity-only cosmology, the only way to "talk" science is mathematically. Natural languages are too sloppy, too imprecise, too inherently self-contradictory. Mathematics is as powerful as it is because it enforces precision and coherency in human thought that is otherwise relatively foreign to it. It's easy to say "the cosmology of the galaxy is governed primarily by electrical forces," and even easier to say "it's an electric universe," but it's much harder to describe those ideas in mathematical terms.

What little I've read of EU, there does seem to be a certain amount of mathematics available on the subject, but as far as I'm concerned, not nearly enough to consider it a viable theory. The Internet is full of strident advocacy of the idea, but very nearly all of it is written in an effort to convince people with English, not math. The only conclusion I can draw from that English is "it sounds good." But then I read the very few serious responses from mathematicians, and they successfully cast a great deal of doubt on the little mathematical basis the EU idea has behind it. Until a coherent mathematical description that successfully encompasses all of the available data is available, I consider it an interesting notion, not a useful theory of cosmology.

Re:One word:

[wanerious]

What?? Do you disagree that gamma rays are produced in nuclear reactions, like radioactive decay and particle/antiparticle annihilations? And that these reactions have absolutely nothing to do with the motion of electrons in orbits or in plasmas?

You sound very certain regarding matters you don't seem to know much about.

Re:One word:

[dilvish_the_damned]

So we'll just mark you down for "6000 years" then?

Re:One word:

[aristotle-dude]

So we'll just mark you down for "6000 years" then?

How is it any different than a "guess" of billions of years? Where is the evidence? By evidence, I mean "physical" evidence.

Re:One word:

[aristotle-dude]

So we'll just mark you down for "6000 years" then?

Go watch this movie:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expelled:_No_Intelligence_Allowed

Science in the English speaking world is out of touch with what science is supposed to be about. It has become a religion in the UK, and the US especially. People have lost their jobs for questioning the dogma or even giving any audience to alternative points of view "within" the scientific community. People often complain about the "religious right" but what about darwinism within the scientific community of the US pretending to be "science"? When I heard a scientist talk about being a "good Darwinist" I threw up in my mouth a little. Real science has not existed in the Anglophone world for over a century now.

Re:One word:

[arminw]

...Do you disagree that gamma rays are produced in nuclear reactions, like radioactive decay...

No. Electromagnetic radiation arising within the atom or the atomic nucleus even is still ultimately the result of charges being accelerated. Whether the accelerating field arises within the atom or by some other means is immaterial. No electromagnetic radiation, whether by radioactivity or other means, arises without the acceleration of charges by an electric field. These electric fields happen to be incredibly intense inside the atom, hence the high energy of the emitted radiation.

It's a black hole!

[shentino]

Of course it's dark matter in the middle

Re:It's a black hole!

[selven]

Black hole and dark matter have very precise meanings in physics. In fact, black holes aren't strictly black due to Hawking radiation and dark matter is transparent, not dark.

Re:It's a black hole!

[causality]

Of course it's dark matter in the middle

Dark matter is sort of like violence. If it doesn't work, just use more of it.

Re:It's a black hole!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fermi Haze, all in my brain!

Re:It's a black hole!

[wizardforce]

Close. Black holes emit hawking radiation in so far as physics is concerned however, the more massive a black hole is the less bright it is. A black hole with twice the mass of another black hoel will be 1/8th as bright as the smaller black hole. For blackholes largers than the sun, the hawking radiation is so miniscule that the lifetime of the black hole is on the order of 10^60+ years before it "evaporates." Dark matter O.T.O.H. is merely undetectable with current instrumentation outside of indirect gravitational effects.

Re:It's a black hole!

[Locke2005]

If dark matter is "undetectable", then why are they attributing microwave radiation to dark matter, instead of, say, the energy given off by normal matter falling into the black hole at the center of the galaxy? (What happens when dark matter falls into a black hole, anyway?)

Re:It's a black hole!

[sleeponthemic]

It's not all doom and gloom. I've heard there is in-flight spaghetti and fiction.

Re:It's a black hole!

[wizardforce]

It looks like they're claiming that the radiation from these electrons indicates that a process of higher energy than a supernova caused the phenomena. I presume that the process they're talking about is the decay of WIMPs and other dark matter candidates. The dark matter its self hasn't been directly detected unless you're counting this paper as an example of the contrary. The problem is that this is a very new paper in arxiv and as such requires much more peer review before we can say with reasonable confidence that their claim is plausible or not.

Re:It's a black hole!

[Zarf]

You have a profound understanding of Physics. That's exactly what physicists do.

Of course it's dark matter in the middle

Dark matter is sort of like violence. If it doesn't work, just use more of it.

Re:It's a black hole!

[CopaceticOpus]

Black hole and dark matter have very precise meanings in physics.

Just like woosh has a very precise meaning on Slashdot.

Re:It's a black hole!

[selven]

Well, to continue the Slashdot tradition:

Just like whoosh has a very precise meaning on Slashdot.

Fixed.

Re:It's a black hole!

[causality]

You have a profound understanding of Physics. That's exactly what physicists do.

Of course it's dark matter in the middle

Dark matter is sort of like violence. If it doesn't work, just use more of it.

Well it is certainly convenient. Anytime your theory doesn't add up, or fails to predict the results of a new observation, why go through all the trouble of considering your theory falsified, questioning your premises, and coming up with new ideas? Just add dark matter to make the math work out. Don't let it concern you that it's the one and only scientifically accepted form of matter that has never once been observed in any laboratory, after all, we have equations to balance!

The more I see this kind of thing, the more I believe that mainstream science did not eliminate the priesthood. It merely replaced it with a more rational one to fit the changing needs of the people.

You're rather well-informed and stalwart yourself to be able to see this despite the chorus of screaming voices which would have you believe that you're some kind of moron for questioning something that really does need to be questioned. In other words, truth in your own terms is not for the faint of heart. Anyone who needs to have answers handed to them because they wouldn't dare to question an expert is a member of the faint of heart.

Re:It's a black hole!

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect most Slashdotters are too young to get that Jimi Hendrix reference.

Re:It's a black hole!

[c6gunner]

Anytime your theory doesn't add up, or fails to predict the results of a new observation, why go through all the trouble of considering your theory falsified, questioning your premises, and coming up with new ideas?

Because every other scientist will laugh at you?

The more I see this kind of thing, the more I believe that mainstream science did not eliminate the priesthood. It merely replaced it with a more rational one to fit the changing needs of the people.

Yeah, creationists say the same thing. It seems to be amazingly common for dimwitted people to confuse their ignorance with "problems with science".

Re:It's a black hole!

[AndroidCat]

Fermi haze all in my brain
Lately things just don't seem the same
Actin' funny, but I don't know why
'Scuse me while I kiss the sky

Yeah, sounds like Dark Matter alright.

Re:It's a black hole!

[causality]

Anytime your theory doesn't add up, or fails to predict the results of a new observation, why go through all the trouble of considering your theory falsified, questioning your premises, and coming up with new ideas?

Because every other scientist will laugh at you?

The more I see this kind of thing, the more I believe that mainstream science did not eliminate the priesthood. It merely replaced it with a more rational one to fit the changing needs of the people.

Yeah, creationists say the same thing. It seems to be amazingly common for dimwitted people to confuse their ignorance with "problems with science".

I see your provocation and raise you one indifference.

Really though, I don't expect agreement when I say a thing like that. You, if anything, are conforming to my expectations. There is no shame in that, though it's not terribly interesting either.

Re:It's a black hole!

[c6gunner]

So what you're saying is that you don't actually believe the nonsense you're spouting - you're simply trolling? Fun. Does that make you feel like a big man?

Re:It's a black hole!

[khallow]

If dark matter is "undetectable",

No. Dark matter is undetectable with current instrumentation. And actually they've already detected and imaged it with gravity lensing, so that's not entirely accurate either.

Re:It's a black hole!

[The_Wilschon]

Well shoot. You got us all figured out. We're all just a bunch of charlatan priests. I guess we'll just give up and go home now.

You want scientists to consider their theories falsified, question their premises, and come up with new ideas, eh? OK, when I find that galactic rotation curves don't line up with what I've predicted, I'll consider my theories (standard model with, as best we can manage, general relativity) falsified. I'll question my premises (for instance, the premise that I know exactly what particles exist in the universe). I'll come up with some new ideas (for instance, that there might be some type of particle that I don't know about). Looks OK so far, right? At what point do you have an objection to this?

One objection that I can see is that you might think that no other avenues of investigation have been explored. However, they have. Instead of questioning the standard model (giving us dark matter), we could question general relativity. This gives us a theory called MOND. It doesn't really work very well, but a lot of very smart people spent a great deal of time and effort investigating it.

In the end, in order to be a good scientist, you've got to come full circle. You take all the new ideas (new theories) that you've come up with, and you make predictions with them. Turns out that dark matter predicts something different from, say, MOND for a collision between two galaxy clusters which contain gas, stars, and dark matter. Well, we found such a collision (Bullet Cluster), and dark matter made the correct prediction, whereas MOND made the wrong prediction.

But that's not all. When you start to enumerate all the properties that dark matter ought to have in order to fit what we've observed in galactic rotation curves, the bullet cluster, etc, it turns out that there are not too many different ways in which to fit dark matter onto the standard model. And those ways in general predict different things about what astroparticle experiments like Fermi, ICECUBE, etc should see. Give it a few (~10) years, and these experiments will either have indirectly observed dark matter (and the characteristics of that observation will narrow down the particular type of dark matter dramatically), or they will have ruled out a large number of the candidate dark matter models, leaving even fewer. Give it long enough, and we'll have either made the indirect observation or ruled out all the models.

If we rule out all the models, then it's back to the drawing board. We'd have a falsified theory, we'd question our premises, and we'd come up with some new ideas. But until then, dark matter is a very good avenue for investigation. You shouldn't "believe" in it until it's been observed, but neither should you claim it's bad science. It isn't.

FWIW, I don't really expect to convince you of this, as you seem to be quite firmly decided that it is bad science, even though it fits your apparent criteria for what science should be. But hopefully I can prevent others who read both of our comments from being infected by you.

Re:It's a black hole!

[blueg3]

No, "dark matter" and "dark energy" are just discrepancies in two particular aspects of astrophysics. Empirical observations suggest that there's more matter out there than we can see. However, because they sound vague and they're active areas of research (that is, they're mentioned often and it's clear we don't know what they are), people who have no real understanding of physics jump to the conclusion that it's some general hand-waving. Perhaps this makes them reinforces their belief that they're so much smarter than those durned scientists -- who knows.

Re:It's a black hole!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you're too fucking stupid to understand something, doesn't mean it's "trolling".

Re:It's a black hole!

[Nefarious Wheel]

For blackholes largers than the sun,

Larger in what way - radius or mass? Don't stars need to be at least three solar masses before they can implode into a black hole? And if so, are you describing a special case?

Re:It's a black hole!

[causality]

So what you're saying is that you don't actually believe the nonsense you're spouting - you're simply trolling? Fun. Does that make you feel like a big man?

Far from it, good sir. It means I believe it whether or not others need to disagree or even ridicule me for it. I believe that this is one of those polarizing things where you either see it for yourself or you don't and bickering about it is infinitesimally unlikely to change anyone's mind. So I won't. The indifference means I am not bothered when things I believe don't find ready support, for that is a type of insecurity based on bandwagon appeal and I see the error in it. It also means I don't need to think ill of people, not even of those who can't disagree with my viewpoint without also judging me to be inferior in some way or inferring an ulterior motive such as trolling or egotism when my actions are mysterious to them. I am thankful to not carry that burden, for it's a heavy one.

If you would accept a suggestion from me, never confuse consensus agreement with truth. Not even when you find yourself on the side of the majority consensus.

Re:It's a black hole!

[CrashNBrn]

Give it a few (~10) years,

So a few means 2, and you've used the Binary representation for 2... yet binary doesn't do "approximately".
So perhaps you actually mean TEN?

And since we're discussing black holes and dark matter as such, pehaps your time measurements are affected by their approach to a black hole, thus would become infinite (to the observer).

So,
--] give it "a few, approximately never" years. [--

Re:It's a black hole!

[causality]

Instead of questioning the standard model (giving us dark matter), we could question general relativity. This gives us a theory called MOND.

Actually, no. It gives you an "I don't know." That's unacceptable, so MOND emerges to fill the gap.

FWIW, I don't really expect to convince you of this, as you seem to be quite firmly decided that it is bad science, even though it fits your apparent criteria for what science should be. But hopefully I can prevent others who read both of our comments from being infected by you.

I wouldn't expect a scientist who is confident about the factual basis and logical correctness of his worldview to view dissent as an "infection." I certainly would expect that from religious people who abhor the infidel and consider his doctrine dangerous.

Whether it's bad science or not is hard for me to say. I think it's science which is in need of a paradigm shift. Whether that makes it "bad" or merely "the best they could do at the time without being written off as fringe" is quite debatable.

Re:It's a black hole!

[mindstrm]

He means the radius likely.

Whether a star can decay into a black-hole is separate from whether a black-hole can exist the same size as the star - it just started out as something bigger.

Re:It's a black hole!

