To determine whether an idea is “extremely high level” or not? I suppose we could say, the higher the expertise required for putting an idea to rest, the higher the level, agreed?
Actually I meant it the other way around, ie the high level discussion doesn't burrow down into the details, it is just throwing ideas/concepts around in an arm wavy manner, though I can see why that might not be how many people interpret the phrase.
As for as the implications are concerned, if what I propose is true; the conclusions reach far beyond Andromeda. I’m certain you and I both understand this. This is not by my design, or assumption, but is the logical end of what I am asking we take a look at. This is also why it should be important to us, but why continue if this very first step has no value or truth. Math is one way at the truth, but not the only way. It has to agree with any scientifically valid truth, but only as a partner. Math can only describe reality, or agree with it. It is not the only basis for finding solutions.
Mathematics is a way of formalising logical arguments, since it is the study of logic based constructs. If you want to do science then you have to work with logic and rationality when considering the consistency of ideas and experiment or the implications of an idea.
Science is based upon reason and evidence. Maths cannot provide the latter, observations of reality do, but it is pretty much equivalent to the former. If you make logical deductions then you can write them formally using mathematics. If you're considering consistencies then you're doing logic and can write it mathematically. Without logic and reason you have no science and mathematics is the formalisation of logical procedural thought.
I am not looking for advanced General Relativity math, unless you consider the Time Dilation Equation advanced. It is advanced to me, and that is why, as previously stated, I am seeking a math partner.
Without at least
some familiarity with mathematics you're going to struggle to really get anywhere even if you have a 'maths partner'. It's easy to spit out random ideas which are logically inconsistent or whose formal definition and derivation is highly non-trivial. If you do not have
some familiarity with logic and mathematics then you are going to be unable to temper any imagination you have with rationality. Likewise for physics, if you're going to start making suppositions about reality then it is important you're vaguely informed in regards to it.
Both of issues are why people like Farsight get laughed off forums. He has no experimental data to hand and has no personal experience doing or analysing experiments so he has no information pertaining to the physical phenomena he asserts things about. It's like me asserting I know what your shoe size is, given I've never met you and you've never told me it would be daft for me to make claims about it. Then none of his claims have any formalisation so he has no idea if his conclusions follow from his premise. It's easy to assert implications of postulates but unless you actually derive them you're on thin ice. Hence why tempering imagination with some mathematical experience is useful, even if the mathematics you know doesn't end up in your work.
To give an example consider the following 'theory' : Postulate A : All men are green. Postulate B : Amy is female. Postulate C : Dave is male. Conclusion : Amy is orange. Of course the problems with this are immediate, the conclusion does not follow from the postulates. It isn't inconsistent with the postulates either but that is another issue. Since it isn't inconsistent we therefore have it as another postulate, not a conclusion. When someone's conclusion is another postulate they don't have a model, they have a list of personal opinions.
If someone didn't understand even basic logic or how to combine the postulates they might not realise the conclusion is flawed. Changing this model to include a load of buzzwords wouldn't help matters either. Pretty much every internet physics hack falls into this trap, their conclusions are actually more postulates.
Neither the anti-dark matter, nor the pro-dark matter publications wish to address frames of reference or alternate observers because the relative observations have no bearing on their conclusions. Neither of these two ideas will be affected by Special relative observations, or math; nor will mine for that matter. The speeds are too far away from the speed of light for this to affect any conclusions using this math. Does it matter at some point? Yes, but all discussions regarding this modeling of the galaxies, disregards SR every time it states, “in non-rotating bodies”. That is because we have found, while trying to solve UTC, we realized that the effects of the rotation, do have a greater affect at the Equatorial regions. However, as in Earth as example, the equatorial regions are swollen due to centrifugal forces, they are then, therefore, farther from the center of mass enough that SR and GR equate themselves, rendering either as benign. So we speak of non-rotating bodies, because it is acceptable for the big questions, and large modeling.
