What is Something Scientific that you just don't believe in at all?
EDIT: Let’s cool it with the downvotes, dudes. We’re not out to cut funding to your black hole detection chamber or revoke the degrees of chiropractors just because a couple of us don’t believe in it, okay? Chill out, participate with the prompt and continue with having a nice day. I’m sure almost everybody has something to add.
I know, I was so hype a few years ago when a new gravity well model supposedly eliminated the need for Dark Matter, but recently it’s been in the news as a scandal that also doesn’t fix everything.
Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND). It's been the dissenting voice in the modern Great Debate about dark matter.
On one side are the dark matter scientists who think there's a vast category of phenomenon out there FAR beyond our current science. That the universe is far larger and more complex than we currently know, and so we must dedicate ourselves to exploring the unexplored. The other side, the
On the other you have the MOND scientists, who hope they can prevent that horizon from flying away from them by tweaking the math on some physical laws. It basically adds a term to our old physics equations to explain why low acceleration systems experience significantly different forces than the high-acceleration systems with which we are more familiar -- though their explanations for WHY the math ought be tweaked I always found totally unsatisfactory -- to make the current, easy-to-grock laws fit the observations.
With the big problem being that it doesn't work. It explains some galactic motion, but not all. It sometimes fits wide binary star systems kind of OK, but more often doesn't. It completely fails to explain the lensing and motion of huge galactic clusters. At this point, MOND has basically been falsified. Repeatedly, predictions it made have failed.
Dark matter theories -- that is, the theories that say there are who new categories of stuff out there we don't understand at all -- still are the best explanation. That means we're closer to the starting line of understanding the cosmos instead of the finish line many wanted us to be nearing. But I think there's a razor in there somewhere, about trusting the scientist who understands the limits of our knowledge over the one who seems confident we nearly know everything.
There’s no scandal. Some people who are leading proponents of MOND theory recently published a new paper using what might be the best scenario we currently have to detect MOND (wide binary stars), and their more precise calculations…are not consistent with MOND. They published evidence against the very theory they were betting on.
Great example, and this brings up a great point about this topic - there's a difference between what's a scientific pursuit vs. what is current established scientific understanding.
Dark matter is a topic being studied to try to find evidence of it existing, but as of now there's is zero physical evidence that it actually exists.
I mean yeah that's why it's called dark matter. Because we know nothing about it except that it has gravity and doesn't interact much (if at all) with electromagnetic waves.
The problem is Dark Matter is a theory that proposes specifically currently unobserved matter exists to solve our math problem. That’s not something we can automatically assume, imo. It’s looking highly probable, but not certain. It’s not just a blanket term for impossible to understand forces, okay, it’s not a pseudonym for C’Thulu, it’s a very specific solution among many.
Nobody "automatically assumes" anything. Dark matter is the best candidate of possible explanations because it explains observation and still fits the standard model. Even if they find the necessary particles eventually, nobody would call it certain though. Certainty is a unicorn.
Well, not really. Your first reply to me got downvoted because you setup a strawman - arguing against something that wasn't even the point.
Your second, the one you claimed said the same as mine, insinuated Dark Matter is just some mathy explanation among many. This doesn't give it credit. It's the current no 1 explanation with lots of evidence. Still didn't get downvoted though.
I’m with you here, I don’t understand dark matter and dark energy and the expansion of the universe. We see shit moving all the time in the universe. I’m still not convinced we just don’t understand the motion of the universe outside our envelope of observation and it’s explainable with conventional matter and energy. Im trying to learn a lot tho. I’m gonna watch that video someone posted to you.
I am curious if the opposite of dark matter could be true; while dark matter inside galaxies would explain galactical motion, couldn’t the same be explained by something repulsive BETWEEN galaxies? If the latter were the case, it would also explain dark energy.
The observations of systems like the Bullet Cluster imply that dark matter is actual material -- baryonic matter. Stuff that exists in specific locations and has mass. Modifying the math of the physical laws does not explain these observations without absolutely going into contortions where dark matter explains them quite elegantly.
All of physics is a "math model". One we attempt to falsify. And when a scientist does prove some part of the model wrong, the community leaps up in celebration and gets to working on the fix or the next.