[anarchyboy]

Not decay annihilation, the WIMP has to be stable and so not decay otherwise we'd have none left by now. What they are hoping to detect is when two WIMPs annihilate and form a ??????? that then decays and emits the radiation they are detecting.

Re:It's a black hole!

[anarchyboy]

Seriously? darkmatter has been theoriticaly predicted and experimentaly detected in three observations at three largely different scales. Your two options with the observation is to change newtowns and einsteins laws of gravitation so that they fit these results and get left with seriously fudged laws of gravity (I'm not even sure if anyone managed to do this in a consistent way) or you infer the pressence of dark matter, which given our understanding of particle physics is highly plausable that such matter can exist and some of our best new theories to solve other problems in physics even go on to predict such a particle.

If you want to troll about how "mainstream science" is like some kind of cult pick an area of research that is'nt backed up with excellent experimental observation.

Re:It's a black hole!

[xbytor]

XML is sort of like violence. If it doesn't work, just use more of it.

FTFY.

Re:It's a black hole!

[hitmark]

i guess one can state that they cant be directly observed on the EM spectrum, only indirectly by whatever effect they have on other nearby EM sources.

Re:It's a black hole!

[serviscope_minor]

Instead of questioning the standard model (giving us dark matter), we could question general relativity. This gives us a theory called MOND.

Actually, no. It gives you an "I don't know." That's unacceptable, so MOND emerges to fill the gap.

Seriously, you actually believe that? It's useless, not unacceptable. If all scientists did is say "I don't know" they wouldn't get much done would they? Think about it for a minute. Or, they do what scientists do best (i.e. science) and come up with new theories (e.g. MOND) which make testable predictions and attempt to test them.

Re:It's a black hole!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nihil verum nisil mors

Re:It's a black hole!

[zero.kalvin]

Not only that, but MOND had some predictions, and observations ruled it out. (My memory don't serve me well on this one, but it had to do with different types of matter falling on something, and the rate was shown to be uniform, in MOND it wouldn't be so....)

Re:It's a black hole!

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

OK, when I find that galactic rotation curves don't line up with what I've predicted, I'll consider my theories falsified.

The trouble is that most cosmologists think that Newtonian mechanics predicts Keplerian profiles for galactic rotation curves. This is in fact completely wrong. Galaxies are discs, not spheres, and you can't use Newton's shell theorem on them. But an awful lot of cosmologists do. In fact, to explain dark matter whose total grows linearly with distance from the galactic center, they ham-fistedly decided to have the dark matter in a spherical halo instead of in the disc with everything else.

Dark matter is a non-explanation. It owes its discovery more to the LSD trips of particle physicists in the 70s than it does to real rigor. If I posited that stars are in fact held in position by unicorns spewing rainbows from their forehead, or alien gravity machines, I could quite easily match as many data points as dark matter models and moreover create only slightly fewer questions and problems.

If we rule out all the models, then it's back to the drawing board. We'd have a falsified theory, we'd question our premises, and we'd come up with some new ideas. But until then, dark matter is a very good avenue for investigation. You shouldn't "believe" in it until it's been observed, but neither should you claim it's bad science. It isn't.

Dark matter is not good science. Dark matter is postmodern science. Appeals to falsifiability have allowed it to lurch on from one fudge to the next without being called to a halt. Once the scientific establishment was able to properly evaluate and eventually dismiss things like Le Sage's theory of gravity. It now seems unable to do so.

We have a theory that gravity on a galactic scale is dominated by an invisible, undetectable and completely inscrutable form of matter, which we cannot create or even measure properly and which is used in a grossly ad-hoc fashion to fit rotation curves for spiral but seemingly not elliptical galaxies. Its substance is explained by appealing to equally speculative theories in high energy and particle physics, or whatever theory is in fashion at the time. Its distribution is fitted, galaxy by galaxy, in order to satisfy computer models. Every article from black holes to bosons throws in in as a buzzword and in the 80 years since its was first put forward, and in the 40 years since it was pushed heavily, dark matter remains as unknown, untested and unpredictable a theory as it ever was. What more evidence do you require?

What we are looking at, is crackpottery and mass delusion on a global scale. If string theory has taught us anything it's that scientists can and do fall prey to fads, fuzzy thinking and dogma as easily as any group. The only trouble is, they get stuck in the mud for far, far longer than most other groups. Fashion tads last a season, but scientific fads can last a quarter century or more.

Re:It's a black hole!

[The_Wilschon]

which we have not created or even measured properly

There. Fixed it for you. That makes all the difference in the world.

Re:It's a black hole!

[MrTester]

I cant mod you any higher, so let me simply say: Well said, Sir.

Re:It's a black hole!

[ShadowXOmega]

not exactly...as wikipedia says [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter] ... dark matter isnt necessarily transparent. We cant detect it by out current sensing methods, but it produces gravitational effects on the nearby objects, is like saying: if isnt bright (radiating) is dark :)

Re:It's a black hole!

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously? darkmatter has been theoriticaly predicted and experimentaly detected in three observations at three largely different scales. Your two options with the observation is to change newtowns and einsteins laws of gravitation so that they fit these results and get left with seriously fudged laws of gravity (I'm not even sure if anyone managed to do this in a consistent way) or you infer the pressence of dark matter, which given our understanding of particle physics is highly plausable that such matter can exist and some of our best new theories to solve other problems in physics even go on to predict such a particle.

If you want to troll about how "mainstream science" is like some kind of cult pick an area of research that is'nt backed up with excellent experimental observation.

Please, when you don't know anything about science, it is best not to answer.

Newton and Einstein is high school science which was state of the art in 1700s and 1950s. We have gone way beyond that since. But I guess some people just decide to ignore the last 60 years.

Re:It's a black hole!

[boris111]

I suspect most Slashdotters better go to school if they haven't! Jimi Hendrix is coming of age timeless music. It's equivalent to reading Catcher in the Rye.

Re:It's a black hole!

[marcosdumay]

"If we rule out all the models, then it's back to the drawing board. We'd have a falsified theory..."

That is true only if the number of models is finite. That may not be the case if people keep adding dark mater (and dark energy, and whatever else they invent) to their estimative every time they observe something different.

I'm not saying that dark matter is bad science (not the GP here), just that it may be, and I've never heard about any serious atempt to decide the question. After decades, it's time to start quiestioning it (yes, you probably do question the existence of dark mater, but it is time to question if dark mater can be falsified too).

Re:It's a black hole!

[causality]

Instead of questioning the standard model (giving us dark matter), we could question general relativity. This gives us a theory called MOND.

Actually, no. It gives you an "I don't know." That's unacceptable, so MOND emerges to fill the gap.

Seriously, you actually believe that? It's useless, not unacceptable. If all scientists did is say "I don't know" they wouldn't get much done would they? Think about it for a minute. Or, they do what scientists do best (i.e. science) and come up with new theories (e.g. MOND) which make testable predictions and attempt to test them.

MOND actually was something new that was proposed in response to the galaxy rotation problem. Whether it works out or not remains to be seen, though honestly I have little faith in it. The value of "I don't know" was that someone saw the need for a new theory. This required dissatisfaction with the existing ones. To me, "I don't know" is like a vacuum, and something will rush in to fill it. That something, if it is scientific, can be tested.

Inflation, on the other hand, was a revisionist, ad-hoc modification of Big Bang theory when it failed to correctly predict the results of measurements of the cosmic microwave background. I believe it's the sort of thing that Karl Popper warned us against. How can you ever falsify a theory when it can be modified to fit any observation that contradicts it? When you bring this up, you don't usually get a "here's why we don't feel that way." What you get is an angry response not unlike what you would expect if you told a Muslim that Allah doesn't exist or a Christian that Jesus was fictional. That is, you're a heretic. I don't view science as something that should have heretics.

By the way, you conveniently ignored my response to you when you viewed my worldview as an "infection." Cat got your tongue? I notice people often pretend like they didn't read anything for which they have no answer. Do you consider that courageous? I don't.

For that matter, why is there so much ignorance about the fact that the Schwarzschild solutions would and could never predict a singularity/black hole? That's if you read the actual paper authored by Schwarzschild himself -- he made that quite clear. David Hilbert modified Schwarzschild's work in December of 1916 to produce a soution that does permit black holes, yet for some reason we do not call it the Hilbert solution.

Also, why do I read so many articles about black holes with accretion disks and black holes as members of binary star systems etc. when there is no known two-body solution to General Relativity? That Hilbert solution is a one-body solution. All of those scenarios involve the black hole interacting with something, so how do you reconcile that? You can't make an analogy to Newtonian physics because Einstein's field equations are nonlinear so the principle of superposition does not apply, while this same principle does apply for Newtonian physics. Something here doesn't add up. Questions like this should have readily available answers.

When I ask those questions, I get dismissed, scoffed at, occasionally called names. There is one thing I never receive: a "you're wrong, and I'll show you why you are wrong and how you may be corrected." That isn't scientific, it's authoritarian. Hence my "priesthood" comment.

Re:It's a black hole!

[arminw]

...Black holes emit hawking radiation...

Which is only a mathematical fiction that has never been measured by real instruments. Science is about measurements of the physical world not some stupid mathematical model in a computer that has no resemblance to what is actually there.

Re:It's a black hole!

[arminw]

...matter falling into the black hole...

has never been observed by real scientific instruments, because black holes themselves have never been observed. Black holes are mathematical fictions that appear only in computer models, not in reality. Astrophysicists are so enamored by their elaborate computer driven mathematics, that they desperately try to make whatever data comes in from scientific instruments fit into their models. The models have gotten increasingly complicated, because they are based on assumptions and not measured data. A singularity for example, supposedly at the center of a black hole, exists only in mathematics, but not in reality. I think it is high time for some new, better, simpler models that fit the torrent of data obtained by modern scientific instruments.

Re:It's a black hole!

[Urkki]

Black hole and dark matter have very precise meanings in physics.

Yeah, the very precise definition of dark matter being "the invisible shit with gravitational mass, about which we don't know what the fuck it is".

Re:It's a black hole!

[Urkki]

Dark matter is sort of like violence. If it doesn't work, just use more of it.

Well it is certainly convenient. Anytime your theory doesn't add up, or fails to predict the results of a new observation, why go through all the trouble of considering your theory falsified, questioning your premises, and coming up with new ideas? Just add dark matter to make the math work out. Don't let it concern you that it's the one and only scientifically accepted form of matter that has never once been observed in any laboratory, after all, we have equations to balance!

Well there's the thing with stuff like Nobel prizes. That kind of stuff tends to fall on people who came up with new ideas that worked. So there's plenty of reason to come up with new ideas instead of fine-tuning the old ones. It's just that dark matter seems to work. There are the gravitational effects (especially lensing), and there are the equations that add up when you add approximately the amount of dark matter you'd expect there to be by the gravitational effects.

Have you ever considered that maybe the dark matter hypothesis indeed holds, that there is this dark matter in our universe?

Re:It's a black hole!

[santathehutt]

Catcher in the what!?

Re:It's a black hole!

[arminw]

....And actually they've already detected and imaged it with gravity lensing....

BS. All they have detected is light that has been bent very slightly. They assume (believe) that this is due to gravity ONLY, but light waves, being electromagnetic in nature are also affected by electric and magnetic fields. Mainstream cosmologists and astrophysicists are always trying to squeeze the data coming in from many space probes and telescopes into their current elaborate mathematical models. There are other models that explain the bending of light waves, light flashes from comets and intense radiation sources in space. These models involve the operation of the electric force in ADDITION to gravity, while the currently accepted models exclude a force that is 36 times orders of magnitude greater than gravity. Doing so is the epitome of foolishness.

Re:It's a black hole!

[arminw]

...Because every other scientist will laugh at you...

If you would study the history of science, especially in modern times, say the last few hundred years, you would know that the majority of scientists at any given time were often proven wrong by a lone voice crying in the wilderness as it were. It took over 50 years, before mainstream scientists were willing to accept the fact that the speed of light was not infinitely fast.

Re:It's a black hole!

[arminw]

... claim it's bad science...

I also make the claim that it's extremely bad science, when a force that is 36 orders of magnitude greater than gravity, namely the electric force, is simply ignored in all these obviously false models. It is increasingly clear that the fictitious computer models bear no resemblance to what's really out there. There have been alternate theories proposed by Nobel Prize winners that do take into account the electric interaction. These models need neither dark energy or matter and black holes in order to explain the observed data much better.

Is is simply gross foolishness to propose the existence of matter and energy in the distant reaches of space that we cannot observe right here on earth. Our understanding of electromagnetism is orders of magnitude greater than our understanding of gravity, the weakest force in the universe. The laws of physics in the distant places of the universe are the same as they are right here at home.

Re:It's a black hole!

[warrior]

Electromagnetic fields are made of photons. An incoming photon will be superimposed (interfere) with the photons in an electromagnetic field as it passes through but it's path will remain unchanged. The only way to influence the path of a photon is to bend spacetime, which is the definition of what we call gravity.

Re:It's a black hole!

