Study suggests we don't understand Dark Matter and Gravity...

[n2doc]

19:10 30 September 2009 by Stuart Clark
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Dark matter is either weirder than we thought or does not exist at all, a new study suggests.

A galaxy is supposed to sit at the heart of a giant cloud of dark matter and interact with it through gravity alone. The dark matter originally provided enough attraction for the galaxy to form and now keeps it rotating. But observations are not bearing out this simple picture.

Since dark matter does not radiate light, astronomers infer its distribution by looking at how a galaxy's gas and stars are moving. Previous studies have suggested that dark matter must be uniformly distributed within a galaxy's central region – a confounding result since the dark matter's gravity should make it progressively denser towards a galaxy's centre.

Now, the tale has taken a deeper turn into the unknown, thanks to an analysis of the normal matter at the centres of 28 galaxies of all shapes and sizes. The study shows that there is always five times more dark matter than normal matter where the dark matter density has dropped to one-quarter of its central value.

"There is absolutely no rule in physics that explains these results," says study co-author Hong Sheng Zhao of the University of St Andrews in the UK.

more:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17892-galaxy-study-hints-at-cracks-in-dark-matter-theories.html

[Xipe Totec]

1. Vacuum polarization and Dark Stars

How Quantum Effects Could Create Black Stars, Not Holes

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=black-stars-not-holes

[wtbymark]

2. I luv these questions

"There is absolutely no rule in physics that explains these results," (pertaining to gravity and dark matter)
-or as they tried to call it a couple of years ago, zero point energy

Hey scientists, you will never be able to quantify this 'thing', you want to know why? It's a mental activity. Not mental in the sense that you and I understand, but it is not physical (wholy).

well, I'm sure some of you have nailed me as a Whiteheadian (which I am), but nobody in 90 years has come up with a better explination, not even you quantum physicists. In fact, you keep barrowing and then trying to skirt his theory by wholy assigning it to the physical relm of the universe.

Science only seeks to quantify what philosophy has already proven.

[kickysnana]

3. Are these limbo? I believe the Catholics misplaced it a few years ago. n/t

:dunce: :dunce:

[ArbustoBuster]

4. I don't think that any of what you said makes sense.

It certainly doesn't relate to the physical universe in any way.

[wtbymark]

9. the universe isn't ALL physical

try, to do some research into 'actual entities of reality', also known as 'actual occasions' and the concrescence of such. It should take roughly 1-2 years to fully comprehend the subject matter and its new vocabulary (because our is too inadequate)

[ArbustoBuster]

15. Uhhh...what?

A Google search on "actual entities of reality" turns up exactly three hits: This thread, and two articles about religion. Therefore, your statements still don't make any sense. Either you're talking religion (in which case you're not talking science) or you're talking nonsense.

[wtbymark]

16. look up Alfred Whitehead North

a modern era philosopher who was a deist and some idiots in Cali. have a theological school about his teachings, BUT, even Whitehead himself admitted his deism was just a conjecture of unfolding epochs and not what we would consider a god. And his cosmology and metaphysical systems of the universe are perfectly logical without the consideration of any deity. His grand opus 'Process and Reality' is a graduate level read and parts of that book have yet to be interpreted. He's the metaphysician's Einstein.

[eppur_se_muova]

18. Not to be confused with Alfred North Whitehead. nt

[girl gone mad]

6. Thanks, but I'm pretty sure we'll figure it out.

We are definitely making progress. LHC will give us energies to break electroweak symmetry so that we can understand the physics behind mass. CERN is still producing some intriguing results.

I like philosophy, too, but it's never answered a single one of the basic questions I have about time and gravitation. Would that I didn't have to do any partial differential equations, but could simply page through Kant for the answers...

[wtbymark]

8. Kant blows, very drole

besides he's 100years behind what we are talking about.

[girl gone mad]

11. Sure, sure.

I will still await the results out of LHC much more anxiously than the latest tome from Palle Yourgrau.

Philosophy alone would have never led to Relativity or Quantum Physics, two perfectly flawless scientific theories that have spawned endless technological innovations, including the MRI machine which saved my mom's life.

I understand why people reject higher level physics, I really do. Quantum is HARD. I've been doing it for over a decade and it still baffles me, often. I'm terrified of the mathematical theories people like Edward Witten are working on (I'm not a fan of string theory, anyhow), even though I'm pretty damn good at math. It takes a lot of work and time to understand what particle theorists and cosmologists are talking about these days. The level of complexity involved can be astounding. It's much more pleasant to just try applying human imagination and fantasy to a few vague physics concepts. Maybe something interesting will come out of that approach, but it's unlikely to be an accepted and testable TOE or to give us much groundbreaking, applicable insight into our physical universe.

[wtbymark]

12. Yea, we theorize on logical possibilities

But, didn't Newton start the road (with gravity anyway) because he fancied himself a philosopher and posited that gravity existed and was created with the motion of god. Now, we all know that's mostly poppycock but it was the thought that led to the scientific verification that gravity does indeed exist. I'll leave the quantum quantifying up to you, but like i said, it will verify what we've already posited to be logically correct.

Science, as well as all subjects, were under the heading 'philosophy' for 1700years. My only beef would be that I would like to see scientists (moreover, you quantum physicists) study more metaphysics. In that, it may give you new avenues to answer the questions. New insights into problems that are 'frustrating'.

[Xipe Totec]

7. Nice post, Chantilas

"I realized that science couldn't answer any of the really interesting questions. So I turned to philosophy. I've been looking for God ever since." -Chantilas

[wtbymark]

10. and I'm an Atheist

as the majority of Whiteheadians are (except, ironically, Whitehead was a quasi deist. But if you know his cosmology, you know that that is irrelevant)

[Odin2005]

13. Rubbish.

[Orrex]

14. Dude, pass some of that over here

[laconicsax]

5. Why aren't creationists jumping all over this one?

Claiming that this disproves the expanding universe model or some other theory that makes their 6000 year-old universe impossible? Why aren't they insisting that we "teach the controversy" over the current physical theories and their biblical counterparts?

[Ready4Change]

17. What? Are you crazy?

Are saying that we are spending money to study these two things when we don't even understand them? Craziness!

:silly:

[14thColony]

19. The more I read about hypothetical 'dark matter'

and the myriad of new problems its supposed existance creates, the more I think it's going to go the way of 'Ether' from the 19th and early 20th centuries. I support Occam's Razor - why postulate dark matter when the solution could be that we simply don't understand how Newtonian physics manisfest on immense scales?