James R, Dark Matter, and Religion

A quote by our beloved James R, but now an article on Dark Matter:

Scientists Offer Proof of 'Dark Matter'
Analysis of Galactic Collision Said to Reveal Mysterious Substance

By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 22, 2006; Page A01

For decades, many scientists have theorized that the universe is made up of nearly undetectable mysterious substances called dark matter and dark energy. But until yesterday there was no proof that the subatomic matter actually exists.

After studying data from a long-ago collision of two giant clusters of galaxies, researchers now say they are certain dark matter does exist and plays a central role in creating and defining gravity throughout the universe.

Astronomers say the aftermath of a collision between two galactic clusters provides the strongest evidence yet of the existence of "dark matter" - matter that doesn't emit or reflect anything that can be detected, but whose presence can be inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter.

While the scientists are still not sure exactly what dark matter is, since they have yet to identify it in a laboratory, they said that the workings of the universe cannot be explained without it.

The finding will have potentially great impact on an active debate among physicists and cosmologists about not only dark matter but also the workings of gravity that it helps explain. Indeed, the theory of dark matter evolved largely to explain the finding several decades ago that there was not enough visible matter in the universe to produce and account for the gravity needed to keep galaxies from flying apart.

"A universe that's dominated by dark stuff seems preposterous, so we wanted to test whether there were any basic flaws in our thinking," said Doug Clowe of the University of Arizona in Tucson, leader of the NASA-Harvard University study.

"These results are direct proof that dark matter exists."

The breakthrough came using data from NASA's orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory and involved information from what researchers called the most massive release of detected energy in the universe since the big bang.

Scientists said that the "bullet cluster," formed by a collision between an enormous cluster of galaxies more than 3 billion light-years away and a smaller galaxy cluster, demonstrated the existence of dark matter. In effect, the collision stripped the dark matter away from visible matter. Once stripped, dark matter was clearly identified by the strong gravitational pull that it exerted.

"We now have direct evidence" of dark matter, said Sean Carroll, a cosmologist in the physics department of the University of Chicago, who did not participate in the study. "There is no way to explain the observations without dark matter."

While the theoretical existence of dark matter has been broadly embraced for years -- and has now been further endorsed by some of the most prominent researchers and institutions in the field -- a strong counter theory has also grown, contending that the laws of gravity established by Newton and Einstein need modification. The group supporting this theory believes that a relatively limited tweaking of those laws, especially as they pertain to the massive nature of faraway galaxies, could explain the missing gravity better than could undetectable dark matter.

Stacy McGaugh, an astrophysicist at the University of Maryland, has been one of the dark-matter skeptics, and he said yesterday that he remained unconvinced.

"I've been aware of this result some time, and I agree that it is interesting and may make more sense in terms of dark matter than alternative gravity," he said. "However, it is premature to say so."

He said that a definitive detection of dark-matter particles would mean "grabbing them in the laboratory, not just inferring that their effects can be the only possible explanation for an observation before the alternatives have actually been checked."

The NASA-affiliated team that announced its findings yesterday said that the next step in trying to understand dark matter (and related dark energy) is, in fact, to identify it in a laboratory. That task has proved difficult so far, they said, because dark matter leaves no detectable traces, except to create a gravitational pull.

"This finding doesn't tell us where dark matter comes from," Carroll said. "It tells us that dark matter exists, but it doesn't say what it is, or why there's so much of it. The real adventure is ahead of us."

The researchers said yesterday that visible and detectible matter -- the atoms in everything from gases to elephants and stars -- makes up only 5 percent of the matter in the universe. Another estimated 20 percent is subatomic dark matter, which has no discernible qualities except the ability to create gravitational fields and pass through any object without leaving a trace. The rest, they said, is the even more mysterious dark energy, which fills empty space with a force that appears to negate gravity and push the universe to expand ever faster.

According to team member Maxim Markevitch of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., their discovery was made only because the Chandra observatory was able to clearly track the effects of the collision between the two galaxy clusters. Monitors on Chandra, which has an elliptical orbit that sometimes carries it one-third of the distance to the moon, were able to detect and describe an unusual process in which the super-hot gases of the galaxy clusters separated from the remaining stars.

The super-hot gases have qualities that typically would have become the seat of any new gravitational fields, cosmologists say, but instead they went with the stars. That could happen, Markevitch said, only if dark matter separated from the gases and collected with the stars.

The team's paper will be published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

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If the scientists refused to invoke the existence of "Dark Matter" before they had physical evidence, then they would never have found the proof that they did. And the proof that they did find is still not definitive, yet they still choose to have "faith" in their Dark Matter theory.

So I'm confused. Maybe science is turning into a religion.

 

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I am not a part of "we" who said such.

 

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You scared the shi, I mean crap, out of me dragon. So I went to the Religion rules and only found the following no no ...