[Locke2005]

black holes themselves have never been observed. Neither has dark matter. That was my point, they are speculating and theorizing about both black holes dark matter; the math happens to work out better for dark matter, but only because dark matter was conceived as a Universal Fudge Factor in the first place. Our knowledge of the properties of both are highly speculative; black holes make a poorer fit for the observed phenomenon only because we think we know more about black holes. All that is really "known" is that there appears to be a source of gravitational attraction that does not emit or reflect electromagnetic signals. Other, more outlandish explanations are also possible for the structure of the observed universe, e.g. the four known forces work on greatly differing scales, might there not be a fifth force that works on a much larger scale than gravity, or on a much smaller scale than strong nuclear? "But no evidence has been found of a fifth force!" you might say... little or no evidence of the actual existence of dark matter has been found either, it is just postulated to explain the observed rate of expansion of the universe.

Re:It's a black hole!

[arminw]

...Dark matter is not good science...

Dark matter only exists to satisfy computer models that assume that gravity is the only force controlling the large-scale operation of the universe. Ignoring the electric interaction, which is 36 orders of magnitude greater than gravity, is the whole problem. There obviously is another force in operation that controls the motion of galaxies. In present-day computer models, which bear no resemblance to reality, gravity has been assumed to be that sole force. To our knowledge, matter is the only way that gravity can be generated. Hence it is necessary to postulate matter as the source of gravity that controls the motion of galaxies. However, because this matter has never been observed, it is called dark matter, a mysterious substance that does not show up in any of our instruments.

There are theories that do take into account the electric force, which require neither dark energy or matter nor black holes in order to make sense of the torrent of data we get from space probes and telescopes.

It's not so much that current cosmologists and astrophysicists are crackpots, but that they are human. No one likes it, no matter what the field of study, if they are told that their life's work, a PhD thesis and whatever thick books with lots of equations in them they have written are simply wrong or at least grossly incomplete.

Re:It's a black hole!

[greg_barton]

You are now my personal hero.

Re:It's a black hole!

[anarchyboy]

How is the overwhelming evidence for dark matter gathered in the last few decades ignoring the last 60 years?

Its not like there hasn't been plenty of research into general relativity and gravity in the last 60 years but as far as I know general relativity is still the best model for gravity with some serious work to be done to build a quantum theory of gravity.

Re:It's a black hole!

[arminw]

...experimentaly detected in three observations....

That is utter and complete BS. All that has ever been detected is the motions of galaxies and the bending of light waves. These are then attributed to the existence of dark matter, but dark matter itself has never been found out in space nor here on earth.

The whole problem arises because today's scientists assume (believe) that gravity is the ONLY force controlling the motion of galaxies or is capable of bending light waves. There are however scientists that long ago realized that the electric force being 36 orders of magnitude greater than gravity has a large role to play in the operation of the entire universe.

These models, which include the electric force needs no dark matter or energy nor black holes to explain the torrent of data we are currently collecting from space probes and telescopes.

There is a philosophical reason why the electric force is so studiously ignored and stubbornly rejected by mainstream scientists in trying to explain the operation of large-scale universe. If the almost infinitely larger electric forces IS included, the billions and billions of years that are commonly given as the age of the universe collapse into a much shorter time span. This wreaks havoc with the evolutionary dogma.

Re:It's a black hole!

[Anonymous Coward]

From an absolute perspective, sure. From the net-effect that is measured? You just said phased array radar won't work.

Re:It's a black hole!

[warrior]

Actually, I just gave an explanation of how phased array radar works. Read up on interference.

Re:It's a black hole!

[SmurfButcher Bob]

Causality - You have some great points.

"Dark Matter" in a nutshell. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_Else's_Problem

In the software development world, we call it "abstraction". Not necessarily appropriate for other disciplines, though, which I suspect is the root of your "it's not science" point. Right or wrong, there are groups out there that use iterative SWE tactics to refine theories and build models, etc. Your description of the "Inflationist culture", for example, is exactly how a lot of stuff gets written:

> How can you ever falsify a theory when it can be modified to fit any observation that contradicts it?

Perhaps what you're seeing is the "infection" of the old-science-cultures. Any program written is the expression of a theory, after all, and you're reacting to people who grab from our toolkit to develop theirs. Whether they should or not, I'm not qualified to say... but I'd wager that they don't realize they're doing so.

Re:It's a black hole!

[arminw]

...Other, more outlandish explanations....

are proposed almost every day, but they are utter foolishness. The foolishness is that current cosmology and astrophysics ignores the effects of the electric force in the large-scale operation of the universe. There are theories that do take this 36 orders of magnitude greater force than gravity into account. These theories can explain the data we receive from space probes and telescopes much more simply and without resorting to undiscovered mathematical fabrications, such as dark matter and energy or black holes.

Re:It's a black hole!

[anarchyboy]

Its well known that the strong force is much stronger than the electromagnetic interaction it also has a much better symmetry group SU(3) which is way cooler than U(1) electromagnetism isn't even special!!!

Once you include the strong force into your calculations its obvious that the universe is at least 100x older than current cosmological predictions and you dont even need the higgs or neutrinos in the model since these havn't really been detected I mean you've never seen one have you?

There's a reason that the strong force is allways ignored, its because it doesn't fit with a passage in the Koran which states that the standard model should contain only symmetries with fewer than 8 generators because the "physics community" is secretly run by an organisation bent on keeping this truth from us they completely ignore the strong force claiming that it doesn't effect gallaxy formation and that quarks are confined when really jesus was made of quarks therefor the great flood happened!!

Re:It's a black hole!

[c6gunner]

It means I believe it whether or not others need to disagree or even ridicule me for it. I believe that this is one of those polarizing things where you either see it for yourself or you don't and bickering about it is infinitesimally unlikely to change anyone's mind.

In other words you have no evidence for your beliefs and are unable to provide a rationale for them - you believe it despite the lack of evidence and the contravening evidence, and you take pride in your ignorance which you dub "faith". You think that your "opinion" is more reliable than the research conducted by hundreds of individuals who have a vastly better understanding of the subject, and you are more than happy to ignore the evidence presented by them simply because you think you know better.

Like I said, you're a typical creationist. Whether or not you share their views doesn't interest me; I'm just commenting on the fact that you share the same mindset. Or, if you want a more secular comparison, you're the astrophysics equivalent of Jenny McCarthy. Without the tits.

If you would accept a suggestion from me, never confuse consensus agreement with truth

If you would accept a suggestion from me: never confuse your emotional attachment to a viewpoint with data.

Re:It's a black hole!

[c6gunner]

If you would study the history of science, especially in modern times, say the last few hundred years, you would know that the majority of scientists at any given time were often proven wrong by a lone voice crying in the wilderness as it were.

What utter nonsense. First of all, the word "often" doesn't belong in that sentence. Second of all, the implied suggestion is utterly ludicrous; using your "logic" we'd have to accept that, because individuality sometimes trumps consensus, we should give equal credibility to every lunatic with a wacky idea as we do to the top minds in science. It's this kind of idiotic rationalization which leads people to buy perpetual motion machines and homeopathic medicine.

Re:It's a black hole!

[arminw]

...There's a reason that the strong force is always ignored...

and that is that it is only effective within the nucleus of an atom. By contrast, the electric forces is active within and between atoms and on the cosmic scale as well. We observe all sorts of ELECTROmagnetic radiation, even from the edge of the known universe.

Re:It's a black hole!

[arminw]

...to every lunatic with a wacky idea...

So then all the people who correctly show that the electric force must be involved in the large-scale operation of the universe and in our solar system are like lunatics? I suggest you learn a little bit about electric fields, magnetism and plasmas before you spout such nonsense.

Re:It's a black hole!

[c6gunner]

Oh, you're that "electric universe" tool, aren't you? Yeah, I skimmed through your stuff yesterday. Sorry - if I had realized who you were I wouldn't have bothered responding. My bad.

Re:It's a black hole!

[wanerious]

Good lord. We are to imagine that now galaxies are not approximately electrically neutral. Where to start...

In present-day computer models, which bear no resemblance to reality,

They don't? Which ones? In what way?

To our knowledge, matter is the only way that gravity can be generated.

Well, matter *and* energy, which includes electric/magnetic fields. That which generates/interacts with the gravitational field is really how we *define* what is matter in the first place.

However, because this matter has never been observed, it is called dark matter, a mysterious substance that does not show up in any of our instruments.

Except in those observations that would be able to detect anomalies in the gravitational field, like rotation curves of galaxies, gravitational lensing of distant sources, and the power spectrum of the CMB. It was the observations that led to the idea of matter that does not shine, pretty much like the theoretical prediction of the existence of Neptune (another kind of "dark matter"). Are not neutrinos *exactly* the kind of collisionless, weakly interacting particle that dark matter is theorized to be (except not massive enough)? Could neutrinos not have a more massive cousin? Why is this so impossible to accept?

There are theories that do take into account the electric force, which require neither dark energy or matter nor black holes in order to make sense of the torrent of data we get from space probes and telescopes.

And those theories are soundly refuted by the observational evidence. Not just observations of gravitational influence, but notions that the Sun does *not* shine via nuclear reactions is contradicted by observed neutrinos from the core.

It's not so much that current cosmologists and astrophysicists are crackpots, but that they are human. No one likes it, no matter what the field of study, if they are told that their life's work, a PhD thesis and whatever thick books with lots of equations in them they have written are simply wrong or at least grossly incomplete.

So what you imagine happens at conferences is that we astrophysicists *really* know the truth, but we're all shamed into cooperative silence because of our fear of being contradicted. You might be surprised that, in fact, the atmosphere at scientific gatherings (and in peer review in general) is quite the opposite. Physicists do know a thing or two about the physics of e/m fields and plasmas.

Re:It's a black hole!

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 for knowing basic physics, -10 for lacking even a rudimentary understanding of humor.

Re:It's a black hole!

[khallow]

As warrior points out, EM fields do not influence photons through interaction (well there is supposed to be some sort of four photon interaction, but that's negligible unless you're hammering stuff together in a particle accelerator or happen to be in the very early universe when gobs of high energy photons flooded every bit of space). So yes, detecting light that is bent slightly is a good way to detect mass that doesn't directly interact with bosonic matter.

Re:It's a black hole!

[causality]

It means I believe it whether or not others need to disagree or even ridicule me for it. I believe that this is one of those polarizing things where you either see it for yourself or you don't and bickering about it is infinitesimally unlikely to change anyone's mind.

In other words you have no evidence for your beliefs and are unable to provide a rationale for them - you believe it despite the lack of evidence and the contravening evidence, and you take pride in your ignorance which you dub "faith". You think that your "opinion" is more reliable than the research conducted by hundreds of individuals who have a vastly better understanding of the subject, and you are more than happy to ignore the evidence presented by them simply because you think you know better.

Like I said, you're a typical creationist. Whether or not you share their views doesn't interest me; I'm just commenting on the fact that you share the same mindset. Or, if you want a more secular comparison, you're the astrophysics equivalent of Jenny McCarthy. Without the tits.

If you would accept a suggestion from me, never confuse consensus agreement with truth

If you would accept a suggestion from me: never confuse your emotional attachment to a viewpoint with data.

The "evidence" will be when there is a recognized crisis in astrophysics, the milder form of which is called a paradigm shift. When that happens, and when dark matter is a central part of it, do try to act suprised would you? As I can't arbitrarily and unilaterally decide to push that timetable, I instead see that it's headed in that direction. What you want is for me to make that bleeding obvious and totally undeniable for you. In that, you ask of me what you should be doing for yourself, if indeed you are participating in genuine inquiry. However, you show multiple signs that you want to be the guy who's right and not the guy who questions, and that's pure ego.

As you don't know what else to do with me, you have to label me a "creationist" and you must try to tell me that what I see very plainly is "faith" or "emotional attachment." I take it I'm supposed to resent that and retaliate, which would be most unbecoming of me. The point is, just telling me that you disagree and letting it go is too much for you. You must also make me the bad guy or the stupid guy. Now why might that be? Do you believe that comes from the strength of your position or the power of your message?

You see, there is a need to belittle in that, to make it into a personal matter. By doing this you reveal weakness of a personal nature, specifically a need to feel superior. That's a form of compensation for inferiority, in the same way that bullies are actually cowards though they try so hard to be intimidating. It's not your fault unless you know better. Still, the worst thing I could do for you would be to retaliate in kind and find some names to call you, which wouldn't be hard for me since you so openly display your hinge or your weakness.

It would take no effort for me to make you angry and otherwise to push a button and get a response, like any other machine. That's why it's a weakness. It's a string that even a stranger could come along and pull. But if I did that, it would only justify the tactics you are using, and I have no intention of giving you such an easy way out.

No, I'm going to continue to be both straightforward and kind to you no matter what you say. There is nothing you can say and nothing you can do to upset me in any way whatsoever, so I feel no need to lash out in such an undignified manner. That's precisely because I see something that you don't. It's a whole picture, of which the downsides of institutional authority such as what science has become is only a tiny part.

Re:It's a black hole!

[arminw]

(...The only way to influence the path of a photon...)

If that were true, lenses would not work and there would be no rainbow. The interaction of photons with electric fields in the atoms of the leaf enables photosynthesis, upon which all life on Earth depends.

Electromagnetic radiation is greatly affected by what it travels through. Because there is no such thing as empty space, light is also affected in various ways by whatever is in space, including but not limited to the zero point energy which pervades all of space.

