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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.
"A bit mysterious" is the understatement of the day... Still, it's one of the very few actual observable things that could further some fundamental new understanding of physics.
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.
The place we're ultimately going to learn about dark matter is likely to be a combination of specialized detectors, but also terrestrial particle accelerators. Dark matter, whatever it is, may suggest the physics beyond the Standard Model that physicists so hunger to finally get some evidence of.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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.
Hey, yo, why do two experiments? We all know dark matter. I thought we left that racism shit behind.
Pronounced "Mur Ick Ah"
Well, you can look at error bars on galaxy rotation curve results like this, which is old enough to end up in an intro cosmology course. If it were just visible matter, it would be the curve labeled "disk". If you add the curve "halo" you get the total, with the small measurement error bars shown. Surveys like this show the limits of such halos being just from compact but dark objects.
Why didn't you just say "I know nothing about science and refuse to learn"? It would be shorter and more honest.
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.
There are several data sets that suggest the presence of Dark Matter:
1) Orbital velocities of galaxies within a cluster are too high -- the galaxies should fly apart unless much more mass is present.
2) Observed rotational velocities of edge-on galaxies are wrong: stars near the edge rotate too fast -- unless there's a cloud of mass beyond the observed disk.
3) Gravitational lensing effects are too strong for the observed mass of the lensing clusters.
4) Numerical simulations modeling the Big Bang up to present times work well only if Dark Matter is assumed.
There may be other data sets, but these are the ones that were presented in the Coursera class I took last year titled, "Galaxies and Cosmology".
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Ever notice that Cobra Commander sounds an awful lot like Star scream?
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.
And on top of that, every other explaination that people have come up with to explain those data sets has failed.
MOND - the idea that gravity has some extra factor that kicks in on galactic scale has yet to provide even a hypothetical answer to be tested. Last I heard, it gets complicated so fast that they haven't even been able to produce a hypothetical gravitational equation that would explain orbital velocities of galaxies let alone the other observed data.
That the extra matter is out there in more mundane forms such as dim stars or jupiter like orphan planets has been tested since they first started seeing these obeservations, and all tests so far have shown that if that was the case, they should be able top detect it but haven't.
Somebody once made a comment on /. about just because we put out cat food and it is disappearing, it doesn't mean there is a cat in the house that nobody has seen. However, at this point, the cat food is being eaten, the litter box is being used, something is playing with the cat toys, and if you knock on the walls, you can hear something go "meow". It still may not be the case that there is a cat we've never seen living in the house, but if so, the new answer is much stranger and more complicated.