Dark Matter

[Traveler]

Dark Matter: This discovery was made by the Hubble telescope first discovering the first “Super Cluster” of galaxies. This is a complex structure of many many galaxies. This first discovery of a super cluster was bigger than what we believed our entire universe to be just 100 years ago. Think about that for a minute. This “Super Cluster” was discovered looking at a very small dim speck of light barely visible to the nicked eye in our night sky. There was a problem – the super cluster was moving the wrong direction in an already proven expanding universe and not by just a little bit but at an astonishing rate. They called whatever was sucking it – “The Great Attractor” for lack of any other term.

What confused everybody is that whatever had such massive gravity to pull the largest structure known at the time, in the wrong direction could not be detected by any other means than it gravity pull and as was discovered later it’s gravitational lensing. Since light does not interact with what-ever this is, it was called “Dark Matter”. As astrophysicist look over our universe looking for more dark matter they have discovered that there is at least 4 times as much dark matter as there is regular matter. As such, dark matter has more to do with defining the structure of our universe than the matter we all see.

The Traveler

[Blackmarch]

Dark Matter: This discovery was made by the Hubble telescope first discovering the first “Super Cluster” of galaxies. This is a complex structure of many many galaxies. This first discovery of a super cluster was bigger than what we believed our entire universe to be just 100 years ago. Think about that for a minute. This “Super Cluster” was discovered looking at a very small dim speck of light barely visible to the nicked eye in our night sky. There was a problem – the super cluster was moving the wrong direction in an already proven expanding universe and not by just a little bit but at an astonishing rate. They called whatever was sucking it – “The Great Attractor” for lack of any other term.

What confused everybody is that whatever had such massive gravity to pull the largest structure known at the time, in the wrong direction could not be detected by any other means than it gravity pull and as was discovered later it’s gravitational lensing. Since light does not interact with what-ever this is, it was called “Dark Matter”. As astrophysicist look over our universe looking for more dark matter they have discovered that there is at least 4 times as much dark matter as there is regular matter. As such, dark matter has more to do with defining the structure of our universe than the matter we all see.

The Traveler

yup. is just all the stuff we can't see at the moment.

[Convert55]

Has anyone on this thread tried to make the case that dark matter is really refined spiritual matter? They can weigh it on a galactic scale, but they can't see it nor are there any earthly instruments that can detect it so far. Just curious.

[Blackmarch]

Has anyone on this thread tried to make the case that dark matter is really refined spiritual matter? They can weigh it on a galactic scale, but they can't see it nor are there any earthly instruments that can detect it so far. Just curious.

I havent seen that. And in that case id say we dont have anything to say yea or nay on it.

[Vort]

For the record: "Dark matter" is simply an invention, more or less a gedankenexperiment, a hypothesis designed to explain why large-scale structures don't act the way we think they should act.

Briefly: If gravity works the way we think it does, then galaxies and galactic clusters do not have enough visible matter to hang together the way they do. There must be matter -- quite a bit of it -- that we simply are not seeing. In fact, there must be five or six times more matter than we can detect for these large-scale structures to act as they do.

What might account for this? Possible explanations include:

• Gravity does not work the way we think it works at such a large scale. Perhaps the gravitational force does not fall off with the square of distance at sufficiently large distances.

• Maybe there really is a bunch of matter there that we can't see, because it is invisible. A whole bunch of black holes spread out everywhere might fill this need nicely -- though black holes tend to leave other calling cards, and we don't see enough of those to make this possibility seem likely.

• Maybe there is a type of matter that just does not interact strongly with light, and hence is not readily visible, but that exists in large quantities and has all the other properties of matter, such as gravitational mass. This hypothetical type of matter has been dubbed "dark matter" -- "dark" because we can't see it. There is no direct evidence that it exists; it is simply a possible explanation for this large-scale gravitational attraction we can't otherwise explain.

• Perhaps there is a fifth fundamental force (in addition to the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, the electromagnetic force, and gravitational force) that is much weaker than gravitation but that becomes apparent at a vast scale, as in galaxies or larger.

I personally really like this last explanation, though obviously it's very hard to test. Here is a brief rundown of the fundamental forces and why this last idea is intriguing:

• The so-called "strong" nuclear force is indeed unthinkably strong, which it must be to hold atomic nuclei together; a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that the strong nuclear force must exert a force IN EXCESS OF ONE POUND PER PROTON. Utterly unbelievable. But it appears to be, for lack of a better term, a "contact" or "sticky" force, exerting only over extremely short distances and then not exerting at all at larger distances.
• The "weak" nuclear force accounts for certain aspects of nuclear decay (like when radioactive elements break down into smaller elements). It has been shown to be a special case of the more general, and more familiar,
• Electromagnetic force. We are all familiar with this from playing with magnets and such. It is an enormously strong force, though nowhere near the "strong" nuclear force, of course. It is an "inverse-square" force, meaning that the attractive (or repulsive) force drops off with the square of the distance between the attracting (or repelling) particles. If you double the distance of separation, you decrease the attraction or repulsion by a factor of four. But it's still very strong: If a US nickel were separated into protons and electrons and these were separated by a distance of the earth's diameter -- in other words, if you put the electrons at the north pole and the protons at the south pole -- they would attract each other with a force of about 200 tons.

