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Space Earth Science Technology

Vera Rubin, Pioneering Astronomer Who Confirmed Existence of Dark Matter, Dies At 88 (www.cbc.ca) 162

Mikkeles quotes a report from CBC.ca: Vera Rubin, a pioneering astronomer who helped find powerful evidence of dark matter, has died, her son said Monday. She was 88. Vera Rubin found that galaxies don't quite rotate the way they were predicted, and that lent support to the theory that some other force was at work, namely dark matter. Rubin's scientific achievements earned her numerous awards and honors, including a National Medal of Science presented by then-president Bill Clinton in 1993 "for her pioneering research programs in observational cosmology." She also became the second female astronomer to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
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Vera Rubin, Pioneering Astronomer Who Confirmed Existence of Dark Matter, Dies At 88

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  • She was a truly amazing person and an inspiration to us all, male OR female.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      And yet there will be fewer posts on here than on the one about the do-nothing space princess.

      • Reminds me of the time Sinfeld visited the campus I was on, the entire surrounding campus was teeming with people and it packed the auditorium. Roger Penrose came the next week and it was a ghost town, barely filling a small lecture hall. Guess people have their priorities.
        • by lucm ( 889690 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2016 @09:38PM (#53563755)

          It's kinda sad, especially since Seinfeld is not even funny. Even in the show named after him he was the least funny character.

          • by murdocj ( 543661 )

            so sorry for you.

          • Seinfeld himself is hilarious. However on his show he primarily played the straight man foil for the other characters to bounce their lunacy off.

          • It's kinda sad, especially since Seinfeld is not even funny. Even in the show named after him he was the least funny character.

            Been that way forever. Gracie Allen was funnier than all hell, and George Burns was a hanger on, a drone who wasn't funny at all. Ray Romano from Everybody loves Raymond, was surrounded by hilarious people, and he was a depressing jerk.

            Can I get a whoosh?

            • by lucm ( 889690 )

              It's kinda sad, especially since Seinfeld is not even funny. Even in the show named after him he was the least funny character.

              Been that way forever. Gracie Allen was funnier than all hell, and George Burns was a hanger on, a drone who wasn't funny at all. Ray Romano from Everybody loves Raymond, was surrounded by hilarious people, and he was a depressing jerk.

              Can I get a whoosh?

              No. Read the thread again and if you still don't understand, move on.

              • It's kinda sad, especially since Seinfeld is not even funny. Even in the show named after him he was the least funny character.

                Been that way forever. Gracie Allen was funnier than all hell, and George Burns was a hanger on, a drone who wasn't funny at all. Ray Romano from Everybody loves Raymond, was surrounded by hilarious people, and he was a depressing jerk.

                Can I get a whoosh?

                No. Read the thread again and if you still don't understand, move on.

                Some days. Perhaps you don't like Jerry Seinfeld. That's okay. A lot of people do however, so its a matter of taste. But to your point of him being the least funny character - yeah, he was. That's called being a straight man. Seinfeld played the straight man on the show, but he was behind everyone else's characters. As was George Burns. As was Ray Romano.

                Straight man (or woman) is a staple of comedy, along with Stupid fat husband and hottie wife (think King of Queens) Or the only sensible person in the r

                • by lucm ( 889690 )

                  So often, the straight man is the person writing the lines for all of the "funny people"

                  Larry David was the one writing the funny lines. All Seinfeld did in that show was the lame stand up bits and being boring in general.

      • Ultimately, Rubin's research into dark matter will lead to the invention of the hyperdrive, enabling interstellar travel.

      • 1) there is no proof of the existence of dark matter.
        2) Carrie Fisher is A LOT more than just Princess Leia. Maybe do some research?

        Not to take anything away from Vera Rubin, but this not a zero-sum game.

        • by Goaway ( 82658 )

          1) there is no proof of the existence of dark matter.

          And the Bullet Cluster is...?

          • 1) there is no proof of the existence of dark matter.

            And the Bullet Cluster is...?

            Sponsored by the NRA?

          • Sorry, it's not proof. It just shows there's something going on that we cannot explain.

            • by Bengie ( 1121981 )
              Dark matter is the name of the "going on". If you recognize that something is going on, then you imply that "Dark Matter" is real effect. To say Dark Matter is not real is to say the "going on" is not real.
        • 1) there is no proof of the existence of dark matter.

          There is something. You keep using the term dark matter. I do not think it means what you think it means.