Re:It's a black hole!

[arminw]

...We are to imagine that now galaxies are not approximately electrically neutral....

The fact that there are magnetic fields of cosmic proportions, also means there must be immense electrical currents to generate these fields. To have electrical currents means that there have to be potential differences. So why should we assume there are not huge potential differences between galaxies, stars, planets, comets and other heavenly bodies? The sun emits an electrical current of billions of amps which we call the solar wind. What drives that current?

(...like rotation curves of galaxies, gravitational lensing of distant sources...)
Except that all these phenomena and observations can be explained better and simpler, without resorting to esoteric undiscovered things like dark matter. Electric forces which are unimaginably greater than gravity are behind the anomalous movements of galaxies.

(...Are not neutrinos...)
in contrast to dark matter and energy, which are fictitious mathematical constructs, neutrinos are real observed facts of the universe. We can even make them ourselves with particle accelerators.

(...Could neutrinos not have a more massive cousin?...)
We can always speculate on what could be, but I prefer to stick with what has been measured and observed.

(...the Sun does *not* shine via nuclear reactions is contradicted by observed neutrinos from the core...)

As a matter of fact that is one of the problems with the theory that the sun is powered by nuclear reactions. If the sun were truly nuclear, then according to everything we know about nuclear reactions or more correctly thermonuclear reactions, there should be many more neutrinos coming from the sun than we actually observe. Also the temperature inversion between the solar surface and the thousands of times hotter Corona is powerful evidence that the sun may be powered by something other than the millions of degrees hot center.

(...So what you imagine happens at conferences is that...)
equally qualified scientists who have other ideas, which do not fit into the accepted dogma, are usually not allowed to participate or are ridiculed. The movie "Expelled" gives a number of examples of this type of human behavior.

Re:It's a black hole!

[causality]

...to every lunatic with a wacky idea...

So then all the people who correctly show that the electric force must be involved in the large-scale operation of the universe and in our solar system are like lunatics? I suggest you learn a little bit about electric fields, magnetism and plasmas before you spout such nonsense.

The way people react so strongly to the Electric Universe, the way they are so eager to ridicule it and personally condemn you for even mentioning it says a lot all by itself. The same people who call themselves scientific will call you names instead of demonstrating the scientific basis of their rejection of Electric Universe theory. I think the irony of this is lost on them.

It's not unlike how the Church once reacted to heliocentrism. If I weren't sure about whether EU theory was onto something, this alone would confirm for me that it is indeed. I've read enough history to recognize certain patterns and those patterns are unmistakable. There's also the fact that I've never seen a person call EU theory "bullshit" who was also familiar with it.

The ridicule is quite amusing in one way. We're already accepting a non-mainstream theory that goes against much of establishment science. In that, we have already demonstrated that we value the truth of our own investigations and our own questioning, and not the number of people who agree with us. So what is the ridicule, which is just a childish form of disagreement, supposed to accomplish, exactly? I wonder if it's to reassure the "mainstream faithful" that there's no need to ask pesky questions, since only those "lunatics" would do that. If so, the parallels between scientific authority and religious authority are strong.

Truth backed by observation and correct reasoning never needed any kind of authority to make it the truth. It's a pleasure to hear from folks like you who understand that.

Re:It's a black hole!

[warrior]

Sorry, but that's incorrect. Photons do not interact with fields inside atoms, they interact with electrons and protons. That is how lenses, photosynthesis, photodiodes, etc works. Photons are messenger particles of the electromagnetic force. Protons and electrons are the "receivers". Photons do not interact with each other except, as integer spin particles (bosons) they can occupy the same quantum state. This allows for the superposition of two photons to increase, decrease, or cancel out the amplitude of an electromagnetic field at a point in space.

Re:It's a black hole!

[arminw]

...Photons do not interact with fields inside atoms, they interact with electrons and protons...

What aspect of an electron or proton do photons interact with? If it is not their charge, what is it? When you get a bunch of electrons together in a "pile", do they not manifest themselves as a negative charge? When you get another pile of protons, do they not manifest themselves as a positive charge? Do the two piles not have an electric field between them?

Whether electrons or protons are parts of atoms or not is totally irrelevant. What matters, is that they carry charge. Neutrons do not carry charge and therefore do not interact, either within atoms or separately in space.

Photons certainly do interact with one another. How do you think interference works? Photons consists both of an electric field component and a magnetic field component at right angles to one another. If you make light, like that of a laser beam intense enough, the electric component of the photon beam can break down the insulation capability of the air, resulting in a spark suspended in midair. I know, for I have seen this demonstrated in the laboratory. This spark is not only visible, but also audible with each laser pulse. It is a very impressive demonstration of one of the ways in which light interacts with matter.

Re:It's a black hole!

[arminw]

...The way people react so strongly to the Electric Universe...

Because the electric force is so much stronger than gravity, it can and does make things happen much faster. Electricity, it can be demonstrated, has the ability to disrupt and rearrange matter very quickly. Our modern technology uses this ability in countless applications.

Electricity throws a rather large monkey wrench into the theory of evolution, because its cornerstone is time, billions and billions of years of time. Because the present science establishment is run by the high priests of the evolutionary religion, they would naturally vehemently oppose any idea that threatens the heart of their dogma. The movie "Expelled" is an excellent exposé of what happens to honest scientists who dare to question evolutionary dogma and its high priests.

Re:It's a black hole!

[causality]

...The way people react so strongly to the Electric Universe...

Because the electric force is so much stronger than gravity, it can and does make things happen much faster. Electricity, it can be demonstrated, has the ability to disrupt and rearrange matter very quickly. Our modern technology uses this ability in countless applications.

Electricity throws a rather large monkey wrench into the theory of evolution, because its cornerstone is time, billions and billions of years of time. Because the present science establishment is run by the high priests of the evolutionary religion, they would naturally vehemently oppose any idea that threatens the heart of their dogma. The movie "Expelled" is an excellent exposé of what happens to honest scientists who dare to question evolutionary dogma and its high priests.

I really have no problem with a steady-state view of the Universe, which to me is quite compatible with EU theory. EU theory shows the assumptions underlying the Hubble "redshift = distance" idea, which is the cornerstone of Big Bang theory. If redshift is intrinsic and is not dependent on distance, then you don't need an expanding universe.

To me the Universe is a mysterious thing. I am not remotely surprised if it defies all of our attempts to put it into this neat little box of rationality. It very well may have never had a linear-time origin, that is, it may be truly eternal in both a past, present, and future sense.

The scientific censorship that Expelled talks about, as well as what Halton Arp and Wallace Thornhill have personally experienced, is just inexcusable. Science would be publishing their papers and then, if they be found faulty, publishing follow-up papers explaining why they are faulty. That's not what happened. Instead, their papers were ignored and their telescope time was denied. They were blackballed and they were ostracised. This is not science; this is a religion dealing with a heretic.

The people in this very thread who have ridiculed you and I for merely mentioning alternative viewpoints don't realize that they are marching in lockstep to what is actually a religion that clothes itself in rational language. There is no free thought in that. It's a shame, because in their quest to portray us as some kind of freaks they reveal their own robotic nature.

Re:It's a black hole!

[Anonymous Coward]

Upgrade yourself to a relativized quantized gauge theory. In QFT, for instance, photons are just excitations in the photon field. In the limit of low particle energies (< TeV/c^2) it is very easy to treat all the standard model entities as wave-like phenomena in quantum field theories, even in substantially curved spacetime; in the limit of high particle energies a semiclassical cutoff and other approaches lets one abstract unknown high-energy physics into a localized event. In particular, constructive and destructive interference of wave-like excitations has a straightforward physical interpretation. Recovering the particle-like nature of excitations in the various quantum fields is also straightforward when individual excitations' wavelengths are much shorter than the local curvature of spacetime, since the field quanta (excitations) must obey a chunking (quantization) rule.

Rather than directly detecting a photon or an electron, you are sensitive to excitations in several fields that permeate the universe, and which have local minimums that you are not normally sensitive to. There is a field for each fermion and for each gauge boson.

So, there is a single electromagnetic field with a large number of degrees of freedom; there are excitations in the field above its ground state (assuming it has one) that can be examined as a local system, so a 4-slice into the photon field will reveal classical field lines around a magnet, for instance, which before quantization is applied looks like a continuous function in the local field, and after quantization will look somewhat more like classical particles.

If we relegate spacetime curvature to the t dimension in the local 4-spacetime slice, and consider only a 3-space, and we assume that the t dimension works as one second per second (i.e., we are in the weak field limit, so that the local "box of light" has a very low mass-energy), then your incoming photon will propagate as a plane wave through the local excitations of the photon field, interacting with that local system essentially only via interference.

Re:It's a black hole!

[Anonymous Coward]

Elliptical galaxies are disks?? Because the rotation curve is wrong in them.

Re:It's a black hole!

[Anonymous Coward]

I... I love you!

Voldemort

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who read the title as 'Dark Master'?

Re:Voldemort

[Anonymous Coward]

Yessssss.

Explanation Impossible

[verin]

I swear Dark Matter is the 'God did it' of the physics world. Can't explain something, Dark Matter is the reason! Can't find a cause, Dark Matter is it! Can't explain Dark Matter, we got Dark Energy! Can't explain Dark Energy, its Dark Matter!

Re:Explanation Impossible

[wizardforce]

The difference is that dark matter and dark energy can be tested for in various ways; a deity can't be.
When physicists can't explain something they may use a place holder at times but there's no chance of just giving up like the "god did it" explanation does.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[rthille]

"god did it" is a little different from, "there seems to be a source of gravitational attraction, we're not sure what it is, but it seems distinct from 'regular' matter; let's call it 'dark matter' while we continue to investigate."

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Tablizer]

I swear Dark Matter is the 'God did it' of the physics world. Can't explain something, Dark Matter is the reason!

All slashdot dupes come from the dark matter.
   

Re:Explanation Impossible

[ddxexex]

I swear Wave-Particle Duality is the 'God did it' of the physics world. Can't explain something, Wave-Particle Duality is the reason! Can't find a cause, A Wave is it! Can't explain it using a wave, we got particles! Can't explain particles, itsa wave!

Heck lot's of things in Physics were like that, I mean we still can't really explain gravity all that well either so gravitons are clearly "God did it". Quantum Mechanics? Clearly God is playing dice. Higgs-boson yep it's a God particle. Dark Matter may be tough to explain, but it's no more a Deus-Ex Machina than much of the rest science.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Dark Matter and Dark Energy are like the modern equivalent to Phlogiston. Either something is wrong with our model or missing from our equations so in order to make the math work we insert a known unknown. It makes the equations match up with the observations cleanly, but requires us to assume something about the nature of the Universe that just doesn't make sense. Phlogiston was exactly the same. We could not explain the bizarre eddies of the outer planets from the perspective of a geocentric system so we introduced unobservable eddies which made the math work because our model was wrong. Something tells me that we'll eventually work out a more accurate and more elegant model that doesn't include Dark Matter or Dark Energy in the future.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Tablizer]

Like "gravity", dark matter is the name given to a phenomenon or set of phenomena that appear related, not necessarily an actual thing or force. We don't know what gravity actually "is" under the hood; we only know what it does. Gravity is a model that explains observations nicely. But the actual workings behind it are still elusive. We've yet to successfully break it down into sub-mechanisms or sub-models, like knowing that cars move and the patterns of their movements, but not why they move.

Dark matter may actually be many different forces or causes, and perhaps in the future may be split up or re-assigned to other "forces" (models). At this point in time it's merely a guess that it's all one thing. Gravity may also turn out to be multiple things that only appear to be one in the same from our limited perspective and observations. We have to peel the onion one layer at a time, and may never reach the final center layer (if there is such a thing).
       

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Brian Gordon]

This is what I thought too. Dark matter is by definition this extra mass we can't explain. If you explain part of it, then the part you explained isn't dark matter.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

I swear Dark Matter is the 'God did it' of the physics world. Can't explain something, Dark Matter is the reason! Can't find a cause, Dark Matter is it!

Dark matter stole my girlfriend and made my dog leave me and Excel print funny!
         

Re:Explanation Impossible

[John Hasler]

There appears to be something out there that interacts gravitationally with normal matter but does not glow or reflect light. Doesn't glow:-> dark. Has gravity: -> matter. Therefor we call it "dark matter", for now.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[bertok]

The difference is that dark matter and dark energy can be tested for in various ways; a deity can't be.
When physicists can't explain something they may use a place holder at times but there's no chance of just giving up like the "god did it" explanation does.

No, they can't test for it, that's the problem.

This is more along the lines of "our equations don't explain the observed motion of galaxies, therefore, there's matter there we can't see or touch."

That's just not a logical conclusion. It leaves out the much more likely answer that our understanding of the equations of motion is wrong.

The really stupid thing is that all of the predictions that disagree with observed reality (and are the cause for the dark matter/energy predictions) are approximations. Most galaxy motion simulations are based on either Newtonian mechanics or "modified Newtonian" mechanics, even though both are known to be wrong. Einstein showed them to be wrong over a hundred years ago! My second sentence actually should have been:

"Our known-wrong, simplified equations don't explain the observed motion of galaxies, therefore, there's some magical invisible stuff there we can't see or touch."

