Credit NASA/CXC/M.Weiss
Posted on 03/10/2006 12:40:15 AM PST by Swordmaker
Feb 28, 2006 In the Dark on Matter Fabulous Matter and Energy
Since there is no experimental or observable evidence that dark matter exists, is it just a prop for the beleaguered big bang theory? This highly speculative construct is now combined with one just as fabulous--dark energy--to shore up current cosmological dogma.
Credit NASA/CXC/M.Weiss
Above: Chandra X-Ray Observatory estimates of the “total energy content of the Universe”. Only
"normal matter” can be directly detected with telescopes. The rest of the matter and energy is invisible.
In the 1930s, astronomers Fritz Zwicky and Sinclair Smith were puzzled by the motions they observed within the Virgo and Coma galactic clusters. Everything seemed to be moving too fast to be held in place by gravity. So they conjectured that something they could not see was exerting a gravitational effect on these clusters. But most astronomers were only marginally impressed.
In the 1970s, however, astronomers began to examine the rotational motions of spiral galaxies such as our own Milky Way. The rotational speeds of the stars that make up spiral galaxies are far too great, they said: At such speeds the constituent stars should be flying apart. So astronomers, accustomed to thinking only in terms of gravity, calculated how much additional matter was required—and where—to fit the observations. The idea of invisible material or “dark matter” soon became essential if the observed motions were to make sense gravitationally. Today astronomers say there is far more dark matter than visible matter acting on galactic structure.
In the years that followed the questions only deepened, as the proposed “answers” grew more complex and bizarre and theorists speculated about MACHOs—“ Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Objects”—and a presumed counterpart called WIMPs—“Weakly Interacting Massive Particles”. Then the theorists began to distinguish between “cold” dark matter and “hot” dark matter, supplemented by “warm” dark matter and “baryonic” dark matter.
From the beginning it has been a game accessible only to mathematicians. But today, suspicions abound that the theoretical excursions have no actual connection to anything occurring in nature. As The Complete Idiot's Guide to Theories of the Universe puts it, "there is no experimental or observable evidence that dark matter exists. It's a theory to make the big bang work".
Advocates of the Electric Universe point out that astronomers can maintain the “credibility” of this game only by insisting that electromagnetism has no appreciable role in the organization of cosmic structure. “And it isn’t as if the evidence for galactic magnetic fields and therefore electricity is lacking!” laughs Wallace Thornhill, who has devoted much of his life to exploring the role of electricity in space.
What is the nature of “missing matter”, and does it even exist in truth? It is interesting to note that astronomers cannot answer the first question, but do not doubt the answer to the second. We see the contradiction ratified daily in the popular scientific media. A story at the Universe Today website begins, “Dark matter is a mystery. Astronomers know it's there because they can measure the effect of its gravity on stars and galaxies, but they can't see it”. Perhaps the author does not realize that the confidence he exudes rests entirely on the astronomers’ conjectures. Their equations “work” only in an abstract world, and only because the mathematicians have systematically excluded electricity.
The diagram at the top of the page shows the universal confusion between matter and mass. (It's a pity both words begin with "m", say the electrical theorists; otherwise mathematicians might not have gotten away with this sleight of hand). Everyone recognizes the equation relating energy and mass (E = mc2), but no one knows what gives matter its apparent mass. One of the foundational principles of physics states that matter cannot be created or destroyed. Matter cannot be converted into energy or vice versa. In other words, energy and matter are not equivalent and cannot be lumped together as in the above diagram.
The truth is that we have no real idea of the relationship between matter, mass, and gravity. It is our ignorance of this relationship that has permitted the big bang theory to flourish and has created the “problem” of missing mass. Dark matter was invented to rescue a gravity-driven universe and to make the big bang work, even if the theory requires “creation from nothing" and must violate, in its first principles, every fundamental law of physics.