• Gravitational force. This is by far the weakest of the four fundamental forces. All matter attracts all other matter, though unless you have very large masses, the attraction is imperceptible. (As
  , "My pancreas attracts every other pancreas in the universe...") Like the electromagnetic force, this is an inverse-square force (which Weird Al inexplicably gets wrong). Unlike the electromagnetic force, gravity is only attractive, never repulsive. Most importantly, at the scale of planets and larger, it is the gravitational force that dominates and creates the universe as we see it.

Given the above, it seems perfectly reasonable to me that there is another (or more than one other) fundamental force that is even weaker than gravity but that shows up at a much larger scale.

[Traveler]

Has anyone on this thread tried to make the case that dark matter is really refined spiritual matter? They can weigh it on a galactic scale, but they can't see it nor are there any earthly instruments that can detect it so far. Just curious.

Dark Energy seems to fit the concept of spiritual matter much better.

The Traveler

[Traveler]

For the record: "Dark matter" is simply an invention, more or less a gedankenexperiment, a hypothesis designed to explain why large-scale structures don't act the way we think they should act.

Briefly: If gravity works the way we think it does, then galaxies and galactic clusters do not have enough visible matter to hang together the way they do. There must be matter -- quite a bit of it -- that we simply are not seeing. In fact, there must be five or six times more matter than we can detect for these large-scale structures to act as they do.

What might account for this? Possible explanations include:

• Gravity does not work the way we think it works at such a large scale. Perhaps the gravitational force does not fall off with the square of distance at sufficiently large distances.
• Maybe there really is a bunch of matter there that we can't see, because it is invisible. A whole bunch of black holes spread out everywhere might fill this need nicely -- though black holes tend to leave other calling cards, and we don't see enough of those to make this possibility seem likely.
• Maybe there is a type of matter that just does not interact strongly with light, and hence is not readily visible, but that exists in large quantities and has all the other properties of matter, such as gravitational mass. This hypothetical type of matter has been dubbed "dark matter" -- "dark" because we can't see it. There is no direct evidence that it exists; it is simply a possible explanation for this large-scale gravitational attraction we can't otherwise explain.
• Perhaps there is a fifth fundamental force (in addition to the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, the electromagnetic force, and gravitational force) that is much weaker than gravitation but that becomes apparent at a vast scale, as in galaxies or larger.

I personally really like this last explanation, though obviously it's very hard to test. Here is a brief rundown of the fundamental forces and why this last idea is intriguing:

• The so-called "strong" nuclear force is indeed unthinkably strong, which it must be to hold atomic nuclei together; a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that the strong nuclear force must exert a force IN EXCESS OF ONE POUND PER PROTON. Utterly unbelievable. But it appears to be, for lack of a better term, a "contact" or "sticky" force, exerting only over extremely short distances and then not exerting at all at larger distances.
• The "weak" nuclear force accounts for certain aspects of nuclear decay (like when radioactive elements break down into smaller elements). It has been shown to be a special case of the more general, and more familiar,
• Electromagnetic force. We are all familiar with this from playing with magnets and such. It is an enormously strong force, though nowhere near the "strong" nuclear force, of course. It is an "inverse-square" force, meaning that the attractive (or repulsive) force drops off with the square of the distance between the attracting (or repelling) particles. If you double the distance of separation, you decrease the attraction or repulsion by a factor of four. But it's still very strong: If a US nickel were separated into protons and electrons and these were separated by a distance of the earth's diameter -- in other words, if you put the electrons at the north pole and the protons at the south pole -- they would attract each other with a force of about 200 tons.
• Gravitational force. This is by far the weakest of the four fundamental forces. All matter attracts all other matter, though unless you have very large masses, the attraction is imperceptible. (As
  , "My pancreas attracts every other pancreas in the universe...") Like the electromagnetic force, this is an inverse-square force (which Weird Al inexplicably gets wrong). Unlike the electromagnetic force, gravity is only attractive, never repulsive. Most importantly, at the scale of planets and larger, it is the gravitational force that dominates and creates the universe as we see it.

Given the above, it seems perfectly reasonable to me that there is another (or more than one other) fundamental force that is even weaker than gravity but that shows up at a much larger scale.

Dark Matter and Dark Energy are changing our understanding of Physics. So far dark matter displays all the characteristics of sufficient mass. For example proportionate gravitational lensing has been verified. The problem is that dark matter does not absorb or reflect light but it does display the properties of great mass much like black holes. The problem is also that black holes tend to suck matter into them creating interesting displays (usually in the x-ray range) of light energy.

For over 10 years efforts have failed to detect dark matter or any effects of dark matter in our location of space. This is most strange because at a distance dark matter defines and constructs the structures in space time.

Based on the affects that we can measure - dark energy comprises about 70% of our universe (what we measure is the acceleration in the expansion of our universe - this measurement compares the rate of space close to us compared to space at various distances. Dark matter comprises about 25% of our universe based on the affects we measure.

What is interesting is that the two dark matter and dark energy act almost opposite of each other. Dark matter pulls everything together and dark energy expands pushing everything apart.

One of the possibilities not mentioned is that the speed of light is not really a constant - which puts physics on it head for everything since relativity. Plus it means the laws of physics are not isotropic in our universe. One of the rising theories related is that our space time intersects another dimension causing all these problems - in essence as kind of quantum illusion on a very grand scale.

It is my thought that mankind is at a threshold of knowledge - knowledge that will change forever how we understand even the creation of our universe - in essence either showing and proving the hand of G-d in creation or disproving divine intervention. I tend to believe the former but in such a manner as to change our impressions of the divine much more that a sun centered solar system, evolution and all other discoveries of science combined.

The Traveler