That's some good science, right there.

Disclaimer: I studied physics at University, and both me and a friend of mine noted during our studies that Physics seems to overuse simplified equations even in situations where it leads to substantial errors. The example that my friend noticed for example is the classic "double slit" interference experiment. Take a look at the equation used . Those simple equations are the ones we learned about also. They're wrong. In many practical cases, the error can exceed 30%!

Re:Explanation Impossible

[khallow]

The difference is that dark matter and dark energy can be tested for in various ways; a deity can't be. When physicists can't explain something they may use a place holder at times but there's no chance of just giving up like the "god did it" explanation does.

It's worth echoing that. Even the really iffy, amorphous parts of physics like superstring theory will eventually have empirical evidence shaping (and perhaps falsifying) it. OTOH, we have no idea whether it is even possible to test the theory of "God exists."

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference being, we didn't find all of this in a book 2000 years ago and continue to educate it, verbatim, in churches of science across the nation.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[sleeponthemic]

You're absolutely right. I therefore suggest we call it "Colorless Jesus Powder", in accordance with our new invisible overlord.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[dimeglio]

Actually, they try to avoid the subject of dark matter. It is simply an unknown astrophysical phenomenon. Since they ran out of other possibilities, one could say that what ever remains, however unlikely is surely the truth (hence said a wise man). However, there are probably other researchers who will be able to further this discovery, determine the cause of the phenomenon and provide a non-darkmatterish explanation...just for your satisfaction of course.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[dimeglio]

Clearly, God lives in the FFth dimension. Dimensions numbers are designed to be two byte fields. God never though anyone could ever need to use more than four dimensions.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is that you have no formal and very little informal training in modern physics. Am I right?

Re:Explanation Impossible

[glitch23]

On the other end of that cause/effect spectrum is evolution. Why do we have 2 legs? Evolution! Why do we have a liver? Evolution! Why do we require water to survive? Evolution! Evolution is the answer to everything and the answer to nothing at the same time.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[mcrbids]

That's just not a logical conclusion. It leaves out the much more likely answer that our understanding of the equations of motion is wrong.

So, you take a WHOLE YEAR of Physics in school, and suddenly, you are ready to say with confidence that all the formulas of physics (which, coincidentally, are correct enough to land a robot on Mars and propel a satellite out past the Solar System) are wrong?!?!? Further, you even state that it's MORE LIKELY that they are wrong?

You and your friend were astute enough to notice that you were using overly simplified formulas in your (first year) physics class. You don't think that maybe it's (ahem) more likely that you were just being introduced to the basic concepts, and the formulas were simplified a bit so that students could grasp it? Oooh! ooh! I took a class in this once!

Try really explaining a firewall to somebody sometime - you know, the protocol number, the port number, the IP address, the Mac address - or maybe you don't know, either? Well, many people think they know what a firewall is because they managed to get one to work with the web-based router interface. But how much credence would you give an IT guy who says blithely that setting up firewalls is inherently broken and that we need to rebuild everything, because of flaws he saw in the simplified web-based router interface?

Personally, I think you should pursue physics some more! See what the real formulas are when they start talking about the higher level stuff.... Of course, if you just want to use your 1 year to say "aw, they are all idiots because I took a class!" then so be it.

Just don't expect me to think much of your opinion.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[shadowblaster]

GOD: I am defrosting my dinner.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[wizardforce]

Simulations of stars in galaxies are approximations because:
1) there isn't an equation for an exact solution to any gravitationally bound system containing more than 5 objects.
2) stars in a typical galaxy are not uniform so the simulations must take this into account as a best guess. br />3) newton's equations are indeed incorrect however, Einstein's equations only dominate to a significant degree under unusual conditions.

In so far as dark matter is concerned, you are incorrect. Experiments like the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search are attempting to detect dark matter particles directly, we've got neutrino detectors looking for evidence of annihilation events... Particle accelerator experiments attempting to actually synthesize dark matter candidates.. To claim that there isn't a way to test the dark matter hypothesis would be grossly inaccurate.
Disclaimer: Physics isn't my major but I did study quite a bit of it in high school and college.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[CrimsonAvenger]

Since they ran out of other possibilities, one could say that what ever remains, however unlikely is surely the truth (hence said a wise man).

First, he was a fictional character. One who would not characterize himself as wise, I think, based on the stories I've read.

Second, that's not actually what he said.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Just change the date on the book, and churches to schools... if there is a difference, that really isn't it...

Re:Explanation Impossible

[yndrd1984]

This is more along the lines of "our equations don't explain the observed motion of galaxies, therefore, there's matter there we can't see or touch."

Wow! I never thought they would do things like that! I would have expected things to go like this:
"our equations don't explain the observed motion of galaxies, therefore, it's reasonable to hypothesize that there's matter there we can't see or touch, let's test it."
And then they'd go and look for evidence or something. Thanks for correcting me!

That's just not a logical conclusion. It leaves out the much more likely answer that our understanding of the equations of motion is wrong.

So all that stuff I heard about MOND was just in my head? Thanks for grounding me in reality!

Most galaxy motion simulations are based on either Newtonian mechanics or "modified Newtonian" mechanics, even though both are known to be wrong. Einstein showed them to be wrong over a hundred years ago!

You're right! It's quite likely that thousands and thousands of astrophysicists have spent decades researching a problem that has such an obvious solution. You're a veritable font of wisdom!

I studied physics at University, and both me and a friend of mine noted during our studies that Physics seems to overuse simplified equations ... Those simple equations are the ones we learned about also. They're wrong. In many practical cases, the error can exceed 30%!

O M G ! - W T F ! Low level physics classes use lots of simplifications? That explains why I can't find massless ropes and frictionless pulleys on E-Bay!

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Haxamanish]

I second that, I would even add that God must have F fingers.

Proof: if you want to know the n-th number of pi, you have to calculate all numbers up to n-1 to calculate n. However, in binary, octal, hexadecimal and any base 2^n you can calculate that number independently. So, to know the last "3" of "3.141592653" we need to calculate all numbers before. To know the last "0" of "3.243F6A8885A308D313198A2E0" we do not have to calculate all numbers before it. As we see here, God of course has his shortcuts to omnipotency. So, he has 2^n fingers. The actual number of his fingers must be close to ours, since we were created to his semblance. Having less fingers than us would make him less perfect (a god without thumbs would be plainly absurd), so he must have F.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Korin43]

That's actually not such a bad idea. Maybe we could refocus all of those creation "scientists" on something worthwhile. You know, take their argument and turn it around: "Well, if you proved Colorless Jesus Powder exists then we'd have to believe in God" and then once they do we can switch to "Oh come on, only crazy people didn't believe in Colorless Jesus Powder, to really prove science wrong, you'd need to show exactly how the Jesus Explosion occurred". And so on..

Re:Explanation Impossible

[John Hasler]

> Evolution is the answer to everything and the answer to nothing at the same
> time.

What is your answer?

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Haxamanish]

Please note I used the symbol "n" in 2 different meaning here. I should have written the "n-th position of pi" and "base 2^b" or something.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Dachannien]

The difference is that dark matter and dark energy can be tested for in various ways; a deity can't be.

Well, technically you can test for existence of a deity.... you just can't come back to tell the rest of us about it afterwards.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other end of that cause/effect spectrum is $Deity. Why do we have 2 legs? $Deity! Why do we have a liver? $Deity! Why do we require water to survive? $Deity! $Deity is the answer to everything and the answer to nothing at the same time.

Does that sound familiar? There's tons of evidence for evolution. There's none for $Deity as it's a matter of faith.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[ceoyoyo]

Dark matter explains several things that changing the laws of gravity does not. The rotation curve of galaxies is only one of those observations.

As a simple example, you can describe the rotation curves of galaxies by either including some dark matter or modifying gravity at large scales. You can also explain the configuration of large clusters by including some dark matter or modifying gravity... and including some dark matter. Now which is the more attractive solution?

Yes, when you start out learning physics you start with the basics. Sometimes those same basics are used to do real physics with because they're the only thing that's really practical in a given situation - and they either work very well in that domain or the errors are fairly well characterized. Newton's equations aren't really wrong, they're approximations that perform badly in certain extreme environments. In most of the universe they do just fine.

Nevertheless, there are physicists pursing all promising approaches, and lots of not so promising ones. Your assertion that you can't test for dark matter is ridiculous, and completely unsupported by anything in your post. To be taken seriously a dark matter hypothesis requires that the distribution be realistic and that the dark matter behave in a way that is consistent with other dark matter solutions. The possibilities for what dark matter actually is have been narrowed down considerably by theorists and there are several particle searches underway, using several different techniques. The likely decay modes of dark matter are also being investigated, and studies like this one could provide evidence for particular decay characteristics.

So what are you proposing anyway? That physicists shouldn't investigate a promising hypothesis because... it offends you personally? Because of what was not included in your physics class? Fortunately science doesn't work that way.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[gyrogeerloose]

I studied physics at University, and both me and a friend of mine

It's pretty obvious that you didn't study English.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Wake me up when you can explain away the other 90% of the known mass of the universe.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[sleeponthemic]

I love it. Especially the inevitable acronymicalisation (yep) down to CJP.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[PachmanP]

...all the formulas of physics (which, coincidentally, are correct enough to land a robot on Mars and propel a satellite out past the Solar System) are wrong?!?!?

Hi! That's engineering; don't put us in the same boat as the string theory wankers. Thanks!


On a more serious note, the key point in your statement is "correct enough". The equations used for that kind of stuff is wrong, we know it's an approximation, but the error is small and we can account for it. That's before you try and linearize!

As for the GP, he's right. As the saying goes a physicist will approximate a horse as a sphere. He could have been far further than 2nd semester physics and still reached the same conclusion. He just missed that while a horse isn't a sphere, if you squint real hard, you can get some useful insights out of a round horse.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Imrik]

In so far as dark matter is concerned, you are incorrect. Experiments like the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search are attempting to detect dark matter particles directly, we've got neutrino detectors looking for evidence of annihilation events... Particle accelerator experiments attempting to actually synthesize dark matter candidates.. To claim that there isn't a way to test the dark matter hypothesis would be grossly inaccurate.
Disclaimer: Physics isn't my major but I did study quite a bit of it in high school and college.

When you start getting successful results you can start using it to make your theories work when they otherwise wouldn't.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Imrik]

The problem is proving that nothing else remains possible.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[wizardforce]

How do you propose that we expand our knowledge without acquiring more evidence? How would you test a hypothesis or a theory without searching for more evidence for or against it?

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

People can agree to disagree without being sardonically arrogant.
Oh wait... I forgot I was on /.
Never mind

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

I swear Dark Matter is the 'God did it' of the physics world. Can't explain something, Dark Matter is the reason! Can't find a cause, Dark Matter is it! Can't explain Dark Matter, we got Dark Energy! Can't explain Dark Energy, its Dark Matter!

You have it backwards.

Dark matter theories have been used to make predictions, and scientific testing on observations has shown those predictions to be true.

Lets see your god predict something.

(By 'your god' I don't mean you personally, as I do not know your religious beliefs. 'Your' refers to the term from your own post.)

Re:Explanation Impossible

[bertok]

Did you even read what I wrote?

Simulations of stars in galaxies are approximations because:
1) there isn't an equation for an exact solution to any gravitationally bound system containing more than 5 objects.

That's not what I said, numerical precision is not the issue. If you're only 10 decimal points accurate, that's still good enough. Numerical simulations, of for example, the solar system can be done (and have been done) relativistically to huge precision. Dark matter theories are implying that there's a 10x error. That's not accountable for by numerical precision!

2) stars in a typical galaxy are not uniform so the simulations must take this into account as a best guess.

Well duh. However, the simulations I was referring to perform a 'fit' of observed data. We know the observed velocities of stars in galaxies, and given that, a good model can predict the mass distribution of stars that can produce that motion. Using newtonian mechanics, this 'fit' can't be done, an extra "dark matter" term is required, where that dark matter doesn't behave like ordinary stars under gravitation. Using relativistic mechanics, the fit is an exact match to observed galaxies.

3) newton's equations are indeed incorrect however, Einstein's equations only dominate to a significant degree under unusual conditions.

You just made the exact same, unfounded assumption everyone else has! How the do you not see that it's a HUGE MISTAKE when observed reality doesn't match the predictions of your simplified model? How is that not enough of a clue that maybe the model may be oversimplified?

Galaxies are massive. Did you not notice that? It takes 10,000 years for either light or gravity to cross one, and they bend light to the point that we've got nice Hubble pictures of them looking like a reflection in a funhouse mirror. Higher order error terms can't be ignored every time with a wave of your hand. Nonlinear effects can be subtle, and will bite you in the ass if you ignore them.

In so far as dark matter is concerned, you are incorrect. Experiments like the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search are attempting to detect dark matter particles directly, we've got neutrino detectors looking for evidence of annihilation events... Particle accelerator experiments attempting to actually synthesize dark matter candidates.. To claim that there isn't a way to test the dark matter hypothesis would be grossly inaccurate.
Disclaimer: Physics isn't my major but I did study quite a bit of it in high school and college.