Is there an alternative? Yes, plasma cosmologists are waiting in the wings for working scientists to tire of the theorists’ mathematical escapades, and to think first of the things we actually know. Grant the role of electricity on a galactic scale, and the case for dark matter evaporates. Plasma physicists have successfully demonstrated the formation and dynamics of the classic spiral shape (spiral galaxy) in laboratory electrical discharges. And observations of magnetic fields in spiral galaxies match the laboratory forms, which are known to be scaleable over more than 14 orders of magnitude. The magnetic fields trace the electric currents flowing along the spiral arms of galaxies. Electromagnetic forces alone can thus produce the classic structure and rotation of ubiquitous, magnificent galactic formations. No dark matter required!
Ping
No one can doubt the existence of the dark energy, for hillary is powered by forces of darkness. As for the dark matter - look no further than our own Rats.
The diagram at the top of the page shows the universal confusion between matter and mass. (It's a pity both words begin with "m", say the electrical theorists; otherwise mathematicians might not have gotten away with this sleight of hand). Everyone recognizes the equation relating energy and mass (E = mc2), but no one knows what gives matter its apparent mass. One of the foundational principles of physics states that matter cannot be created or destroyed. Matter cannot be converted into energy or vice versa. In other words, energy and matter are not equivalent and cannot be lumped together as in the above diagram.
Some comments:
- "Everyone recognizes the equation relating energy and mass
(E = mc2), but no one knows what gives matter its apparent mass."Physicists have some ideas about where mass comes from (the Higgs field). They're working on trying to get some experimental verification. Here are a couple of links:
Gordon Kane's Scientific American article "The Mysteries of Mass""How Particles Acquire Mass" (older, but not useless)
- "One of the foundational principles of physics states that matter cannot be created or destroyed. Matter cannot be converted into energy or vice versa."
These claims are false. Each time an electron and a positron collide and annihilate each other, matter is destroyed, its energy being released in the form of photons.
- "In other words, energy and matter are not equivalent...."
But energy and mass are equivalent (up to a conversion factor). That's what the formula
E = mc2 means.
75% Dark Side.
(There's still Good in him. I can feel it.)
Thanks!
"Dark energy" might not exist, scientists say
World Science | Feb. 14, 2006 | some geek who doesn't have a Valentine
Posted on 02/28/2006 1:17:49 PM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1587112/posts
Having "some ideas" and "knowing" are two different things.
Physicists have some ideas about where mass comes from...Having "some ideas" and "knowing" are two different things.
Are the physicists not figuring this stuff out quickly enough to suit you? Maybe you should threaten to pull their funding...that might get 'em moving towards turning their mere ideas into real knowledge!
"Serenity now!"
The trouble with Plasma Cosmology is the same thing that all cosmologies other than the BB suffer from: they don't predict observed phenomona, such as elemental abundances, or the isotropic Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, or the observed small anisotropies in the CMBR.
The BB cosmology, especially the Inflationary varient, handles all of them beautifully.
I knew I could count on you to put things in proper perspective! (grin)
How does it handle the acceleration (unless you are refering to that in the "inflationary varient") found in the red shift the farther you get? Quite frankly, lately, the Plasma Cosmologists have been doing a lot better at predictions than have the BB Cosmologists. The BB cosmologists are constantly being surprised by things the Plasma cosmologists have predicted.
The BB people have had to create unobserved and unfounded dark matter and dark energy to tweak their theory into fitting the observations. We have now arrived at the point where, for their theories to hold together, better than 95% of all matter and energy must be "dark". They have now added another unknown to the equation... an anti-gravity force of some sort to account for the observed accelerations in red shift data.
Just recently, Plasma theorists made 24 specific predictions on the Deep Impactors encounter with Tempel 1... and the results were 24 correct, right on the money. On the other hand, Astronomers were astounded, shocked, and stunned at the results that DID NOT comport to their predictions.
