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Two Big Dark Matter Experiments Gain US Support
Graculus writes: The Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation announced on Friday that they will try to fund two major experiments to detect particles of the mysterious dark matter whose gravity binds the galaxies instead of just one. The decision allays fears that the funding agencies could afford only one experiment to continue the search for so-called weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs.
Not in th U.S.!
We'll have more information about the gravity attributes and locations of dark matter, but no deeper insight into how it connects to the physics we DO understand. I'm not trying to be a naysayer, I'm positively thrilled that we're going to find out what we can, but until we can get up close, and determine exactly what ways dark matter interacts with all other forces, its underlying nature will be a bit mysterious.
Try and scrape up some money to invade the Maldives.
We'll have more information about the gravity attributes and locations of dark matter,
Both of these experiments aim to detect collisions of dark matter particles with their respective detectors, and if found give an estimate of the particles energy. Neither are astronomical surveys that would tell us anything about the gravitational properties or distribution of dark matter.
Scanners are detecting a large formation of WIMPS on slashdot.
What are you TALKING about? Your username may be "i kan reed" but it seems you did not choose to read the article.
No, you come up with theories, and then you attempt to demonstrate their validity, or disprove them.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
... that America participates in science experiments on American soil.
We passed on Waxahachie, Tex. and many of the world's premier scientists are having coffee at the LHC. America could have detected the Higgs boson.
Hopefully, we'll get lucky and find something worth contributing regarding dark matter.
Then, America would be one of the cool peeps.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
The Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation announced on Friday.... I guess I know where not to look for current news. ./ is now leading the pack of followers of news past.
Hey, yo, why do two experiments? We all know dark matter. I thought we left that racism shit behind.
Like your theory? ;} This is what theories are meant to be for.. you know, induction/deduction..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy47OQxUBvw
Pronounced "Mur Ick Ah"
I won't claim to be a astrophysicist, but "dark matter" strikes me as similar to the "ether" posited 120-odd years ago. I'm curious to know if dark matter is simply an artifact of observational resolution, or is it really and truly a difference between accurate observation and theory.
In particle accelerators, the Standard Model seems to be holding up well. Versus astronomical observations, not so much. In my ignorance, I wonder if this is just due to the uncertainty in observations.
Anybody want to clue me in on the state of affairs, with my thanks?
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
He (or she) is a well-known troll who has something controversial and idiotic to say on every article. Set them to -5 and move on.
Every dark matter detection experiment ever performed has suggested it doesn't exist. The proof that it does exist requires that we accurately know how much mass is in the universe, which we absolutely do not. The money should be spent on developing fusion, not testing for dark matter. They might as well fund a search for bigfoot.
but Fear leads to the Dark Side, so we should keep them up -not allay them!
Phlogiston gets a bad rap as a failed theory. However, at the time, we were attempting to make sense out a very confusing physical world. Science always makes shit up, it is called creativity. However, Science also cleaves off the parts that do not hold up.
Einstein made up his entire gravitational theory. The equations did not exist in some Platonic universe waiting for him to trip over them. He created a mathematical world that could be tested against reality.
Quantum theory is an interesting case. It doesn't really explain anything, but it has damn good numbers and predictive value. It's something we made up. It is well-made, but in a philosophical sense, it isn't really a theory if the intent of a theory it to help explain the inner workings of some phenomenon.
When your theory of the Universe doesn't work, just make shit up until it does.
You mean like you just did?
If you believe dark matter does not exist, then why do we see it? Why do we also see it affecting other things? What in your limited opinion is causing that?
If you are attempting to claim an existing force or particle is causing those effects, then why does that violate the known definitions of all forces and particles known?
Why exactly do you believe a force that has characteristics not matching any existing forces would be anything other than a new force?
If you want to claim this force is an existing one, the burden of proof as to why it doesn't match up to any known force yet somehow is one of those forces is all on your head buddy.
Either explain up, or stop bitching about people who know what they are doing that claim it is a new force.
Sure it does. Quantum Field Theory (QFT) explains very well that there are several relativistic fields that have excitations that take discrete natural-numbered values rather than real values, that any such excitation is *exactly the same* as any excitation with the same discrete values, that these excitations can be considered as "particle content" of the fields or treated as wavelike excitations, that there are interactions among the particle content of the various fields that are the same in any situation, and that any set of inertial observers can agree on the time-wise ordering of these interactions with respect to one another. The Standard Model is a paradigm of QFT, and has subsumed some of the discoveries from older (sometimes non-relativistic) quantum theories such as quantum electrodynamics.
The Standard Model explains very well why bound and free electrons behave differently, why unbound neutrons decay, why hot objects radiate particular spectrums of electromagnetic radiation, and many other things. It also explains (via Noether's theorem) why there are conservation laws like the conservation of energy or the conservation of linear or angular momentum.
The Standard Model does not explain why the indiviual particle content of each of its fields has the particular masses that all observers measure, nor does it give many clues for several other parameters which have been discovered empirically. For example, it offers no insight into why the electric charge of a proton and a positron are identical within the limit of our ability to measure. It also doesn't explain gravitation.
However, quantum theory does provide some insight into gravitation -- there are active quantum gravity programmes, and most cosmologists reasonably think that gravitation eventually will be modellable using quantum theory rather than the non-quantum theory of General Relativity. Such a description will describe -- and explain -- the behaviour of matter and energy in and near extremely dense objects such as black holes and the early universe, even if it includes free parameters which must be put in "by hand" based on empirical evidence rather than being manifestly obvious from the theory itself.
Just because the explanatory power of the most fundamental (and most successful) physical theories we have available today is incomplete does not mean that they provide no explanation for why things in nature behave the way they do. It's not *just* predictions based on an initial value surface.