Dark matter started as exactly a catchall designed to make the model work properly. We started with a very good model, but when observing extreme phenomenon (in this case the orbits of stars of entire galaxies), the model didn't fit. So either there was something we couldn't see to explain the difference ("dark" matter), or else the model was wrong and needed modification.
There's also multiple competing theories for what that dark matter is, exactly. Everything from countless tiny primordial black holes to bizarre, lightyear-sized standing waves in a quantum field. But the best-fitting theories that make the most sense and contradict the fewest observations & models seem to prefer there be some kind of actual particle that interacts just fine with gravity, but very poorly or not at all with electromagnetism. And since we rely on electromagnetism for nearly all of our particle physics experiments that makes whatever this particle is VERY elusive.
Worth observing that once, a huge amount of energy produced by stars was an example of a dark energy. Until we figured out how to detect neutrinos. Then it wasn't dark anymore.
In short, you're exactly right. It's a catch-all to make the math model work properly. And that's not actually a problem.
Well that’s a fun hypothesis that should be falsifiable. Why not write a paper with some maths predictions? That is a pretty extraordinary claim, but definitely fascinating.
I just read up on it a bit, and there’s multiple things disproving my theory:
to reconcile our models with our observations, dark matter would have to be primordial, i.e. created shortly after the big bang.
to explain the movements we see, dark matter must be mostly concentrated in a ring far outside of a galaxy. Dyson spheres would probably be concentrated in clusters spreading from the center of a civilization.
Dyson spheres would radiate heat we can detect with infrared telescopes, unless you hand-wave it with “aliens found tech that breaks thermodynamics” and at that point it’s the same as saying it’s magic.
Other way around, the math model worked fine without dark matter, and it was experimental observation that revealed DM. And yes, the term dark matter is a catch all by design because we don’t have a single theory on it yet.
That sounds like it’s trying to take large scale phenomena and make them work on the quantum scale. What if the solution is the other way around: make modified quantum mechanics work on the large scale? (I guess those are effectively the same thing. You’d need a quantum gravity theory one way or another. Sorry, layman here. Just spitballin’ ideas)
The experimental observation did not reveal Dark Matter. Nobody has seen or proven Dark Matter, actually. That’s why it is called Dark Matter. The observation just showed that the math model was flawed, and they invented “Dark Matter” to make up for it.
My personal take is that they will one day add the right correction factor that should have been in the fomulas all the time.
Just like with E=mc² not being completely correct. It’s actually E²=m²c⁴ + p²c². The p²c² is not adding much, but it is still there.
I’m no astrophysicist - I just design computer chips. But this issue of “We need dark matter” came up with rotating galaxies, didn’t it? So I’d look into that direction if there is a potential connection. Classic bug hunting technique.
I wonder why lay people find adding a new form of particle to the stable to be so much more intuitively objectionable than hacking into our theory of gravity to make it align with observations.
No, I’m just wondering about the reasoning for something that has not been observed except for it’s gravity effects. I mean, physics has loads of incomplete models, so for me, just another incomplete model looks more likely than some phantom particles that nobody can explain.
That reasoning is public information; all of the data that led these conclusions has been published. I would recommend you have enough respect for scientists to actually read some of it before writing it all off out of hand.
Also, we can explain dark matter, in fact we have multiple explanations. What we don’t have is a way to determine which is right yet.
That reasoning is public information; all of the data that led these conclusions has been published. I would recommend you have enough respect for scientists to actually read some of it before writing it all off out of hand.
The problem is that most writing on that topic is incomprehensible even for me. And I’m not even part of the non-science crowd - my specialization is just elsewhere.
The Bullet Cluster, among several other systems, are very strong evidence that dark matter is actual baryonic matter that does not experience significant (or any) electromagnetic interactions. What we see when we look at these kinds of systems is that there is all evidence of STUFF there, but we cannot see the stuff. It's not an indication of a poorly-performing math model missing a function term.
It would be like if we saw ripples in the water like we know exist around a rock. But we don't see a rock. Sure, MAYBE we just fundamentally need to rewrite our basic rules of fluid mechanics to be able to create these exact ripples. But the more probable explanation is that there's a rock we can't see, and falsifying that theory will require just HEAPS of evidence.