          • A better response would be:

            Dark matter is the proof of itself. You see we made up the phrase "dark matter" to describe a set of observations that appear to be repercussions of something we cannot directly (as of yet) observe. So the fact that it exists is a tautology, and is therefore impossible to argue with.

            • A better response would be:

              Dark matter is the proof of itself. You see we made up the phrase "dark matter" to describe a set of observations that appear to be repercussions of something we cannot directly (as of yet) observe. So the fact that it exists is a tautology, and is therefore impossible to argue with.

              But of course, we want to find out exactly what is going on with this "dark matter". We certainly know that there is something in the universe that doesn't quite jibe with our theories.

              • Damn right I want to know! I feel that there could be something groundbreaking in this line of inquiry, just waiting for us to figure it out. I get the feeling you do too.

                Here is a link to something that should be considered. A bit disappointing in my opinion in one way, as it rules out many of the more exciting answers to the question of dark matter, but exciting in its own way. You may find this interesting: 153 galaxies with rotation speeds that can be inferred directly from their observable matter [case.edu]

        • by dywolf ( 2673597 )

          other than a bunch of unexplainable observations that indicate there is far more mass in the universe than we are able to see.
          some sort of matter that is difficult to see.
          as if it were "dark" or something.
          i wonder what could we call such a thing while we set about trying to figure out what made us say "gee, that's odd" in the first place?

          • You should probably do some googling before trying to be cute. It would save you from looking like an ass.

      • And yet there will be fewer posts on here than on the one about the do-nothing space princess.

        Carrie Fisher? I had to quit watching the news.

        Not a word about someone I've never heard of before who has made more of an impact on mine and others way of thinking than some actress.

        In the field of astronomy it's rare to be proven right while still alive - her findings "have been confirmed over the subsequent decades" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] she had that going for her.

        I've never heard of her before, her observations or them being related to dark matter, just that there wasn't enough gravity in a

      • Re: An Amazing Human (Score:5, Informative)

        by haruchai ( 17472 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2016 @08:09AM (#53565095)

        And yet there will be fewer posts on here than on the one about the do-nothing space princess.

        Carrie Fisher was an author, playwright and script and public speaker on bipolar disorder and substance abuse.
        I love that cosmological stuff something fierce but none of it has an immediate impact on my daily life whereas I personally know about a dozen with bipolar & dozens more through them

      • by hey! ( 33014 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2016 @09:57AM (#53565427) Homepage Journal

        As a rule people who see others responding to X and say, "Well what about Y?" don't give a shit about X or Y.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Did she lead some sort of rebel alliance? Did she take down the Empire? What were her accomplishments, if not those?

    • OOOh is this an example of an SJW? Someone who drags gender into everything?

  • by digitalride ( 767159 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2016 @09:00PM (#53563631) Homepage
    and Rubin wasn't a huge fan of it either:
    "If I could have my pick, I would like to learn that Newton's laws must be modified in order to correctly describe gravitational interactions at large distances. That's more appealing than a universe filled with a new kind of sub-nuclear particle."

    I have high hopes for this new theory that can account for the galaxy rotation problem ( and the emDrive ): http://physicsfromtheedge.blog... [blogspot.com]
    • by Goaway ( 82658 )

      MOND has long since been proven to be nonsense. It's an eve worse kludge, that explains only a few of the many distinct problems that are all solved by dark matter.

      MOND is by far the less elegant solution than dark matter.

  • by sexconker ( 1179573 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2016 @09:05PM (#53563643)

    When exactly did we confirm the existence of dark matter?

    • 29min ago, according to BeauHD...
    • by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2016 @09:26PM (#53563707)

      What are you, a dark matter denier? The science is settled - there's consensus! We should now be turning our attention to finding that dark matter.

      Joking aside, Vera Rubin obviously did not confirm the existence of dark matter. That's a terrible headline. She discovered that current mass estimates of the universe could not account for the rotations of galaxies using current models.

      Everything beyond that is just a hypotheses, as no hint of "dark matter" has been found. I have a hunch that nothing will continue to be found until scientists figure out that their mass estimates were way off, or that the models were horribly wrong. Scientific "truths" are always getting clobbered by "ridiculous" new ideas, so it could go either way on this, but I'm betting on our lack of understanding rather than an invisible particle making up most of the mass of the universe.

      • by dbIII ( 701233 )
        What's with the hysteria and the "joke"? All dark matter signifies is that there is a lot of stuff that we cannot currently see electromagnetically.
        Space is big. Space is dark. Why the hubris that we can see everything with our current technology?
        • by Anonymous Coward

          No dark matter is not just normal matter that isn't emitting light. It isn't absorbing light either. If 90% of the galaxy was just non-emitting normal mater you'd see it blocking the luminous modules as dust clouds and globules.