The deformation of the Earth due to rotation has been included in experiments testing relativistic predictions. High precision mapping of gravitational and electromagnetic anomalies due to crust variation, mineral composition and topography has been done by both military groups (to improve their weapon guidance methods) and private sector groups (oil prospecting, it discovered the crater of the asteroid which killed the dinosaurs!). Heck, we've even done it
for the Moon.
This is why it is important people familiarise themselves with the mainstream take on things before they try to argue against it. If you don't know what experiments have been done by who looking for what when and the resultant models then you don't know what you're arguing against. The best way to see the problems with a model is to learn it in great detail. I've said it a number of times on the forum but I'm certain I know more problems with mainstream physics than any pseudo-science peddler.
Agreed, that would be entertaining to add a new kind of matter to disprove a new kind of matter. Dark matter is old I suppose, but Dark matter by a different name would be fun, no?
'Dark matter' is such a wide label that pretty much anything new will fall under that heading because if it were not dark (ie it interacted with photons) we'd have observed it visually long ago.
Though I don’t understand how Dark Matter is in any way superior to a modification of gravity that acts differently over time, or scale.
The existence of new particles is not only not an issue but is expected. It would be the height of hubris to think we've exhausted the universe's selection of particles. We're able to do experiments up to $$10^{12}$$ electron volts of energy, the Planck scale (where quantum gravity can no longer be ignored) is $$10^{15}$$ times higher than that. We've only been scratching the surface of the universe for a few hundred years, finding new stuff is expected (which is why people like Sylwester who claim he's explained
everything is so laughable). Modifying gravity less so because we've already seen the ability GR has to model so many phenomena, if it had a significant modification it would have to be rather clunky in its action. It isn't like going from Newtonian to relativistic, where the latter basically turns into the former at low velocity, it would be a more convoluted modification.
This Gravity Modification over time or scale can be mathematically described, equally as well as Dark Matter couldn’t it? How many trillions of dollars are we planning on spending seeking additional proof of something that simply works mathematically? To me they are quite equal, though one has far less funding.
Trillions? Not quite. The LHC cost 10 billion and the James Webb telescope about 7 billion. Compare that to the planned cost of the F35 fighter program, 400 billion, or the estimates cost of the nuclear arms race since 1945, which is about 10 trillion. Besides, the money isn't just about getting some readings about some new particles, it is also about the spin off technology. The technology which is used by the LHC didn't exist when the LHC was first proposed. A significant amount of the budget went on paying for research into things like large scale refrigeration techniques, the behaviour of superfluids, large scale design and manufacture of superconductors, high precision electromagnetic field generators and sensors, new ways of data collection (ATLAS pumps out 1000 terabytes of data a second!), data management, data transmission and data processing via distributed computing and supercomputing clusters. These filter down into more consumer level products. It's similar to how DARPA gets 3 billion dollars a year and puts a lot of it into blue sky research or quite tenuous future technologies, the applications are generally more diverse than people initially imagine.
As for why we do these experiments in the first place.. simply having two models which predict the same for a particular phenomenon isn't enough, you need to understand whether they are both valid elsewhere since they will undoubtedly disagree about something (otherwise they are just the same idea written in different ways). Newtonian gravity worked for 250 years but people kept testing it until it failed and that led to relativity. Electromagnetism worked for 50 years until it was broken and scientists ended up developing quantum mechanics. If someone had said in 1900 "Maxwell's electromagnetism explains how magnets work, don't bother doing any more experiments" we'd never had got Planck's work which led onto quantum mechanics which led to electronics which led to computers. In 1900 people thought the electron was of no practical use, now models of its dynamics form the basis of our entire civilisation thank to electronics and electricity.
I wouldn’t mind a basic layman’s description of what the pro-Dark Matter counter argument is saying, or what the anti-Dark Matter original work is trying to prove, in your words, but I don’t think either of these applies directly to my original OP.
Can you be more specific, is there something from say the Wikipedia page on dark matter you don't get?
Though I appreciate that the extra excitement from the main stream media coverage, getting others to be interested in such things, I’m apprehensive about how profound the findings will be.