The evidence we have suggests overwhelmingly that there is actual stuff that has mass that we simply do not have the tools to observe. Which isn't all that surprising given that we are only JUST starting to build instruments to observe cosmological phenomena using stuff other than photons of light.
What we see when we look at these kinds of systems is that there is all evidence of STUFF there, but we cannot see the stuff. It’s not an indication of a poorly-performing math model missing a function term.
How would you know the difference? All the evidence of “STUFF” being there is obviously gravity based, as no other factors are involved. So that “STUFF” has a number of parameters that can be determined from the postulation of it’s existence: It should be baryonic to have the mass, and it should be stable, or one would probably observe energetic events related to state changes. Another point is: if it has mass, why does it not just clump together? I guess one can also rule out that it is charged, or one might see electromagnetic interactions. Did I miss a key parameter? Did I misunderstand anything here?
So do you know of any 3 (or maybe even 5 or 7) quarks baryon that would fit the pattern? The amount of combinations is limited, and CERN and others have created so many different particles over time that something of that kind that is actually stable should have made an appearance? Or are there any theoretical works on what kind of particle this could be, matching the pattern?
And, by the way, I would not call it a “poor performing” math model, as it covers quite a lot of the world we can observe. I deliberately used the term “incomplete”.
We observe patterns of behavior -- orbits, movement, gravitational lensing -- that are exactly what we would see if, for example, there were great clouds of matter or other galaxies in those places. But we don't see the hydrogen gas. We see non-uniform distributions of dark matter mass that imply there is not simply some consistent calculation error, but rather that there is dark matter that is not uniformly distributed. Again, read up on the Bullet Cluster because it shows a VERY clear example of what I am talking about, where the regular, electromagnetically-interacting matter behaves one way but the apparent shadow of dark matter behaves in a different way that is consistent with lack of electromagnetic interactions.
We've also discovered things like ultradiffiuse galaxies -- likely remnants from ancient collisions -- that have apparently been stripped of their dark matter. MOND cannot explain these observations because these galaxies essentially behave in a Newtonian manner that would be impossible in a MOND framework.
if it has mass, why does it not just clump together?
Why does stuff clump together? For all non-dark matter, the answer is electromagnetism. Outside of the extreme cases of neutron stars and black holes, where gravity overwhelms and defeats electromagnetism and the nuclear forces theoretically take over to create degeneracy pressure, electromagnetism is the reason things clump. Absent electromagnetism, what would cause clumping? Essentially nothing, stuff would whizz straight through other stuff and go into orbits. Potentially HUGE orbits, which is why there's so many theories around dark matter "halos". Maybe if there were DIRECT collisions of theoretical DM particles, that might cause an energy-releasing event -- this is one of the things current dark matter detectors are looking for and may yet find within the upcoming years.
are there any theoretical works on what kind of particle this could be, matching the pattern?
Yep, and more than a handful Many that make specific predictions we can test for and so are testing for. For example, you could look at axions, which are a theoretical particle predicted by an entirely different theory that may be a good fit for the dark matter particle.
We observe patterns of behavior – orbits, movement, gravitational lensing – that are exactly what we would see if, for example, there were great clouds of matter or other galaxies in those places.
Which would still not rule out anything else…
But we don’t see the hydrogen gas. We see non-uniform distributions of dark matter mass that imply there is not simply some consistent calculation error, but rather that there is dark matter that is not uniformly distributed.
That non-uniformity though, yes, this is a good point for a “dark matter exists” hypothesis. Although I would still word it differently: Not “We see non-uniform distributions of dark matter mass” but “We see a non-uniform mass-like effect”. I’ve learned that keeping the terms as neutral as possible, or it might exert too much pressure on the thought process to go in just one direction.
We’ve also discovered things like ultradiffiuse galaxies – likely remnants from ancient collisions – that have apparently been stripped of their dark matter.
Which is basically an extreme case on “not uniformly distributed”.
MOND cannot explain these observations because these galaxies essentially behave in a Newtonian manner that would be impossible in a MOND framework.