          No model of modified gravity has been successful at explaining the evidence either.

          This place has gone from being a place for nerds, to a place where everyone thinks they're allowed an opinion without actually looking at the evidence. It's tragic.

          • No dark matter is not just normal matter that isn't emitting light. It isn't absorbing light either. If 90% of the galaxy was just non-emitting normal mater you'd see it blocking the luminous modules as dust clouds and globules.

            Um.

            Things that absorb light also emit it, necessarily. Look up black body radiation sometime.

            • by Bengie ( 1121981 )
              Yes, but some matter can get very cold and become very dark, making it absorb visible light than it emits, making it a good source of blocking light, but not emitting. For example. There is a huge cloud of gas that is colder than the cosmic background. While it is absorbing light, it is also expanding, which cools it. The cooling from expansion is greater than heating from incoming radiation.
          • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

            That's not completely true. There are possibilities for dark matter that absorb light but are compact enough that we don't routinely detect them. Primordial black holes and things like brown dwarfs were contenders for dark matter. Transit studies showed that there ARE a lot of brown dwarf type objects out there, but not enough to make up more than a fraction of the missing matter. Microlensing and other observations have put pretty good limits on the numbers and masses of black holes that can be wanderi

            • by Bengie ( 1121981 )
              I had to look up "Primordial black holes", and that's an interesting theory. These blackholes could actually pass through the Earth on a semi-regular basis.

              Nutshell: Blackholes that formed during the early Universe, allowing them to be much smaller because they did not have to form from a dying star. Think in the range of less than a Moon mass.
        • by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2016 @10:45PM (#53563997)

          You and I must have very different definitions of "hysteria". I was simply trying to clarify the current status of dark matter, so far as a layperson can understand it, as the headline seemed rather misleading. This is still "news for nerds", right? I'd hope we still value scientific accuracy in our science-based articles.

          I certainly wasn't trying to denigrate Vera Rubin's contribution to science, the most notable of which was a pretty amazing discovery. Nor will her contribution to science be lessened if the dark matter theory ends up wrong. It was a brilliant observation that no one else made, and it sparked a fascinating line of investigation, to which no one can really will predict exactly what the results will be. In any case, its bound to turn some previously held theories on their heads.

          And since you put "joke" in quotes, I'm sorry you didn't find it humorous. You can't please everyone, I guess.

          • I thought your original post was funny. Just ignore those with no sense of humor.

          • by dbIII ( 701233 )

            You and I must have very different definitions of "hysteria

            The act of framing it like the climate change denial situation then attempting to write it off as a "joke", shock-jock style, comes across that way, as well as the bits sowing seeds of doubt later.
            There has been a massive amount of science denial on this site and it's got to the point where the most ridiculous joke you can think of on a scientific subject is somebody else's serious conspiracy theory.

            • p>There has been a massive amount of science denial on this site and it's got to the point where the most ridiculous joke you can think of on a scientific subject is somebody else's serious conspiracy theory.

              Tea Candles, and perpetual motion, BooYeah!

              All it takes is a trip to YouTube, search either phrase, and you end up in the kook section. People who won't believe actual science, but will latch on to any weird idea that some practical joker comes up with.

              And they are here on Slashdot as well.

          • Dark matter is not a theory, afaik. It's a placeholder meaning that a theory is needed. Modified Newtonian Gravity is one of many theories trying to fill in the blanks, as an example so you see the difference. I think that's still an hypothesis at this point, just being a framework for free variables that can be tweaked to fit observation.

            Still news for nerds, and as long as people correct people incorrectly, someone will jump your shit for it.

            I've left at least one mistake so you can learn a bit, correct m

            • by Goaway ( 82658 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2016 @03:51AM (#53564661) Homepage

              MOND is one of the many theories that have tried and failed to explain all the anomalous results we have collected over the years. MOND is basically completely discredited at this point, and dark matter is the most simple and elegant theory we have to explain all the results we have.

              • MOND is one of the many theories that have tried and failed to explain all the anomalous results we have collected over the years. MOND is basically completely discredited at this point, and dark matter is the most simple and elegant theory we have to explain all the results we have.

                Dark matter explains nothing because it is a placeholder that means there is something we don't understand going on. It's like a complicated formula with a box in the middle labeled "something cool happens here".