There's way to test for dark matter, sure, but no test has even provided a slightest hint of anything that might be there. Physicists are claiming that 90% of the matter is invisible.. so where is it? That would mean that there would be... 10x more stuff around. I think we'd notice.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[bertok]

How do you propose that we expand our knowledge without acquiring more evidence? How would you test a hypothesis or a theory without searching for more evidence for or against it?

Why waste time looking for evidence to support a theory based on a known-wrong theory?

Why wouldn't we first re-try the simulations of galactic motion with the known-correct theory, before wasting millions of dollars looking for some mythical invisible matter to match the error term of a simplified equation?

Re:Explanation Impossible

[bertok]

So all that stuff I heard about MOND was just in my head? Thanks for grounding me in reality!

Did you read read ANY of that? MOND stands for Modified Newtonian Dynamics.

My entire point was that physicists are using simplified newtonian equation of motions instead of the known correct General relativity.

It's basically a type of laziness. Newtonian equations are simple, and solutions for the rotation of galaxies can be done on a blackboard. Even MOND is relatively straight forward. Full General Relativity is hard to solve, and galaxy rotations are particularly complex because of the complex axial distribution of matter. An exact solution for a system as complex as a galaxy is probably impossible, and even if it was possible, it would be way out of the league of any human mathematician.

This is what computers were designed to do, but instead of just doing a numerical simulation, physicists insist on waving their hand and dismissing the error term like it's not even there, so they can keep using nice pretty exact solutions that... don't agree with reality.

O M G ! - W T F ! Low level physics classes use lots of simplifications? That explains why I can't find massless ropes and frictionless pulleys on E-Bay!

Except that I found this general tendency to dismiss higher order error terms to persist through every year I studied physics at University. I didn't drop out in first year, just so you know.

Simplifying equations is not straight forward, you have to be able to show mathematically that the error term is truly insignificant, but this part seems to be glossed over. Students learn a huge array of simplified equations, and are never really exposed to the original thinking and justification behind them, and often don't even realize they're working with techniques that may not work in corner cases. These same students become researchers and write papers about dark matter.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[bertok]

Umm... I took more than a year of physics. I have a Bachelor of Science. That particular story actually happened in second year (it came up while we were studying Quantum Mechanics), but I've seen similar hand-wavy assumptions made even in very advanced materials later on.

NASA uses Newtonian mechanics for solar system navigation because it is precise enough for that application, and it's predictions agree with reality.

Newtonian mechanics is not good enough for dealing with the motion of galaxies, and it's predictions do not agree with reality.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[techno-vampire]

Those simple equations are the ones we learned about also. They're wrong. In many practical cases, the error can exceed 30%!

Well, what do you expect when you're supposed to assume the existence of a spherical cow of uniform density?

Re:Explanation Impossible

[wizardforce]

If you're talking about newton being the known-wrong theory then you're not understanding the fact that the discrepancy is tiny under the conditions which these stars orbit. If you're claiming that something like MOND is correct then you're going to have to support that position a little better. As for the so called simplified equations that cause "errors" I'd like you to explain how that comes even close to this. Believe it or not, most physicists aren't idiots. Most of them use equations that are a little more accurate than the ones you used in introductory physics class in college.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[wizardforce]

Using relativistic mechanics, the fit is an exact match to observed galaxies.

I can tell from that quote that you don't have the slightest idea of what you're talking about. Even a sophomore physics student can see that these stars are no where near in the conditions where relativistic equations even matter. Jesus christ man, don't you think that if it was that simple a fix physicists would know about it?

Re:Explanation Impossible

[bertok]

Using relativistic mechanics, the fit is an exact match to observed galaxies.

I can tell from that quote that you don't have the slightest idea of what you're talking about. Even a sophomore physics student can see that these stars are no where near in the conditions where relativistic equations even matter. Jesus christ man, don't you think that if it was that simple a fix physicists would know about it?

And you can show that mathematically? DID YOU PROVE IT, or just assume, like everyone else?

Re:Explanation Impossible

[TempeTerra]

we have no idea whether it is even possible to test the theory of "God exists."

Actually we do; it's explicitly impossible to test the theory of 'God exists'. Or rather, it's impossible to falsify it which is what any meaningful test should do.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[BitZtream]

Well, theres also that simulations would need to be exact duplicates to be accurate. You can't simulate a system in real time or faster than realtime without using more matter to simulate it than is involved in the simulation. Accuracy requires simulation of all elements involved, which when simulating something real, an actual object, not something virtual, then you have to actually simulate the entire universe, as everything in it effects everything else in it.

Making the ability to simulate physical objects in our universe accurately impossible. The very act of simulating it breaks changes the simulation. Maybe if we use some other dimension or something.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

I know, isn't it wonderful? Darwin was truly a great genius to explain so much with something so simple. An exceptional man all-round really.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[BitZtream]

The simple, and logical conclusion to anyone who isn't blinded by arrogance, is that the equations are wrong, or at the minimum, incomplete. Unfortunately, there are about 3 high level scientists in the world that get that bit of it.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[BitZtream]

Maybe.

It could be that once you confirm the existence or lack of existence of a deity, that you simply don't care anymore, or know that its better not to tell anyone else.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[xbytor]

>> you just can't come back to tell the rest of us about it afterwards.

You can. You just need to pick the right deity.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[TheTurtlesMoves]

The FSM will have issues with this convection.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[buddahboy]

This is what computers were designed to do, but instead of just doing a numerical simulation, physicists insist on waving their hand and dismissing the error term like it's not even there, so they can keep using nice pretty exact solutions that... don't agree with reality.

I think these people may disagree with you.........

Except that I found this general tendency to dismiss higher order error terms to persist through every year I studied physics at University. I didn't drop out in first year, just so you know.

Simplifying equations is not straight forward, you have to be able to show mathematically that the error term is truly insignificant, but this part seems to be glossed over. Students learn a huge array of simplified equations, and are never really exposed to the original thinking and justification behind them, and often don't even realize they're working with techniques that may not work in corner cases. These same students become researchers and write papers about dark matter.

I think you might be missing the difference between physics taught at an undergraduate level, where the emphasis is on understanding the underlying principles of physics which can be taught with simplified equations and what working physicists actually use (which often rely on solving equations numerically).

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure? If dark matter interacts via gravity only (it's not a WIMP). There would be absolutely no way to detect it. And it would be the god equivalent in physics. I am not saying that physicists will resort to belief in "dark matter" if that's the case, but we would have a tremendous problem at our hands, something that exist in the natural world and can't be detect it(for various reasons).

Re:Explanation Impossible

[imakemusic]

What ever remains, however unlikely is surely the truth (hence said a wise man).

The words of a cocaine addict, written by a man who believed in fairies.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[bhartman34]

we have no idea whether it is even possible to test the theory of "God exists."

Actually we do; it's explicitly impossible to test the theory of 'God exists'. Or rather, it's impossible to falsify it which is what any meaningful test should do.

It's not entirely impossible to falsify the theory of "God exists". But first, you have to have a concrete definition of what "God" is. If you define "God" as an omnipotent, omniscient, loving being, you can make predictions about what a universe run by an omnipotent, omniscient, loving being should look like. If it doesn't look like that, then you've falsified that definition of "God". Most people are unwilling to submit the idea of God to that kind of a test, though, because they're simply not interested in falsifying the idea in the first place.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[bertok]

This is what computers were designed to do, but instead of just doing a numerical simulation, physicists insist on waving their hand and dismissing the error term like it's not even there, so they can keep using nice pretty exact solutions that... don't agree with reality.

I think these people may disagree with you.........

You'll find most of those simulations are Newtonian. I just checked some of their latest papers, and they all use Newtonian or modified Newtonian (MOND) codes. The code they run is called "GADGET-3" (they also used earlier versions in the past), and according to this high level description, it's Newtonian. Admittedly, it's an impressive simulator, but it seems to concentrate on scale (many particles) and on including many effects like gas interactions, magnetohydrodynamics, etc... but not a relativistic metric.

If you can find even one of the published papers on that site that even mentions to worth 'relativistic', I'd be very interested in reading it. The papers are linked from here, they have links to the full papers on Arxiv.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

He'd also have 0x10 fingers, not 0xF.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[khallow]

I don't think it'll work. First, it's not reproducible. Second, how will you know it's a deity and not some felloww mortal with a great after-death light show?

Re:Explanation Impossible

[pwfffff]

Why are you so pissed off that scientists don't know fucking EVERYTHING? Do you have a galaxy to pilot soon that might crash if you don't get the right equations?

I don't know why you've spent this entire thread bitching. Will you calm down if I get a few guys in lab coats to say they're wrong and admit you're smarter than them? Would it help if it was in writing?

Exactly what are you going on about?

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Haxamanish]

Indeed, I stand corrected.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[arminw]

...Can't explain Dark Matter, we got Dark Energy! ...

Neither dark matter nor dark energy are needed to to explain what we observe if the models would take into account the 36 orders of magnitude greater electric interaction in addition to gravity.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[stim]

So, you take a WHOLE YEAR of Physics in school, and suddenly, you are ready to say with confidence that all the formulas of physics (which, coincidentally, are correct enough to land a robot on Mars and propel a satellite out past the Solar System) are wrong?!?!?

I'm sure with just about any equations you use, flying in a straight line through space is serious business.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[arminw]

...Newtonian mechanics is not good enough for dealing with the motion of galaxies, and it's predictions do not agree with reality....

That's only because today's cosmologists totally ignore the electric force. It is 36 orders of magnitude greater than gravity. The motion of the Pioneer space probes is also slightly off, because it is being influenced by a "mysterious force" that causes it to move differently than if gravity alone is taken into account. Because the electric force is so much more powerful than gravity, only a small charge on the space probe will interact with tenuous electric and magnetic fields in space to exert a force that will alter the motion of the spacecraft.

For the short distances involved in the solar system, the application of purely gravitational equations is accurate enough. However, if you're talking about galactic or even cosmic distances, the electric force must be taken into account, but unfortunately it is studiously ignored by mainstream cosmologists.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[arminw]

....Experiments like the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search ....

Are all coming up empty, because dark matter is only a mathematical construct in computers and math models, but not in measured reality.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[arminw]

....on a known-wrong theory?...

It is not the case that the theory is totally wrong, just incomplete. The reason it is incomplete is that present-day cosmologists totally ignore the electrical force which is 36 orders of magnitude bigger than gravity. Both electricity and gravity are involved in and are necessary to explain the behavior of galaxies and stars.

For example, an immeasurably small electric field of a few microvolts to the kilometer applied to a charged particle over cosmic distances, can accelerate such a particle to enormous energies. That is what we observe in cosmic rays.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[arminw]

...either light or gravity to cross one....

You are assuming that light and gravity travel at the same speed. This has never been observed to occur in nature. This limitation on gravity exists only in mathematical models.

The sun and the earth "feel" each others gravity instantly, not eight minutes from now. If gravity took eight minutes to travel from the Sun to the Earth, the earth would have left its orbit long ago. The fact that it's still here where it is, is evidence that gravity is either instantaneous or incredibly fast, much much faster than light.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[arminw]

...it's reasonable to hypothesize that ...

the electric force which is 36 orders of magnitude greater than gravity is ALSO involved in controlling the motion of stars and galaxies. Sad to say, current cosmologists and astrophysicists totally ignore the action of the electric force in the large-scale universe. Nobody ever seems to ask the question of how a slightly charged, that is not exactly neutral body, would move in a weak, but not zero magnetic or electric field. There are theories that can explain some of the anomalous data without resorting to black holes, dark matter or energy, singularities or other purely mathematical constructs.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[wanerious]

And do you suppose that these cosmically large electric fields would have no observational consequences on spectral lines emitted in their presence, or on actual ionized gas in HII regions? I don't understand why you're so enamored with the "36 orders of magnitude" stuff. It has consequences --- the effects of such powerful fields should be 36 orders of magnitude easier to detect than gravitational effects. Where are they?

Re:Explanation Impossible

[wanerious]

Oh, boy. Either you willfully neglect or are not aware of the gravitational radiation emitted from binary pulsars that must propagate at the speed of light.

I suppose, then, that the electric interaction is also infinitely fast, since otherwise electrons would have left their orbits around protons long ago.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[yndrd1984]

People can agree to disagree without being sardonically arrogant.

Yes, it would have been nice if "bertok" could have made his point without accusing a large swath of scientists of being unscientific and unable to come up with ideas he found obvious.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[yndrd1984]

Sure, I'd be happy to wake you, Mr. ... oh noes! He didn't sign his name. Oh, well.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[yndrd1984]

The simple, and logical conclusion to anyone who isn't blinded by arrogance, is that the equations are wrong, or at the minimum, incomplete.

The simple, and logical conclusion to anyone who isn't blinded by arrogance, is that astrophysicists have already thought of that, and decided that it wasn't the best possible explanation.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[yndrd1984]

the electric force which is 36 orders of magnitude greater than gravity

But expends itself on neutralizing the charges that generate the force, gravity clumps matter together and the larger lumps generate a stronger gravitational field.

a slightly charged, that is not exactly neutral body, would move in a weak, but not zero magnetic or electric field

The largest effect this would have is attracting particles of opposite charge from the surrounding plasma, negating itself.

current cosmologists and astrophysicists totally ignore

Well, they don't ignore Io ...

