Is dark matter responsible for life to exist?

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by wegs, Jul 12, 2019.

  1. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    I like this point. Okay, that makes sense.
     
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  3. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Dark matter is essential though, it would seem. Maybe value/valuable is a better word?

    Because of its gravitational effects, it would seem to be necessary as part of space, no? Like a domino effect, maybe - you remove one domino, and the rest won't fall properly.
     
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  5. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    I can't follow your logic. Life on Earth requires a certain environment and certain chemistry. Why do you think dark matter has anything to do with this?
     
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  7. globali Registered Senior Member

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    It seems that we are lucky. But then i think how many things could have happened differently the night before my conception..... wow! I was really lucky for eventually being the winning sperm
     
  8. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    Of course but try to look at the edge of a razor blade. You can't. It doesn't reflect light. You can look at the sides but not the straight on edge.

    You can't see an electron. The mystery of dark matter isn't that we can't see it. It's that we still don't know exactly what it is. What kind of particle.
     
  9. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    When going backward you can make that argument for everything but something has to happen.
     
  10. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    That would make it no different that anything else though. By this logic (which make be valid) if you remove anything it all falls down.
     
  11. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    It's not "my" logic. I'm going to have to post one of the articles I've read...

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    Hey, don't make fun of me

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    Right, yet scientists believe that without it, life wouldn't have exist. I find that fascinating.
     
  12. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    There are no silly questions generally speaking wegs, only possibly silly baggage burdened answers.
    As others have said, DE and DM are simply part and parcel of our universe...DM helps hold galaxies together and only ever interacts with normal baryonic matter, gravitationally. DE is a property of spacetime that makes it accelerate in its expansion rate. I like comparing it to a magnetic field. We see and know its effects but it too is invisible.
    Worth noting that when DM was first hypothesised, it could best be said to be a "fudge" factor, pulled out of someones rear end. But the evidence for its existence has mounted particularly with the observation of the "Bullet Cluster"
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/starts...he-reason-most-physicists-think/#2fdd17ad1738

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    The gravitational lensing map (blue), overlayed over the optical and X-ray (pink) data of the Bullet cluster. The mismatch is undeniable.
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  13. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Yes I think that would be a good idea. Because I can't see the connection.
     
  14. globali Registered Senior Member

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    I am not! I am just trying to make simplistic arguments with a little bit of exaggeration, so readers can get my point easier.
    Its the just the way i am writing
    Sorry if i hurted you
     
  15. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    That's right, part and parcel of our universe. Why isn't there agreement that without DM, things would be so much different? Yes, Seattle, we could say that about ''anything,'' but I'm just saying...DM is something we can't see, we can't really pinpoint, and yet it's so vital. It's just weird that it has the same effect as mass in space, but we can't ''see'' it.
     
  16. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    lol I was just kidding. Thus the emoji. No worries.

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  17. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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  18. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
    The anthropic principle is a philosophical consideration that observations of the universe must be compatible with the conscious and sapientlife that observes it. Some proponents of the anthropic principle reason that it explains why this universe has the age and the fundamental physical constants necessary to accommodate conscious life. As a result, they believe it is unremarkable that this universe has fundamental constants that happen to fall within the narrow range thought to be compatible with life.[1][2] The strong anthropic principle (SAP), as explained by John D. Barrow and Frank Tipler, states that this is all the case because the universe is in some sense compelled to eventually have conscious and sapient life emerge within it. Some critics of the SAP argue in favor of a weak anthropic principle (WAP) similar to the one defined by Brandon Carter, which states that the universe's ostensible fine tuning is the result of selection bias (specifically survivor bias): i.e., only in a universe capable of eventually supporting life will there be living beings capable of observing and reflecting on the matter. Most often such arguments draw upon some notion of the multiverse for there to be a statistical population of universes to select from and from which selection bias (our observance of only this universe, compatible with our life) could occur.
     
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  19. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    OK I see what he's saying. The claim is that without the extra gravity dark matter provides in galaxies, supernovae would eject the heavier elements needed for life at velocities > escape velocity for the galaxy.

    But, well, pfft. Who's to say the ejected material would not then have been captured eventually by a different galaxy? Dunno.

    I suppose we just add it to the list of things about the universe that make it the way it is.
     
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  20. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    That is...woah.

    In a nutshell, this is saying that conscious/intelligent life was inevitable?
     
  21. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, this is just sooo unremarkable. lol!
    /sarcasm
     
  22. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    In line with the many universes speculative scenario, where our universe was just one fluctuation of many fluctuations in the quantum foam, then yes. The many other fluctuations, may have expanded too fast, may have recollapsed before life took hold, or any number of other possibilities.
     
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  23. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    From my previous link..................
    i.e., only in a universe capable of eventually supporting life will there be living beings capable of observing and reflecting on the matter
     

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