Dark matter: Physicists may have found telltale

AFP on Yahoo ^ | 4/1/09 | AFP

[NormsRevenge]

PARIS (AFP) – European astronomers said on Wednesday that an anomalous energy signal detected by an orbiting satellite could be a telltale of the enigmatic substance known as dark matter.

The researchers, in a study appearing in the British journal Nature, say the hunch is that they picked up a signature of this strange phenomenon, but more work is needed.

Some years ago, astrophysicists calculating the amount of matter in the Universe arrived at the startling discovery that ordinary material -- atoms -- comprises perhaps as little as five percent of the stuff in the cosmos.

The rest, they believe, comes from the "dark" sector: matter and energy that appear to be pervasive but whose nature remains a puzzle.

Dark matter, which believes to account for 23 percent of the Universe, has been detected only indirectly, through the gravitational pull it exerts on visible matter.

What it is has ignited huge debate, including the hypothesis that dark matter is a new dimension of the Universe.

Another theory is that dark matter must be a new particle, or particles, that interact so weakly with ordinary matter that it does not produce light-emitting reactions. WIMPS (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) are among the candidates for this.

Another idea is that dark matter is linked to "supersymmetric" particles, or partners to known sub-atomic particles.

[NormsRevenge]

This August 2008 image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory show a clear separation
between dark and ordinary matter during a clash 5.7 billion light years from Earth.

European astronomers said on Wednesday that an anomalous energy signal detected by an orbiting satellite
could be a telltale of the enigmatic substance known as dark matter.
(AFP/NASA/File)

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"anomalous energy signal detected by an orbiting satellite"

Maybe dark matter is made out of Irridium ... at at least that's what the orbiting satellite detected.

[mkjessup]

‘dark matter’ eh?

I think they just detected that usurping little dark smudge in the Oval Office, that’s all.

[IDFbunny]

I suspect dark matter is really a miscalculation; the missing matter is in super massive black hoes.

[B-Chan]

LOL

[FastCoyote]

[Maybe dark matter is made out of Irridium ... at at least that’s what the orbiting satellite detected. ]

It is actually made of Soeterium, a substance as elusive as Barry’s birth certificate.

[grey_whiskers]

Like, *PING*, folks.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Like, *PING*, dude.

Cheers!

[neverdem]

thanks, bfl

[Chode]

dark matter??? i thought is was between Zer0bamas ears...

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks grey_whiskers.

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· Google ·

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[HangnJudge]

I suspect dark matter is really a miscalculation; the missing matter is in super massive black hoes.

Perhaps one needs to “Think Differently”

http://www.nullphysics.com/

What is Null Physics?
Null Physics is the analysis and quantification of the relationship between the physical states of existence and nonexistence. This relationship leads directly to the intricate four-dimensional geometry of which matter and energy are composed. This geometry is used to explain and quantify many of the properties of matter and light, ultimately leading to a unified cosmology that demonstrates, through logic and a wealth of empirical evidence, that our universe is an eternal equilibrium system.

[eclecticEel]

No need for anything that exotic. We could also guess that deep space is less empty than we suppose, filled with myriad asteroids, planetoids, and failed stars which can’t be seen directly.

[onedoug]

Hmmm....

[happinesswithoutpeace]

/mark

[LomanBill]

My own belief is the missing “mass” is due to an incomplete understanding of space itself.

If space is to energy as energy is to mass, then the missing mass can be found by adjusting for inconsitently dense space.

IOW, space is lumpy or crystaline-like in structure.

[COBOL2Java]

I liked the "X Files" episode called "Soft Light":

An ex-student of Scully’s asks the agents to help her with her first investigation concerning a number of disappearances with very few clues. Mulder ponders the idea of spontaneous human combustion but rethinks it when they find a man who is afraid of his own shadow. The man is Dr. Banton, a scientist researching dark matter. Due to an accident Dr. Banton's shadow can split an individual's atomic structure causing them to disappear, with only a charred-like remnant remaining where they stood. He is now convinced that the government is after him and Mulder contacts Mr. X, who declines to help him, and it is later revealed that he has his own agenda to pursue.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for sharing your insights, dear LomanBill!

My own belief is the missing “mass” is due to an incomplete understanding of space itself.

It was Einstein's dream to transmute the base wood of matter to the pure marble of geometry.

General Relativity can be visualized geometrically. Indeed, he was able to pull Riemannian geometry off the shelf to explain it.

That, btw, is one of my favorite examples of the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics (Wigner) which I view as God's copyright notice on the cosmos.

High positive gravity regions (such as the earth or sun - ordinary matter) are space/time indentations. An object must achieve escape velocity to exit the well.

The path of light bends under the influence of these indentations.

The very high positive gravity regions (such as the center of galaxies or black holes - dark matter) are extreme space/time indentations. Not even light has the velocity to escape a black hole. (Black holes however are subject to entropy but that is another subject.)

Conversely, the regions between galaxies (dark energy) can be seen as negative gravity or space/time "outdents" which of course would accelerate the expansion of the universe.

This of course points to extra dimensional theories, i.e. the region appears to be negative gravity in four dimensions (three of space and one of time) because it exists across other additional dimensions of space/time. Some physicists theorize that gravity is so small by comparison to the other fundamental fields (strong and weak atomic, electromagnetism) precisely because it is inter-dimensional.

Also pointing to extra-dimensional theories is the failure so far to create or observe the theorized Higgs field/boson (ordinary matter under the Standard Model.) If not found, the absence would suggest that matter in four dimensions is a shadow of momentum components in a fifth dimension which we cannot as yet detect.

