Cosmologic philosophy: dark matter is or isn't? (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, January 31, 2016, 01:31 (3001 days ago) @ David Turell

A long essay on trying to find it. It solves many problems rather neatly per Occam's razor, but that does not mean it really exists:-https://aeon.co/essays/will-cosmologists-ever-illuminate-us-about-dark-matter?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=4e32fc0f09-Daily_newsletter_Sat__30th_Jan1_29_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-4e32fc0f09-68942561-"The world we see is an illusion, albeit a highly persistent one. We have gradually got used to the idea that nature's true reality is one of uncertain quantum fields; that what we see is not necessarily what is. Dark matter is a profound extension of this concept. It appears that the majority of matter in the universe has been hidden from us. That puts physicists and the general public alike in an uneasy place. Physicists worry that they can't point to an unequivocal confirmed prediction or a positive detection of the stuff itself. The wider audience finds it hard to accept something that is necessarily so shadowy and elusive.-***-"Astronomers have continued to find the signature of unseen mass throughout the cosmos. For example, the stars of galaxies also rotate too fast. In fact, it looks as if dark matter is the commonest form of matter in our universe.-"It is also the most elusive. It does not interact strongly with itself or with the regular matter found in stars, planets or us. Its presence is inferred purely through its gravitational effects, and gravity, vexingly, is the weakest of the fundamental forces. But gravity is the only significant long-range force, which is why dark matter dominates the universe's architecture at the largest scales.-***-
"This standard model of cosmology is supported by a lot of data, including the pervasive radiation field of the universe, the distribution of galaxies in the sky, and colliding clusters of galaxies. These robust observations combine expertise and independent analysis from many fields of astronomy. All are in strong agreement with a cosmological model that includes dark matter. Astrophysicists who try to trifle with the fundamentals of dark matter tend to find themselves cut off from the mainstream. It isn't that anybody thinks it makes for an especially beautiful theory; it's just that no other consistent, predictively successful alternative exists. But none of this explains what dark matter actually is. That really is a great, unsolved problem in physics."-Comment: A quantum-based universe and dark matter. We don't really know a lot do we?-***-The various proposals to get its measure tend to fall into one of three categories: artificial creation (in a particle accelerator), indirect detection, and direct detection. The last, in which researchers attempt to catch WIMPs in the wild, is where the excitement is. The underground LUX detector is one of the first in a new generation of ultra-sensitive experiments. It counts on the WIMP interacting with the nucleus of a regular atom.-***-Nature plays an epistemological trick on us all. The things we observe each have one kind of existence, but the things we cannot observe could have limitless kinds of existence. A good theory should be just complex enough. Dark matter is the simplest solution to a complicated problem, not a complicated solution to simple problem. Yet there is no guarantee that it will ever be illuminated. And whether or not astrophysicists find it in a conceptual sense, we will never grasp it in our hands. It will remain out of touch. To live in a universe that is largely inaccessible is to live in a realm of endless possibilities, for better or worse.