That is acceptable. I was not “selling” MOND here (or any other theory), btw, I’m just wondering what kind of possibilities are there to explain all those observations. “An invisible mass nobody has observed except for it’s gravity effect” sounded a bit thin of a leg to stand on there, while incomplete models are a rather widespread phenomenon.
electromagnetism is the reason things clump. Absent electromagnetism, what would cause clumping?
Gravity? I mean, we are talking about something that has gravity. Did planets form because of electromagnetism?
Yep, and more than a handful Many that make specific predictions we can test for and so are testing for.
Indeed. Try that with the wannabe-sciences like economics…
For example, you could look at axions, which are a theoretical particle predicted by an entirely different theory that may be a good fit for the dark matter particle.
Well, at least they share the common trait of not being found yet… ;-)
For myriad reasons, the answer to this is an emphatic yes.
Gravity may attract particles towards each other, but the force that actually causes them to interact with each other is almost entirely electromagnetism. The collisions of grains of cosmic dust are caused by electromagnetic fields interacting with each other. As is the gradual loss of kinetic energy -- the friction -- that allows some amount of potential energy to get converted to heat, allowing the particles to slow down and, as you described it, clump.
Absent electromagnetism, the actual particle nuclei would need to directly hit each other to cause an interaction via the nuclear forces, which is VERY improbable in the vastness of space. Improbable doesn't mean it wouldn't happen, but in this case it does mean the universe is way too big and young. Without electromagnetic interactions, particles just form orbits. Which again, that's what a "dark matter halo" is. It's all the dark matter stuff orbitting around a galaxy's center of mass because it doesn't get easily trapped in the center. It's all the dark matter in a gravitational system constantly whizzing back and forth across the center of mass since there's no electromagnetic force to rob them of the potential or kinetic energy and stop them from heading back out.
And, conveniently, these halos are just what our observations seem to indicate dark matter is doing in a typical galaxy. The observations and theory align well
“An invisible mass nobody has observed except for it’s gravity effect” sounded a bit thin of a leg to stand on there
See, I think this is where you’re getting tripped up. You’ve got a strong instinctive bias against models that include new particles, and you probably need to examine why. New particles are no more of an update to an incomplete model then any other firm update, and is common in proposals for new science. We already know of atleast one extremely abundant, near undetected particle in the form of the neutrino, and one of the leading candidates for dark matter, the axion, comes from an unrelated model.
I don’t have a bias against new particles. For me as a non astrophysicist, just another theory having a big hole was simply more likely. And the theory of gravity breaks anyway when it approaches quantum theory, why shouldn’t it be broken elsewhere, too?
But I can easily accept the information given here, primarily the case with uneven distribution, which is a good case for something being there. Now you just have to nail the particle down.
For me as a non astrophysicist, just another theory having a big hole was simply more likely.
Why? If you don’t have a bias against new particles. Why is a hole in one theory more likely than a hole in another?
Why shouldn’t it be broken elsewhere, too?
Why should it?
But I can easily accept the information given here, primarily the case with uneven distribution, which is a good case for something being there.
Indeed, people think dark matter is motivated by observations disagreeing with theory in one consistent way, but it’s actually a case of observation showing a large distribution of invisible mass.
Now you just have to nail the particle down.
It’s tricky to do, as dark matter is non-interacting by nature. It will likely be a case of process of elimination.
Yeh, that’s how the scientific method works.
Observations don’t support a model, or a model doesn’t support observations.
Think of a reason why.
Test that hypothesis.
Repeat until you think it’s correct. Hopefully other people agree with you.
People are also working on modifying General Relativity and Newtonian Dynamics to try and fix the model, while other people are working on observing dark matter directly (instead of it’s effects) to further prove the existing models. youtu.be/3o8kaCUm2V8
We are in the “testing hypothesis” stage. And have been for 50ish years
For those with time to spare: study all you can about neutron stars (including magnetars and quark stars), then go back to “black holes” (especially their event horizons and beyond) and there’s a good chance you’ll feel like a lot of aspects in BH theories are mythologies written in math - all of it entertaining, nonetheless.