"Religion X has the following failings: [insert details here]. Therefore, it is worthless and all its members should be rightly condemned or excluded."

James R, ban James R!

I'm just kidding. Don't ban me out of anger, James. I was just pointing out something interesting.

 

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...imagine what a good diet-inducer I am. I scare the {reference}^x out of you everytime and next thing you know...50 lbs down.

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References:
x: is a reference to the Teetolaler's x used in the above comment quote.

 

Geesh. Shi as in "Shilah Phillips". I used to have fantasies of being her, but thanks to you dragon, I don't any more!

Oh, crap was Shilah's childhood nickname....

 

Not all of them are in agreement that dark matter exist, or wether the BBT ever took place!

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/051010_dark_matter.html

http://www.physorg.com/news77190620.html

http://www.bigbangneverhappened.org/

http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/controversies/bigbang.htm

http://www.plasmacosmology.net/

 

Its not really faith that proves the existence of Dark Matter, rather its calculations, without Dark Matter or some extra matter the universe simply cannot exist as we know it...it has nothing to do with faith at all

 

I really must say: This is a rather damning indictment of a religious-esque pronouncement by James R. and the scientific community. Both fall victim to the "God of the Gaps", save that science's God is "dark matter".

 

Vital...quite correct

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good show

The dark matter concept was proposed when it was realised that the detectable matter did not match the estimated mass of a given space. Therefore there was obviously missing matter that our instrumentation was incapable of detecting. This was inferred this in 1933....google it.

This had nothing to do with faith. It was an inferrence based on logic. And yes, since there's no concrete evidence the search continues.

 

Enterprise-D:

Actually, when theories are utterly wrong...we tend to abandon them.

Why has not our conception of gravity been radically altered to accept the influx of data to show that it fails at the extreme macroscopic? Or the Big Bang thrown out due to observable faults?

It is rather like "Cosmic Inflation", which by the way, violates C...

 

I'm assuming it's because they know enough about gravity to know that it's not that which is causing certain mysterious effects.

 

Seems to me that the dark matter idea comes from those that are first assuming that BB is true and then trying to make everything else fit that.

If the rules of how gravity operates are just very slightly different from what we think then this whole invisible dark matter and dark energy idea simply evaporates. Given there has to be so much of it and absolutely no detection then it doesn't seem to be such a credible idea. The claims of proof are very premature.

But brings us back to the idea of a god. Here we see something similar - start with the assumption that a god exists then try to make everything else fit that idea.

 

Prince James: the quantum gravity concept may answer some of this, however the prevailing gravitic laws still remain the same. An exception to a rule does not mean that the rule is NOT true. (Your argument is akin to saying because "e" occurs before "i" after "c", all grammar laws must be thrown out in favour of this. With this outlook "brief" should become ""breif" and maybe "belief" should be "beleif" etc)

A rule exception does not mean that science has become faith based. It just means science (as a human endeavour) is learning and continues to reject absolute answers and refine discoveries.

 

Speculation and 'going out on a limb' are the absolute bedrock of scientific breakthrough and discovery. If we didnt take these sorts of chances science would come to a complete halt.
Simply aligning yourself with currently established fact itsnt really science atall (as most people on here believe it is).
So yes alittle bit of faith, or a hint of an idea of what might be are essential to our continued understanding of the universe.

 

The bottom line is: There is no concrete physical evidence that Dark Matter exists. If science is suppose to "observe" and then find "correlation"; which is reverse engineering. Then why are these scientists trying to find reality in their ideas and not solely in what they see?

 

So let's drop this faith hogwash regarding science. Individual scientists will make speculations about what might be possible - its is not part of science to assert that such things are true (i.e. faith). A speculation is not the same thing as a faith based assertion.

As we see here science has not claimed there is a proof - there is just heated discussions among experts - the jury is still out and there are no signs they will be returning anytime soon.

 

Tell that to the Dark Matter homers.

 

LOL Dark Matter homers (I just had an image of an army of Homer Simpsons in photo negative).

Even Fritz Zwicky did not definitively say that the observed mass difference was caused by dark matter. He only inferred that this mass difference had to be caused by an indetectable form of matter. Since thus far matter is the only substance known to cause mass.

Cris is correct, astrophysicists do not definitely state there is dark matter...what they did is found a discrepancy, postulated a theory and are seeking to find evidence of said theory.

Teet: This is not the same thing as having faith that the theory IS the conclusion, then fitting existing facts to it as evidentiary.

 

Enterprise-D:

When there are massive observational problems with prior conceptions of a physical law and the results, a radical paradigm shift is often needed. This has nto occurred. Instead, we are faced with what amounts to the nearest correlate to a boogieman in modern science: Dark matter.

 

Prince,

Nicely said.