                • What's a "placeholder"? There's a lot of things we can't observe directly. By this line of reasoning, quarks and gluons are definitely "placeholders", since we're never going to observe an isolated quark or gluon.

                  There's nothing complicated about dark matter. It's matter that doesn't interact electromagnstically. We just don't know much about its other properties. You might be thinking that galactic rotation curves are complicated, but gravitational lensing isn't.

                  • What's a "placeholder"? There's a lot of things we can't observe directly. By this line of reasoning, quarks and gluons are definitely "placeholders", since we're never going to observe an isolated quark or gluon.

                    A place holder. A placeholder is just that. They have been in use since we've done science, and are critical to advancing science. It's kind of like the old "Strange and mysterious are the ways of God" that bible people use when backed into a corner, but with one critical difference.

                    The bible people use their term as a way of squelching further argument or discussion. Science placeholders are used as noting that there is "something going on here that we don't understand" or know what it is, but instead of folding the tents and saying strange and mysterious are the ways of the universe, and stopping further research, the placeholder acknowledges the anomaly, and allows further research, and often the further research clarifies just what the placeholder is.

                    Observing directly is not a requirement for confirmation or denial of a placeholder. http://physics.stackexchange.c... [stackexchange.com] has a pretty good explanation. "Quarks" were indeed placeholders when first proposed in the mid 1960's. Further experiments have exposed things that act just like quarks were predicted to act. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] warning - headache inducing stuff.

                    • I'm not disagreeing with anything you said, but at what point does a placeholder turn into an observation? Quarks were a nice theoretical concept until deep inelastic scattering showed that there were three things in a baryon and two in a meson, so people started calling them observed and accepting their existence. One might consider dark matter as a nice theoretical concept to explain galactic rotation curves, and then we observed gravitational lensing. Why don't you consider this finding dark matter w

                • by Goaway ( 82658 )

                  Your description applies 100% to MOND, with the added disclaimer that it doesn't get the correct results.

      • Everything beyond that is just a hypotheses, as no hint of "dark matter" has been found.

        I agree that "matter" is just a hypothesis, but you can't say no hint has been found. The observed gravitational effect is a huge hint.

        The hypothesis may be wrong, but it's the best hypothesis going. And there is plenty of evidence that the phenomenon is real, whether the matter hypothesis is correct or not.

        The Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] is worth a read.

        • By your same logic, it would be fine for someone to claim that an invisible entity sits in the clouds and hurls lighting down. Having an effect does not prove the cause, and Flat Earth should be all you need to study to see how massive amounts of Scientists got stuff wrong for centuries.

          Science _should_ welcome skepticism, yet when it comes to certain topics skepticism is shunned by a surprising number of people. That makes it a Religion, not Science.

          • by Bengie ( 1121981 )
            Certain types of skepticism is just irrationality. Your analogy is completely flawed. A better analogy would be taking a tank of compressed gas into space and finding it implodes instead of explodes, in a vacuum. Not only would it defy expectations, but it would defy all previously known theories in very fundamental ways. No analogy is perfect, but at least try to get the abstract concepts in the same ballpark.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by burtosis ( 1124179 )
      Since the Bullet Cluster [wikipedia.org]. Not not that but there are many other sources of gravitational lensing that dark matter describes well.
    • by lucm ( 889690 )

      When exactly did we confirm the existence of dark matter?

      Duh, look it up, season 1 is on Netflix.

  • ....on the Science channels discussing her observation that the arms of Galaxies were going the same speed regardless of position from the center which could only be explained by concepts which eventually came to be known as dark matter. Sad to hear of her passing.
  • by chefren ( 17219 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2016 @03:48AM (#53564655)
    There is a recently published new theory of gravity that doesn't need dark matter to explain the movement of stars. It does on the other hand need Einstein to be wrong: http://earthsky.org/space/erik... [earthsky.org] The article has a link to the actual paper.
    • I've watched several videos about the Electric Universe theory, it does appear to explain a lot of Cosmological phenomena that Relativity does not and the additional handwaving (dark matter and dark energy) added, still doesn't quite do so either. It too requires Einstein to be wrong. :)
      • I've watched several videos about the Electric Universe theory, it does appear to explain a lot of Cosmological phenomena that Relativity does not

        The next question is whether it explains all or most of the phenomena that General Relativity explains, and the next is whether it's compatible with quantum physics. Quantum mechanics and General Relativity are exceedingly successful theories that make a lot of amazingly exact predictions.

      • by Bengie ( 1121981 )
        Too bad them explains it in ways that have been tested to be false.

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