For those who seek extra credit, study zero-point energy before reflecting on cosmic voids, galaxy filaments, galaxies, gravitationally bound celestial systems, quantum chromodynamics and neutrinos. Then, ponder the relativity between neutron stars, zero-point energy and hadron quark sea.
Multiple experiments to detect dark matter directly here on earth have been constructed. They expected a handful of detections a year given the estimates of local dark matter densities. Those experiments have not yielded any detections. This sets very restrictive limits on candidates for particle like dark matter.
I’m fully aware of astronomical observations that suggest the need for dark matter. That’s not what I was referring to.
So far, astronomical observations are all we have, the lack of terrestrial observations have only been able to elliminate candidate particles, not measure them.
Yeah, it’s legitimate science being done, but some people treat it as sacred and would fight you to no end because they say Dark Matter is some certainty, rather than approaching it with the proper scientific skepticism or with a statistical outlook.
For the most part believers in Dark Matter are cool, but a vocal minority practically worship it as the only possible truth.
If a new hypothetical model showed that either some far off unobserved mass(es) or the currently observable mass can have the gravitational effects that were previously explained by dark matter, or any other far off idea about the nature of gravity at large scale: then there would be evidence there is nothing there. Currently there is no evidence that something is there, just that there are forces and motions that are not understood.
“just that there are forces and motions that are not understood.” - aka, there’s “something” there… Doesn’t have to be a physical something. You’re intentionally misunderstanding or misinterpreting just to try and win points on the Internet.
Okay I see what you mean, the meaning of your words missed me the first time, sorry. You’re saying something is happening, not necessarily that something else exists to cause it.
I mean, they are working on adjusting Newtonian dynamics for the situations where gravity between objects is low. This would fix the model for the strange galaxy spin and where 2 stars orbit eachother.
The issue with this is there are too many unknowns as we have a (relatively) fixed point of perspective. But statistical analysis is working on reducing the impact of those unknowns, and there is likely a paper published in the next few months regarding this.
Then, I guess it’s a matter of understanding why this applies. And maybe it applies because of dark matter, and it all wraps back round to an undiscovered thing.
Or, perhaps Newtonian dynamics isn’t complete but has been accurate enough to withstand all our testing (like taking 9.8 as the value of G on earth, even though it varies across the globe, and the moon/sun/planets also have a miniscule impact. For everything we do on earth, 9.8 is accurate enough)
Dark matter still has strong scientific support, although still undiscovered.
Modifying Newtonian dynamics has so far been disproven.
Both are worthy of pursuing
Modified gravity theories are a well explored alternative to dark matter, but they aren’t popular for the simple reason that dark matter fits the observational data far, far better. Because currently there is evidence that something is there, extensive evidence.
For me it’s Colloidal Silver. It’s been used as antimicrobial in wound dressings in the past but I just don’t trust it at all. The reason it suddenly resurged was during the Covid Pandemic a bunch of televangelist snake oil salesmen started endorsing it. If a product contains silver I won’t use it at all, and furthermore I reject brands that sell it. I would even rather bleed than purchase a CVS bandaid.
Pretty sure these uses are snake oil, where it does have use is blocking male phenotype expression in flowering plants. I use it to make feminized cannabis seed.
Silver nitrate is used medically as a cauterizing agent for wounds. Had to apply this when an inch deep 2 inch diameter abdominal wound healed to surface level after packing and changing gauze on it for 3 months, else it would have kept “healing” itself outward.
Cool, it’s overuse is still bullshit preying on the feeble minded. Even the FDA has had to step in several times the last 2 years because of how crazy it’s been getting.
Interestingly I really only know about because it’s “popular” in the biohacker space for helping with cavities (as in AFTER you have cleaned a cavity you can use it to seal and protect it from further damage). Cheaper and more accessible then proper dental care.
Colloidal silver sold as a cure or “supplement” is absolutely a scam and potentially harmful (it can and has permanently turned people blue/gray). But silver itself is incredibly useful as an antimicrobial and is commonly used in bandages in burn wards.
Silver isn’t the only metal that is effective against bacteria, but other than brass and gold most other options are either toxic to humans in some way or not as effective.
TL;DR: bandaids with silver are fine, colloidal silver you put in your body isn’t.
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