Re:Explanation Impossible

[yndrd1984]

My entire point was that physicists are using simplified newtonian equation of motions instead of the known correct General relativity.

THAT was your central thesis? I'm sorry, I thought it was "astrophysicists are way stupider than me".

Did you read read ANY of that? MOND stands for Modified Newtonian Dynamics.

Did you read ANY of the context. You claim that scientists are unwilling to look at anything other than Newtonian dynamics (and now you claim it's your central point), but the #2 theory for certain effects is practically called "Not Newtonian Dynamics". I thought the glaring contrast would get the point across.

It's basically a type of laziness.

And we're back to this. Thanks for letting me get a +5 Insightful off your -1 Troll. :)

Re:Explanation Impossible

[arminw]

...But expends itself on neutralizing the charges that generate the force....

That is only true of static charges, but not of currents moving through space in the form of charged particles.

(...is attracting particles...)

You are assuming that only tiny particles, such as electrons and other atomic bits and pieces can carry charge. It is assumed that larger bodies are neutral against each other, but that is an unwarranted assumption. Because the electric forces are so powerful, only a slight imbalance of charge, will produce immense electrical forces between such charged objects. Most of the matter in the universe is not nicely neutral like we fortunately have here on earth, but highly charged plasma.

When you rub a comb with a silk cloth, only an extremely tiny number of electrons compared to the total electrons in the comb is moved. Yet that tiny charge imbalance is sufficient to overcome the gravity of the entire earth and pick up bits of paper or plastic.

The fact that there are magnetic fields in space and on the Sun, attests to the fact that there are flowing currents. Flowing currents can only happen if there is a potential difference within that current flow.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[arminw]

..gravitational radiation emitted from binary pulsars...

Gravitational radiation and gravity waves exist only in mathematical theories, but have never actually been observed or measured. Great gobs of money have been expended to measure such waves, but so far nothing has been found.

(...electric interaction is also infinitely fast...)
As a matter of fact, the speed of the electric force within the atom has never been determined. The distances within the atom are so tiny, that even something as slow as the speed of light would be fast enough to communicate between electrons and protons within it.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[arminw]

...cosmically large electric fields would have no observational consequences...

They do have observational consequences right here on earth. They are called cosmic rays. These are charged particles and electromagnetic radiation of incredible energies are constantly bombarding Earth. An electric field of only a few microvolts per kilometer, applied over cosmic distances, would accelerate a charged particle to immense energies. When such a charged particle slams into a bit of matter, powerful electromagnetic radiation results which we call gamma rays.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[yndrd1984]

You are assuming that only tiny particles, such as electrons and other atomic bits and pieces can carry charge.

No, I'm not. I'm just observing that (in comparison to their gravitational equivalents) it's difficult to generate large voltages and even harder to get large objects to maintain a charge.

Because the electric forces are so powerful, only a slight imbalance of charge, will produce immense electrical forces between such charged objects. Most of the matter in the universe is not nicely neutral like we fortunately have here on earth, but highly charged plasma.

The problem is that the plasma (which has no overall charge even though it's made of charged particles) will be the first thing to respond to that immense electrical force - and it will respond in exactly the right way to cancel that charge imbalance.

The fact that there are magnetic fields in space and on the Sun, attests to the fact that there are flowing currents. Flowing currents can only happen if there is a potential difference within that current flow.

Which is why it's silly to say that they "totally ignore the action of the electric force in the large-scale universe".

Re:Explanation Impossible

[arminw]

...why it's silly to say that...

Pulsars and other extremely intense radiation sources are caused by the gravity of black holes. Gravity has absolutely nothing to do with and has never been demonstrated to generate so much as a single photon. All electromagnetic radiation which we receive, including intense gamma ray bursts, cosmic rays and radio signals are of electrical origin. None of them, not even one, has ever been nor can be generated by gravity, no matter how much matter you pile together. The equations of gravity do not include electrical components. It is an ironclad law that electromagnetic radiation can only be produced electrically.

(...and it will respond in exactly the right way to cancel that charge imbalance..

If there is an electrical field, a difference of potential, currents will flow in a plasma to SEPARATE the charges. This happens for example, with the solar wind. The Earth's magnetic field bends and focuses the current, until the plasma switches from dark mode to glow mode. We then see that glow as Northern lights. We do this here on earth every day with neon signs. The positive ions flow toward the cathode and the electrons to the anode. If the current density in the plasma is even higher, there is what is known as arc mode, such as in a welder or lightning. However, in most of outer space the current density is very low, so the plasma currents flow in the dark mode. There are places however, where the current density is high enough to enter glow mode. We then see those places as some of the beautiful colorful nebula and luminous clouds.

Cosmologists and astrophysicists who theorize that there is a gigantic black hole in the center of our galaxy are totally wrong. There is intense electromagnetic radiation issuing from the middle of our galaxy. All of that, every bit, has its origin in the electric force acting either in free space or within the atom.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

What would happen if you assembled a large number of free neutrons together in one place?

By large I mean like double the mass of the sun, and by one place I mean a spheroidal volume with a radius of less than the distance between the sun and Mercury.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[yndrd1984]

It is an ironclad law that electromagnetic radiation can only be produced electrically.
I'd accept that as true.

None of them, not even one, has ever been nor can be generated by gravity, no matter how much matter you pile together. The equations of gravity do not include electrical components.
Directly - yes. But there are may indirect ways that gravity can produce electrical effects.

If there is an electrical field, a difference of potential, currents will flow in a plasma to SEPARATE the charges.
Yes, the charges in the plasma separate, so they negate the electric field that comes from other sources. The net effect is that the field strength is reduced.

Cosmologists and astrophysicists who theorize that there is a gigantic black hole in the center of our galaxy are totally wrong. There is intense electromagnetic radiation issuing from the middle of our galaxy. All of that, every bit, has its origin in the electric force acting either in free space or within the atom.
That radiation is caused by many effects. One of them is that gravity accelerates charged particles with mass, and accelerating charges generate electromagnetic radiation. That's a perfect example of how gravity can produce electromagnetic radiation as a side effect.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[arminw]

...that gravity accelerates charged particles with mass...

Until you realize that gravity affects charged particles with mass by an order of 36 magnitude times less than an electrical field. I don't think either you or I can imagine the size of a number one 36 zeros after or in front of it. Gravity, even if you make it 1,000,000 times as big as the sun's, is still insignificant.

Besides, if they were such thing as a black hole in the middle of the galaxy, these charged particles would fall inward toward the middle and be absorbed by all that matter. The radiation produced somewhere in the supposed black hole would never make it out again. No, the only way radiation of the enormous energies we observe can be obtained is by the action of electrical fields over great distances. Gravity is simply too tiny to have any significant effect on charged matter. Gravity, directly or indirectly is too weak a force to be in the radiation generation game.

Re:Explanation Impossible

[yndrd1984]

Until you realize that gravity affects charged particles with mass by an order of 36 magnitude times less than an electrical field.
Which is irrelevant because gravity accumulates, while charge tends to cancel out.

The radiation produced somewhere in the supposed black hole would never make it out again.
It isn't generated "in" the black hole, it's created around it in an accretion disk and in gas jets.

Gravity, directly or indirectly is too weak a force to be in the radiation generation game.
That's only your intuition talking - if there was actual evidence to back it up you'd have shown it to me.

Your official guide to the Jigaboo presidency

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations on your purchase of a brand new nigger! If handled properly, your apeman will give years of valuable, if reluctant, service.

INSTALLING YOUR NIGGER.
You should install your nigger differently according to whether you have purchased the field or house model. Field niggers work best in a serial configuration, i.e. chained together. Chain your nigger to another nigger immediately after unpacking it, and don't even think about taking that chain off, ever. Many niggers start singing as soon as you put a chain on them. This habit can usually be thrashed out of them if nipped in the bud. House niggers work best as standalone units, but should be hobbled or hamstrung to prevent attempts at escape. At this stage, your nigger can also be given a name. Most owners use the same names over and over, since niggers become confused by too much data. Rufus, Rastus, Remus, Toby, Carslisle, Carlton, Hey-You!-Yes-you!, Yeller, Blackstar, and Sambo are all effective names for your new buck nigger. If your nigger is a ho, it should be called Latrelle, L'Tanya, or Jemima. Some owners call their nigger hoes Latrine for a joke. Pearl, Blossom, and Ivory are also righteous names for nigger hoes. These names go straight over your nigger's head, by the way.

CONFIGURING YOUR NIGGER
Owing to a design error, your nigger comes equipped with a tongue and vocal chords. Most niggers can master only a few basic human phrases with this apparatus - "muh dick" being the most popular. However, others make barking, yelping, yapping noises and appear to be in some pain, so you should probably call a vet and have him remove your nigger's tongue. Once de-tongued your nigger will be a lot happier - at least, you won't hear it complaining anywhere near as much. Niggers have nothing interesting to say, anyway. Many owners also castrate their niggers for health reasons (yours, mine, and that of women, not the nigger's). This is strongly recommended, and frankly, it's a mystery why this is not done on the boat

HOUSING YOUR NIGGER.
Your nigger can be accommodated in cages with stout iron bars. Make sure, however, that the bars are wide enough to push pieces of nigger food through. The rule of thumb is, four niggers per square yard of cage. So a fifteen foot by thirty foot nigger cage can accommodate two hundred niggers. You can site a nigger cage anywhere, even on soft ground. Don't worry about your nigger fashioning makeshift shovels out of odd pieces of wood and digging an escape tunnel under the bars of the cage. Niggers never invented the shovel before and they're not about to now. In any case, your nigger is certainly too lazy to attempt escape. As long as the free food holds out, your nigger is living better than it did in Africa, so it will stay put. Buck niggers and hoe niggers can be safely accommodated in the same cage, as bucks never attempt sex with black hoes.

FEEDING YOUR NIGGER.
Your Nigger likes fried chicken, corn bread, and watermelon. You should therefore give it none of these things because its lazy ass almost certainly doesn't deserve it. Instead, feed it on porridge with salt, and creek water. Your nigger will supplement its diet with whatever it finds in the fields, other niggers, etc. Experienced nigger owners sometimes push watermelon slices through the bars of the nigger cage at the end of the day as a treat, but only if all niggers have worked well and nothing has been stolen that day. Mike of the Old Ranch Plantation reports that this last one is a killer, since all niggers steal something almost every single day of their lives. He reports he doesn't have to spend much on free watermelon for his niggers as a result. You should never allow your nigger meal breaks while at work, since if it stops work for more than ten minutes it will need to be retrained. You would be surprised how long it takes to teach a nigger to pick cotton. You really would. Coffee beans? Don't ask. You have no idea.

MAKING YOUR NIGGER WORK.
Niggers are very, very averse to work of any kind. The nigger's most

Totally ignorant of the whole shebang

[Anonymous Coward]

but I think we oughtta shed some light on this subject, and soon.

Ba-da-ching.

And it went a little something like this:

[Gizzmonic]

CAPTAIN KIRK: Spock, come in here, can you make sense of these readings?

SPOCK: Captain, it appears that dark matter may be behind diffuse radiation in the galactic center.

CAPTAIN KIRK: It's the most magnificent thing I've ever seen!

SPOCK: It is...fascinating.

CAPTAIN KIRK: But why would diffuse radiation need a starship?

DR. MCCOY: Come on over here, boys! This galactic dick ain't gonna suck itself!

Thanks for reading and supporting fan fiction.

Re:And it went a little something like this:

[crazyjimmy]

WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS?

Re:And it went a little something like this:

[mathx314]

Oh, sorry, that's my responsible this. I'll keep a better watch on it next time.

Re:And it went a little something like this:

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you a word.

Purple Haze

[ISoldat53]

Purple haze all in my eyes Don't know if it's day or night You've got me blowin, blowin my mind Is it tomorrow or just the end of time? - Jimi Hendrix

Explanation Very Possible

[Roger W Moore]

Can't explain something, Dark Matter is the reason! Can't find a cause, Dark Matter is it!

This is completely incorrect. This work is the result of looking for Dark Matter. Dark Matter is the best explanation for galactic rotation curves and the cosmic microwave background. Depending on what the Dark Matter is it may annihilate with itself and produce, amongst other things, electron-positron pairs. In fact the paper is really a very beautiful and elegant bit of work since the first bit of evidence which lead to this comes from the background 'noise' of one of the major pieces of evidence for Dark Matter - the WMAP data! As such, far from noticing something and then attributing it to Dark Matter, this is actively looking for something that suggests evidence for Dark Matter. True the evidence does not show that it HAS to be Dark Matter but if you cannot attribute it to anything else which is known and you have models which suggest that Dark Matter might produce such a signal it is very interesting.

Arkani-Hamed et al have a model which may explain this and which, if correct, predicts jets of leptons (electrons or muons) at the LHC. This is actually one of the things which my colleagues and I are looking for on the ATLAS Experiment. If we do observe them then this will be further evidence for Dark Matter and not a "oh, something else we cannot explain and put down to Dark Matter". Until we have enough bits of evidence that, combined, show that Dark Matter is the only possible cause there will always be some doubt but that should not be construed as flailing around and using Dark Matter to explain every observation that is inexplicable. Indeed, the fact that we are using Dark Matter models to suggest observations and experiments to perform and then finding that these return "inexplicable" results is very, very interesting!

