“If physicist Lisa Randall’s theory is correct, however, there is a clear link between dark matter, the great unknown majority of universal stuff and the extinction of the dinosaurs, which cleared the path for the rise of mammals, including that special species, homo sapiens.”
I confess I never met a female physicist but if this is the quality of their work I am amazed they ever passed their prelims. This is literally one of the stupidest theories ever to be pulled out of someone’s behind. First she starts with Dark Matter, a theoretical substance that to has not been proven to exist. Then this physics “Rock Star” assumes that it is arranged in disks (because regular matter is arranged that way). She next postulates that the theoretical matter is arranged in theoretical disks because of theoretical cooling resulting from theoretical energy radiation. This theoretical energy radiation occurs by a theoretical method called “Dark Light”.
Having now firmly laid the theoretical groundwork for the theoretical dark matter being arranged in theoretical disks by theoretical processes, she now postulates that the disks “should give rise to “observational consequences,†or things that can actually be measured”. To generate these consequences she postulates that the theoretical disk bobs up and down through the plane of the galaxy causing the orbits of objects in space to be disrupted and causing them to crash into Earth. If that wasn’t enough of a gigantic leap based on nothing, she exponentially compounds her leap by proposing that one of these objects wiped out the dinosaurs. Just WOW. And in case you think this is something that she doesnt take seriously she actually published this nonsense in a scientific journal.
Personally I am amazed that this “first tenured female theoretical physicist at Harvard, Princeton and MIT” hasnt been laughed out of science. If she had proposed the extinction was caused by farts from a gigantic cosmic Unicorn it would be only slightly less plausible. Science is in serious trouble.
Applying politically correctness and affirmative action in hard sciences like engineering is going to give us a new Dark Ages.
From what I’ve read, Lisa Randall is the real deal as a physicist.
Besides, this theory is just a speculative wrinkle on the well accepted Alvarez theory of a dinosaur-ending collision with a large meteor. It’s a proposed answer to “why did the meteor cross the road?”
The theory I read that made some sense was the idea that our sun has a wave like motion through our edge of the Milky Way which causes it to be in more or less dense star areas over a 26 million year cycle, or something like that. As it passes through a more densely populated area, objects in the Oort Cloud are more likely to be dislodged and propelled toward the sun and earth.
This part of what she says is similar: “To generate these consequences she postulates that the theoretical disk bobs up and down through the plane of the galaxy causing the orbits of objects in space to be disrupted and causing them to crash into Earth.”
The difference between what she says and what I heard is that the wave motion (bobbing up and down) seems to be a long standing phenomenon not requiring any regular source of propulsion. Although I do find myself wondering what causes the wave to change direction from peak and trough.