The Physicist Who Denies Dark Matter

Nautilus ^ | 05/18/2017 | Oded Carmali

[BenLurkin]

To understand this problem, one needs to wrap one’s head around some celestial rotations. Our planet orbits the sun, which, in turn, orbits the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Inside solar systems, the gravitational pull from the mass of the sun and the speed of the planets are in balance. By Newton’s laws, this is why Mercury, the innermost planet in our solar system, orbits the sun at over 100,000 miles per hour, while the outermost plant, Neptune, is crawling at just over 10,000 miles per hour.

Now, you might assume that the same logic would apply to galaxies: The farther away the star is from the galaxy’s center, the slower it revolves around it; however, while at smaller radiuses the measurements were as predicted by Newtonian physics, farther stars proved to move much faster than predicted from the gravitational pull of the mass we see in these galaxies. The observed gap got a lot wider when, in the late 1970s, radio telescopes were able to detect and measure the cold gas clouds at the outskirts of galaxies. These clouds orbit the galactic center five times farther than the stars, and thus the anomaly grew to become a major scientific puzzle.

One way to solve this puzzle is to simply add more matter. If there is too little visible mass at the center of galaxies to account for the speed of stars and gas, perhaps there is more matter than meets the eye, matter that we cannot see, dark matter.

[Eddie01]

Dark matter is matter traveling faster than the speed of light.

you’re welcome.

[Jim Noble]

perhaps there is more matter than meets the eye, matter that we cannot see, dark matter

Perhaps there is. Perhaps there isn't.

The state of the evidence is such that using the term "denies" is very concerning - it's the job of investigators to relentlessly attack unproven hypotheticals. That's not denial - that's science.

[Disestablishmentarian]

Dark matter and energy is a plug to hide the fact that the Big Bang Theory (not the TV show) is DEAD WRONG.

The final nail in the coffin should have been when the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, which discovered evidence of the Higgs Boson . . . showed NOTHING in the energy range where they expected (hoped) to find dark matter.

Atheist Stephen Hawking’s entire career, like his life, is built upon a big fat error.

[hoosierham]

Aether was the scientists previous dark matter.

[blueunicorn6]

So, if you can’t explain something, just say it’s because of Dark Matter.

“Sir, you were doing 50 in a 25 zone.”

“That may be so, Officer, but it’s because of Dark Matter!”

Or

“These aren’t my underwear! Where did they come from?”

“Those are from Dark Matter, honey.”

[strings6459]

Dark Matter is today’s epicyles

[BwanaNdege]

Thanks for posting!

Mentally (and emotionally) I’ve tended to lump Dark Matter/Dark Energy in with Multiverse Theory - ‘Fudge Factors’ like Einstein’s ‘Cosmological Constant’.

Too bad I didn’t know about the Cosmological Constant back in the 10th grade when I couldn’t get my Geometry Theorems to work out properly!

MOND looks interesting - have to do a bid of reading up on it.

Thanks again!

[Little Ray]

“Aether was the scientists previous dark matter.”

Wins the Internet for today!

[expat2]

Nice article, well written, good post.

[sparklite2]

... and if it’s something you can’t figure out, just say, “Well, that proves there’s a God.”

[Doctor DNA]

My gray matter hurts.

[DesertRhino]

Oh, dark matter. That’s the stuff that an equation says -must- exist and must be MOST of the universe. We look for it and cant find it. We cant see it, locate it, or describe it. It simply isn’t there. So instead of wondering if the science behind the equation is wrong... we conclude its invisible.

And that folks, is physics today.
It would be like having a educated guess that your friend is standing by third base in Yankee Stadium. You go there and cannot find him. Instead of going back over the clues that made you think he was there, you conclude he is invisible. You angrily berate anyone who tells you he isn’t there.

[blueunicorn6]

Well, I can’t figure out what you wrote so, according to your instruction, that proves that there is a God. Bless you.

[xp38]

Dark Matter Matters!

[zeugma]

I've long thought that the theories surrounding 'dark' matter and energy were just handwaving by physicists and astronomers who were unwilling to utter the phrase "we don't know". I think what is much more likely than some mysterious 'dark' matter that can't be seen, is that there is something fundamental that our modern theories of cosmology are overlooking.

[Aevery_Freeman]

Perhaps we are not properly applying relativistic effects in analyzing the EM waves we receive by not adjusting for the space-time perturbations of galaxies.

Just a thought.

IMHO Hawking is overrated

[SolidRedState]

Dark Matter / Dark Energy theory is akin to ...

1 + 2 + god particle + something else / another thing = 12

In other words, junk.

[zeugma]

What struck me was some regularity in the anomaly. The rotational velocities were not just larger than expected, they became constant with radius. Why? Sure, if there was dark matter, the speed of stars would be greater, but the rotation curves, meaning the rotational speed drawn as a function of the radius, could still go up and down depending on its distribution. But they didn’t. That really struck me as odd. So, in 1980, I went on my Sabbatical in the Institute for Advance Studies in Princeton with the following hunch: If the rotational speeds are constant, then perhaps we’re looking at a new law of nature. If Newtonian physics can’t predict the fixed curves, perhaps we should fix Newton, instead of making up a whole new class of matter just to fit our measurements.

---

The above is the key to this whole thing. I don't think the dark matter folks can really explain the regularity.

[bgill]

I tried denying the obamas for 8 years.