Re:Explanation Very Possible

[BitZtream]

Dark Matter is the best explanation for galactic rotation curves and the cosmic microwave background.

And the sun circling the Earth is also the reason used once long long ago to explain things like day and night.

It was also wrong due to ignorance and based or observations that weren't understood, not real sure why this is supposed to be magically different.

Re:Explanation Very Possible

[justthinkit]

Try an engineer's perspective here, not just the pure science one. A geer would say:
"When we add the Dark Matter fudge factor, our equations tend to get better, and we haven't found many (if any) equations that break in major bad ways because of it so, we will build our next bridge using this fudge factor and be confident it will be the best inter-galactic bridge built in 2009."

To see what engineers have to deal with on a daily basis, have a look at any of the links off of this page: lmnoeng.com. All looks very civilized and mathematical until you look further down each sub-page and see how conditional & fractional & empirical it all is. But it is the best we have and we manage to build with it. It is very obvious to geers that these are not final exact equations. These are just answers that work, and we work 'em.

Re:Explanation Very Possible

[c6gunner]

You seem as if you could benefit from a bit of Asimov.

Re:Explanation Very Possible

[khallow]

not real sure why this is supposed to be magically different.

You already know the word, "ignorance". Both yours and the scientists. One doesn't magically come up with a theory that the Earth circles the Sun rather than the reverse. You needed evidence and a better model for that. We have some pretty good evidence that our models are wrong in a specific way. The corrections that work for us are called "dark matter" and "dark energy". Even if this is the old epicycle problem, it's worth noting that the original epicycles had all the information needed to find Newtonian mechanics. So it is with our current approach. We need first to accurately describe what is going on. Thew development of better, more parsimonious models will follow.

Re:Explanation Very Possible

[JoshuaZ]

And the sun circling the Earth is also the reason used once long long ago to explain things like day and night. It was also wrong due to ignorance and based or observations that weren't understood, not real sure why this is supposed to be magically different.

The geocentric view of things did a better job of explaining the world than heliocentric views. The Ptolemic system (well variants of it; there were multiple floating around by the mid 1500s) worked really well to predict positions of the moon and planets. The heliocentric system was satisfying at a qualitative level but didn't predict things well. When Copernicus proposed a heliocentric system, the main appeal was that it required fewer major epicycles and didn't use any equants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equant. However, to get predictions that were as good as Ptolemy's Copernicus needed as many total epicycles. Moreover, Copernicus failed to actually explain some data that Ptolemy could explain. For example, if the Earth is moving, then one should expect to see parallax of stars. It wasn't until Kepler realized that the orbits were actually ellipses rather than interlocked circles that the system actually became simpler. Then people rapidly adopted the system. The problem of parallax was still an issue because it forced stars to be unbelievably far away. It wasn't until 1838 that stellar parallax was actually detected. So in that regard, we still had data that didn't quite fit for some time after the heliocentric system had been accepted. To some extent, it was accepted because the Keplerian system was much simpler than the Ptolemic one (that Newton actually was able to give a deeper explanation also helped).

There are two excellent books on this subject which everyone should read. They are Thomas Kuhn's "The Copernican Revolution" and Alan Hirschfeld's "Parallax:The Race to Measure the Cosmos." The two give very good accounts of the relevant history. But simply dismissing it as being due to ignorance or poorly understood observations is inaccurate.

Re:Explanation Very Possible

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, we can't just magically make you smarter and able to understand.

Maybe in your next life

Re:Explanation Very Possible

[BitZtream]

Yea, because you understand it yourself ...

Re:Explanation Very Possible

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Find a problem you can't solve. 2. Explain using Dark Matter. 3. ??? 4. Profit!

Re:Explanation Very Possible

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Dark Matter is the best explanation for galactic rotation curves and the cosmic microwave background.

Dark matter has Sweet Fuck All to do with the cosmic microwave background, which was explained very well in the 1960s using conventional physics and the big bang theory. Of course, now a lot of people are trying to tack Dark Matter onto everything. I expect sooner or later dark matter will probably be used to explain Saturn's rings or Solar flares or turbulance.

Re:Explanation Very Possible

[wanerious]

The *origin* and rough profile of the CMB was explained in the 1960s, but with such strong opinions on the subject then surely you're familiar with the discoveries in the last couple of decades of the details of the power spectrum of the CMB; the *anomalous* harmonics agree very well with the abundance of dark matter needed to cause gravitational lensing in clusters (Bullet Cluster) as well as the more familiar galactic rotation curves. These 3 independent predictions of the amount of dark matter agree very well, and are pretty strong evidence against any other proposed model. Right?

Outside of the box thinking

[bradbury]

Now of course the problem with discussing articles by "conventional" astronomers is that they want to limit everything to a "conventional" physical process (i.e. determined by the natural laws of physics).That approach fades once one begins to integrate (a) the age of the universe; (b) the probable evolution timescale for intelligent life; (c) the evolution of intelligent species. If one simply uses the data from the Lineweaver group -- the probability of intelligent technological civilizations older than ours goes up significantly (most of the potential civilization evolving stars are older than "we" are). Could not such civilizations choose to communicate with each other using relativistic electrons? Some of which will not make it but can easily be corrected by ECC.

Is not the dark matter simply evidence of the existence of Kardshev Type II level civilizations?
It is useful to note that physicists still want to insist on explanations that are based in intrinsic laws of physics (read: "I'll invent laws if they do not already exist") rather than the evolution of universe as a whole (one which incorporates physics with chemistry and biology)..

Re:Outside of the box thinking

[Samah]

...rather than the evolution of universe as a whole (one which incorporates physics with chemistry and biology)

Obligatory xkcd: http://www.xkcd.com/435/

Call me an astrophysics noob, but

[Locke2005]

Why do we keep invoking "dark matter" to explain that which is adequately explained by the massive black hole at the center of this and almost every other galaxy?

Re:Call me an astrophysics noob, but

[mindstrm]

Because the big black hole in the center of the galaxy doesn't explain it....

Re:Call me an astrophysics noob, but

[CrimsonAvenger]

Why do we keep invoking "dark matter" to explain that which is adequately explained by the massive black hole at the center of this and almost every other galaxy?

Because the massive black holes don't adequately explain things.

Rotation speeds of stars about the center of the galaxy don't behave as they should in the case where the massive black hole is the only thing acting on them other than nearby bits of galaxy.

Re:Call me an astrophysics noob, but

[John Hasler]

Because it isn't.

Re:Call me an astrophysics noob, but

[hldn]

because you're an astrophysics noob and don't realize that blackholes do not explain it at all.

Re:Call me an astrophysics noob, but

[joh]

There's still the possibility that there's something wrong with our understanding of mass and gravity in a subtle way. The flyby anomaly is not explained either yet and it may well be that a similar thing is going on in the center of the galaxy on a much larger scale.

But I certainly agree that any test of any theory is welcome here. There's something fishy with our understanding of the universe and I can't stand this ;-)

data resulted in something?

[gumbi west]

I'd like to see that happen. Seriously, that is even worse than anything I've seen from taco.

I like my coffee...

[Anonymous Coward]

...like I like my cosmological hypotheses. Dark, with a nice distribution of heat.

Re:I like my coffee...

[armyofone]

While I prefer my coffee like I like my women... cold, and bitter.

Re:I like my coffee...

[PachmanP]

While I prefer my coffee like I like my women... cold, and bitter.

I prefer my coffee like I like my women...with my dick in it!

Re:I like my coffee...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see the appeal of cold and bitter women.

But I'm fine if more people went for the cold bitter women. Since I prefer them kind, warm and sexy :).

Re:I like my coffee...

[stim]

I prefer my whiskey like I like my women... 12 years old and all mixed up with coke. wait, whats that strange van parked out front? Who's knocking on my door?

I'm not a racist...

[Anonymous Coward]

but I prefer white matter

Submitted for your, um, *approval*

[Anonymous Coward]

Thomas K. Landauer.

Dark matter physics?

[Tibia1]

'We are absolutely in the process of exploring the Fermi haze in the context of dark matter physics,'

Quite a shady subject...
Random mass we don't know the origin of and can't identify? Lets call it dark, and assume we have physics about it. Ok, now we've found some radiation we can't find the origin of. Well, looks to be the same physics we're dealing with...
.... right guys?

Re:Dark matter physics?

[Torodung]

Right. So long as we can make the math work, and keep slagging each other off in the popular press, we can keep ourselves on the gravy train for life. How does that sound? ;^)

--
Toro

(Apologies to the late Adams Douglas Adams)

Can we please just call it by its traditional name

[BitZtream]

Magic?

It just won't cut it

[Anonymous Coward]

Your "Fermi Haze" has rusted my "Occam's Razor," and now I can't cut my "Coulombian Cocaine."

Could be worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Better dark matter than all the stars blowing up in a supernova chain reaction explosion that will flood our neighborhood with lethal radiation.

Re:Can we please just call it by its traditional n

[LockeOnLogic]

Black magic

Re:Can we please just call it by its traditional n

[belthize]

Technically dark magic. [-5 overly pedantic]

That is not equivalent

[aepervius]

Up to a certain point , all phenomenon we looked at shows essentially a neutral universe. Dark matter and energy were thought up to explain something which could not be explained with our normal theory without, but would neatly fit with a universe being neutral & flat (aka everything going to zero). And thus far it seems to fit. "God did it", does not fit the same type of explanation , as the more we know, the more we see natural process shugging alone without any design whatsoever. It is simply an ad-hoc thrown in belief without any basic of fundamental for it. It is fine for faith and belief, but does not offer any prediction one can falsify. Dark matter and energy actually does that.

Mod parent down!

[rrohbeck]

-5, humorless.

Re:Mod parent down!

[selven]

Sorry, I saw the post when it was modded "Score:2" and thought it was some random stupid comment, not a joke. You saw it when it was "Score:4, Funny", and you thought it was funny. You'd be surprised just how much impact the moderation has on how you read a post.

This means nothing

[zero.kalvin]

I already read the actual paper, The problem with this, is that there is tons of models which can be fitted to the data. One can find a model which predict these plots, and works perfectly, but it's exactly like looking at the clouds and seeing faces in them. After the preliminarily results from the Pamela experiment, everyone tried to fit his model to the data. For all we know there other astrophysics model that can explain this without the need to inject dark matter in this. (Yes I am physicist, and yes I am working on dark matter)

The thing about astrophysics...

[tjstork]

You can't ever actually go to the milky way's core.. so, really, what you are doing is almost like standing on the beach with a blindfold on, guessing at what is in the bottom of the ocean, based on what you hear. Is that really, the only thing you can really do is assume that physics on mother earth is the same as elsewhere in the galaxy, and then extrapolate that to what you see in space. Frankly, what happens in the core of the milky way or even not too far outside of the solar system is essentially useless trivia anyway. It makes for a good story but there's not a damn thing we can do about it. If someone wanted to believe God made the entire universe in seven days, or the FSM did it in 27 minutes, there's absolute nothing about that believe that could measurably alter the human standard of living.

They should call it DARK GRAVITY!!!!

[viraltus]

Cause that's the only thing that we really know about it, just a accounted source of gravity, but nobody yet has proved that it is matter. Naming it as matter might be potentially misleading.

Nibbler, is that you?

[oracleofbargth]

Lots of Dark Matter at the galaxy's core? So they just found the path to the Niblonians' home planet?

Integral Disproves Dark Matter Origin...

[EtaCarinae]

Seems there is a more mundane explanation.

Re:It's a black hole

[tolkienfan]

Dark matter and dark energy bother me considerably.
I don't think that the observations those thing were invernted, er... postulated, to explain falsify current theories. Well not completely, anyway.
Firstly, when it was pointed out that a constant speed of light is inconsistent with Newton, we didn't throw the whole framework out. In fact almost all of it survives today. Moreover, it has take a huge effort and expense to conduct experiments that confirm the various differences in predictions of Einstein over Newton.
The fact is that observations match incredibly closely with predictions, with a few exceptions.
Admitedly that means that out theories are either wrong or incomplete, but they are still useful, and will survive the next big shakeup in physics at least as well as Newton survives general relativity.

Please do some Reading

[Roger W Moore]

Dark matter has Sweet Fuck All to do with the cosmic microwave background, which was explained very well in the 1960s using conventional physics and the big bang theory.

I'd suggest you do a little reading about the WMAP probe and the fluctuations it measured in the Cosmic Microwave background. So far the only consistent Big Bang models which can explain these fluctuations involve large amounts of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Indeed Dark Matter and Energy is the only way we can make the observed fluctuations consistent with existing physics and the Big Bang so you really could not be more wrong if you tried because without Dark Matter we MUST have either new, unconventional physics or something other than a Big Bang.

Of course there is considerably more evidence than just WMAP. One in particular, the bullet cluster, is extremely hard to explain using modified newtonian dynamics or the other models which at the alternatives to Dark Matter. However science has advanced from the 1960s and with the data we now have it is not possible to construct consistent models with conventional physis