And at least one theory suggests a fifth time like dimension whereby the matter we observe in four dimensions is actually multiply imaged from as little as a single particle in the fifth time-like dimension. (Wesson) In that theory, this four dimensional physical "reality" might actually be a single particle.

Interestingly, if there exists another expanded dimension of time - then what we experience as an arrow of time (past, present, future) traveling a worldline is the illusion. Time itself would be a plane or volumetric - past, present, future existing concurrently in the continuum of space/time.

When a person considers geometric or mathematical physics, his sense of physical reality will likely change. This is especially true of mathematical Platonism.

Tegmark for instance suggests in his Level IV Parallel Universe cosmology that physical "reality" of whatever dimensions and universes is a manifestation of mathematical structures which actually exist outside of space and time.

A mathematical structure is an abstract, immutable entity existing outside of space and time. If history were a movie, the structure would correspond not to a single frame of it but to the entire videotape. Consider, for example, a world made up of pointlike particles moving around in three-dimensional space. In four-dimensional spacetime — the bird perspective — these particle trajectories resemble a tangle of spaghetti. If the frog sees a particle moving with constant velocity, the bird sees a straight strand of uncooked spaghetti. If the frog sees a pair of orbiting particles, the bird sees two spaghetti strands intertwined like a double helix. To the frog, the world is described by Newton’s laws of motion and gravitation. To the bird, it is described by the geometry of the pasta — a mathematical structure. The frog itself is merely a thick bundle of pasta, whose highly complex intertwining corresponds to a cluster of particles that store and process information. Our universe is far more complicated than this example, and scientists do not yet know to what, if any, mathematical structure it corresponds.

The Platonic paradigm raises the question of why the universe is the way it is. To an Aristotelian, this is a meaningless question: The universe just is. But a Platonist cannot help but wonder why it could not have been different. If the universe is inherently mathematical, then why was only one of the many mathematical structures singled out to describe a universe? A fundamental asymmetry appears to be built into the very heart of reality.

Tegmark: Parallel Universes

Roger Penrose is also a mathematical Platonist, btw.

[LomanBill]

>>Perhaps one needs to “Think Differently”

http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Most-Simple-Scientific-Theory-Reality.htm

[LomanBill]

Thank you for taking the time to discuss, Alamo-girl.    :-)

 

[Interestingly, if there exists another expanded dimension of time - then what we experience as an arrow of time (past, present, future) traveling a worldline is the illusion. Time itself would be a plane or volumetric - past, present, future existing concurrently in the continuum of space/time.]

 

I don't believe time necessarily exists independently from the system in which it is observed.  I see it as simply an observed progression of state change.   Under special relativity, the rate of change in state is relative to the Mass within the inertial frame, which increases with E.  More speed = more E = more Mass = greater inertial resistance to state change = "time" slowing down as speed increases.

 

The observed gravitational lensing often attributed to the pull of "dark matter", can be explained if the space itself, through which light is traveling, is not uniformly dense.   IOW, there are regions of space not dense enough to have manifested the strong physical forces required for the formation of matter - but still dense enough to produce the observable weak force of gravity - and thus the observed effect of gravitational lensing.   I believe this is consistent  Riemannian geometry, applied localy.

 

I simplify my view of the cosmos by thinking of it as a flat plane with points of localized distortion that bind the plane up into 3 dimensions (sort of like a bed sheet that's wadded up in the laundry basket.  Or better, like a stick of gum that's been chewed into a sticky wad).   The degree of localized distortion being equivalent to E.   As entropy progresses, space becomes flat again... ultimately flat and changeless.  Wound down like a stopped clock in the hand of the One who created it all - who exists, incomprehensibly, beyond it all. 

 

Incomprehensibly except for the relationship that was manufactured, by Him, when He became like one of us and allowed Himself to be sacrificed to effect the reconciliation of the Created with their Creator.

 

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for sharing your views, dear LomanBill!

Truly, not everyone has a sense of time as an actual dimension as I do and as MHGinTN does. (sorry for not pinging you earlier, dear MHGinTN)

And for many physicists, time is the most mysterious of all challenges.

Incomprehensibly except for the relationship that was manufactured, by Him, when He became like one of us and allowed Himself to be sacrificed to effect the reconciliation of the Created with their Creator.

Indeed. And please forgive my failure to expand on the last point raised at post 19 in speaking of mathematical Platonism and Tegmark's cosmology that physical reality in four dimensions is actually a manifestation of mathematical structures which actually exist outside of space and time.

To some of us his words, like Wigner's "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics", is math-speak for Logos, the Word, Jesus Christ, Creator of "all that there is" whether spiritual of physical.

In the beginning was the Word [Logos], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. – John 1:1-4

Logos is also the root of the word "logic."

To God be the glory!

[LomanBill]

>>Truly, not everyone has a sense of time as an actual dimension

 

Certainly the element of time is observed to be a function, upon which the mathematical description of the universe is critically dependent.

 

The question of Time, as I see it, is whether time is causative or derivative.  I propose that it is merely derivative, and a function of state change; rather than being a cause of state change.

 

 

With regards to Logos, we are in agreement.  Regardless of the causative or derivative nature of time, the observed relational order is, to me,  the imprint of The Word upon His handiwork.

 

>>To God be the glory!

 

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.(Prov. 1:7).

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for sharing your views and testimony, dear brother in Christ!

[LomanBill]

You’re welcome, and thank you too for the same.

[SunkenCiv]

:’)