The Search for Dark Matter and Dark Energy

mlimber writes "The New York Times Magazine has a lengthy article on dark matter and dark energy, discussing the past, present, and future. 'Astronomers now realize that dark matter probably involves matter that is nonbaryonic ["meaning that it doesn't consist of the protons and neutrons of 'normal' matter"]. And whatever it is that dark energy involves, we know it's not 'normal,' either. In that case, maybe this next round of evidence will have to be not only beyond anything we know but also beyond anything we know how to know.'"

How about ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Very large bodies don't behave according to Newton. Very small bodies behave according to the rules of quantum physics, so it's clear that one law doesn't regulate every case. Dark matter/energy are just a fudge factor because we can't explain what happens without them, but that doesn't prove that they exist. All that is proven is that we don't understand what is happening.

Re:Telescopes invented 400 years ago?

[Reason58]

I didn't know telecopes were that old. Is this a typo, and didn't they mean decades instead? If not, what did ancient telescopes do?

Hans Lipperhey [ezinearticles.com] invented the telescope in the late 1500s.

Not really...

[Gil-galad55]

On the contrary, very large bodies are extremely well-approximated by Newton, as it is the slow-velocity, weak field limit of General Relativity. There is already good photographic evidence for dark matter in the form of colliding galaxies (do your Google work), and current observational evidence points pretty strongly towards dark energy in the form of a cosmological constant. While it's true we don't know what that means, it's not just a fudge factor.

"Normal?"

[Flwyd]

If dark matter makes up most of the mass in the universe, wouldn't the kind of matter we're familiar with be the abnormal kind?

Re:Off topic

[Gil-galad55]

Because they're not really wild hypotheses at all. You can OBSERVE the rotation curves of galaxies and see they don't match up with the estimates of the matter content. SOMETHING is there, so your only real quibble might be with the cryptic name 'dark matter'. Likewise, SOMETHING is causing the universe to expand, as shown by observations of standard candles such as Type 1A supernovae.

These are things that can be and are published in scientific journals. Whereas the only real observable evidence for the phenomena you mentioned are documentaries :/

Re:Off topic

[jpflip]

The difference is that there are NOT many different studies confirming ESP happens. In fact, there are many studies arguing the contrary (particularly if you focus on studies from reputable sources). There are plenty of people who WANT ESP to be true, but I don't think there are many who have been convinced by the evidence.

One big take home point about dark matter and dark energy is that physicists didn't want them to be true! It took an enormous amount of evidence, with countless independent confirmations over decades to convince the community that they were real. Real evidence can do that - convince reasonable people who begin as non-believers.

Send them to the Randi foundation, then

[Moraelin]

Ok so i know this is off topic, but why are wild hypotheses like this taken so seriously when things like ESP/human mind altering random probability kind of things laughed at so widely when they actually have many different studies confirming it happens?

Heh. Well, then, just send them to the Randi foundation which still has a 1 million dollar prize for anyone who can prove anything like that. The requirements so far have been reasonable too, usually along the lines of having a scientific double-blind test. Nothing you wouldn't expect in normal science. Altering probabilities is even more straightforward, since then you just have to take a large enough sample and do some elementary statistics. So you'd think that if ESP or mind-over-matter or whatever floats your fantasy boat was that proven and working, someone would claim the prize already. But, nah, suspiciously so far what we've had were:

- bullshitters arguing about how unsound scientific testing is, and why they won't take part in it (sorry, if something is only perceived when the test subjects are told and persuaded what they should perceive, then it's probably just make-belief.)

- lame stage magician tricks

- various versions of some global conspiracy to suppress them (funny how noone suppressed them before, then. You'd think the conspiracy would then stop them from publishing books and making faked movies about it too, not just stop them from taking part in a controlled experiment.)

Etc.

Plus, Randi isn't the only one who came up empty so far. What fraudsters are quick to tell you, as if it were some proof of ESP existing, is that both the USA and the USSR were interested in it during the cold war. That much is true. Unsurprisingly, since for example transmitting a message to a submarine by a mean that's (A) not blocked by water or rock, hence receivable from any depth or hole, and (B) impossible to intercept, is any army's or navy's wet dream. What they conveniently ommit there is that both the USA and the USSR, and a few others for that matter, failed to get any results with it.

By contrast, the people with these physics hypotheses tend to actually have some verifiable/falsifiable data, and they give it to you up front. If they did just bullshitting and handwaving like the ESP gang, we wouldn't take them seriously either.

Re:Not really...

[vmcto]

You better tell John Moffat that very large bodies are extremely well-approximated by Newton so he can stop wasting his time on Tensor-Vector-Scalar [wikipedia.org] gravity.

Dark matter seems like far from settled science to me. But it always does amaze me how dark matter proponents tend to treat it's existence just like the followers of intelligent design treat God.

Re:Questions from a B- physics student

[ZombieWomble]

That is all well and good but it may be that the need for "dark energy" and "dark matter" may be the result of sloppy science. If scientists cannot tell the difference between a distant giant galaxy and a nearby dwarf galaxy, how can you believe a word they say about missing mass?

Doesn't this article quite clearly show that people can tell the difference, however for this particular galaxy (presumably unremarkable and not very well observed, given that apparently nobody has taken a measurement of the red-shift for the past two decades) someone messed up and they were treated using incorrect data?

Mistakes happen in all fields, to say that one particular example (or, indeed, given the human capacity to screw up, numerous ones) renders a field meaningless is highly dubious. What is significant is that significant results are rechecked and errors are given the chance to be corrected - something which this story demonstrates.