They are having to re-consider all of what they thought they knew about the composition of comets. But they are doing so very reluctantly... So far they have stopped referring to them as "Dirty Snowballs" and switched to "Snowy Dirtballs"... but even that is being dropped as they are not finding enough water (only .005% of what was expected AND required for water vapor ablation to make up the coma and tail) and the knowledge that some comets support a spherical coma that is 350,000,000 (3.75 AU) in diameter! Now, in light of the Tempel/Impactor findings, they have switched to the idea that the water, instead of being on the surface, is buried deep inside the comet and the sun heats the entire comet sufficiently to boil the water to vapor which escapes through cracks and vents making geysers... despite the sheer amount of cometary mass that would have to be heated by sunlight at distances beyond Jupiter (where the cometary tails start to appear) to achieve any boiling...
Exactly which BB Cosmologist predicted the hundreds of Herbig Haro Objects, the "jetted stars"? And what BB Cosmological principle can explain how an object such as these, light years in length, can retain their tornado like shape and spiraling internal structures merely through inertia and gravity? Is there a rope of Dark matter stretching out in the center of the spiral clouds eminating from the HHO?
If you ever figure out a way to effectively argue with people who don't know the difference between cosmological phenomona and astrophysical phenomona, be sure to let me know how it's done.
The two fields are intimately related.
Seeing as how the evidence we use to construct cosmological theories is almost always astrophysical, the astrophysical phenomena that are not included in the most popular of the cosmological theories are important areas for discussion.
If a specific cosmological theory does not allow for the astrophysical phenomena actually observed, or if that theory needs to be distorted out of all recognition to accomodate the astrophysical observations, it may be time to look at another idea in cosmology.
It is especially important when one cosmological theory can explain observed astrophysical phenomena and the other cannot. When that same comsological theory can make specific predictions about soon to be made observations and have those predictions validated after the observation, while the proponents of the more popular theory are left standing in befuddlement, saying they are "shocked, "astounded". and "surprised" at the observations. It may be time to start considering other possibilities... perhaps such as the one that has been able to make the predictions.
The challenge was for Big Bang/gravitational driven cosmology theorists to explain the observed astrophysical phenomena using their theories... tell us how they fit into the gravity model?
By-the-way, Longshadow, which is it... is CMBR isotropic or is it anisotropic??? They are somewhat antithetical, don't you think?
and rough: 
at the same time? Isn't it "antithetical"? And on a completely unrelated issue < /sarcasm>, why is it that people who buy into strange theories don't understand things like scale dependent phenomona?
O horrible man!
Now, exactly WHAT scale do you find the anisotropic phenomena... It strikes me that YOU are the one who fails to understand the scale. For us to even be aware of the anisotropic areas in space, at the distance we are viewing, those areas are extremely HUGE.
Quite frankly, the ocean is extremely smooth when viewed from space... those itty bitty 30 foot waves mean nothing on the scale of 8000 miles. For your information I am quite familiar with the affects of scale on many things.
You still haven't answered any of the questions.
And when you write about me, address me.
That's the Angular Power Spectrum of the Anisotropies in the CMBR predicted by the Lambda Cold Dark Matter variant of the Big Bang Cosmology, verus the actual measured values gathered by a variety of different observations. Check out that fit!
For those interested in the full skinny; see the source of the above graph for full details:
< Prof. Ned Wright's CMBR Anisotrpy Webpage/>
As for Plasma Cosmology, let's see what Astronomer Sten Odenwald has to say on his website about it, shall we:
"Plasma Cosmology ca 1970 The matter in the universe, on the largest scales, is not neutral, but has a very weak net charge which is virtually undetectable. This causes electromagnetic forces to dominate over gravitational forces in the universe so that all of the phenomena we observe are not the products of gravitation alone. This is an intriguing theory, but other then denying their importance, it cannot easily explain the origin of the cosmic background radiation, its isotropy and temperature, and the abundances of helium and deuterium.
[emphasis added]
"Dark energy" might not exist, scientists say
World Science | Feb. 14, 2006 | some geek who doesn't have a Valentine
Posted on 02/28/2006 1:17:49 PM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1587112/posts
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