Bogus Dark Matter Research

[robnissen]

SDC has an article on some of the lamest research I have ever seen:<br /><br />http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/071008-mm-dark-matter-life.html<br /><br />So they looked at an area <font color="yellow">thought to harbor two massive globs of dark matter.</font><br /><br />Of course no one knows if there is any dark matter there, but it is "thought" that there is. What did they see when they looked at this area: NOTHING!!! Now most people when they look for something and see nothing, would properly think that there are only two alternatives: 1) there is nothing there, or 2) that there is something there but, because their instruments can't detect it, they don't know what it is. <br /><br />But no, these "researchers" have come up with a third alternative: Thier circular argument is that because we can't see what is there, it must have an extremely long half life, because otherwise we would have seen it. Of course, they never explain why dark matter needs to have any half-life. They can't explain why it needs to have a half-life because they 1) DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS, 2) don't know if it has a half-life, 3) don't know if it has a half-life, how to detect that half-life; and 4 don't even know if it even exists.<br /><br />They detected NOTHING, and then they tried to say because they detected NOTHING, the thing THEY DIDN'T DETECT, must have a half-life of thousands of trillions of year. Give me a fricken break. <br /><br />The only proper conclusion they should have drawn from their detection of NOTHING, was NOTHING. "Research" like this gives science a bad name.<br /><br />BTW, I especially liked this quote:<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"We don't know what dark matter is, but we do know it's made of some kind of particle," said Signe Riemer-Sorensen.</font><br /><br />How do we possibly "know" that dark matter is made up of "some kind of particle."

 

[michaelmozina]

Here was my personal favorite use of pseudo-scientific logic:<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p> Slow decay<br /><br />Scientists proposed the half-life—about 150,000 times longer than the current age of the universe—after looking at X-rays from the Bullet Cluster, a cosmic collision of galaxies thought to harbor two massive globs of dark matter. <br /><br />If dark matter can slowly decay, it can also emit radiation, albeit at nearly undetectable levels. The proposed ultra-wimpy signal might help explain why it's practically invisible to our scientific instruments. <br /><br />"We don't know what dark matter is, but we do know it's made of some kind of particle," said Signe Riemer-Sorensen, an astrophysicist at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. "One theory says these particles are axions, which are very massive and can decay." <br /><br />Axion decay, she explained, is similar to radioactive decay of unstable elements, such as uranium-238. "But instead of different atoms, you get two photons we might detect as X-rays," she said. <br /><br /><b>Clear evidence</b><br /><br />Riemer-Sorensen and her team searched for the X-ray hallmark of decaying dark matter in the Bullet Cluster. The formation is one of only a handful thought to show clear evidence of dark matter, which makes up about 85 percent of all matter in the cosmos. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />So if we "translate" here a bit from a skeptical perspective, they don't actually know what dark matter is, or where it comes from, or what form it takes as it relates to real physics and real particles. They simply *speculate* that it's "dark" (emits no light) but it also emits and releases "x-rays" when it decays. It's really nice when you can have your cake and eat it too, isn't it?<br /><br />They then turn around and use the fact that a galaxy (every sun in fact) emits x-rays as some sort of "clear evidence" of the decay of dark matter? That is utterly preposterous of course si <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> It seems to be a natural consequence of our points of view to assume that the whole of space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions of all kinds. - Kristian Birkeland </div>

 

[alokmohan]

Brown dwarf is a typical candidate for dark matter.It never attains the temp of thermo nuclear fusion ,we dont see them.This is one typical example of dark matter.Nutrinos are vey much there.

 

[heyscottie]

But even accounting for all of the brown dwarfs and rocks and dust and neutrinos and black holes that we THINK are out there, there still seems to not be enough mass.<br /><br />In my mind, there are a few options out there to explain the galactic rotation problem:<br /><br />1) There really is a lot more "normal" matter out there that hasn't formed stars than we think. A lot. This seems to be the favored explanation among those who resist changing their thinking based on the evidence presented so far.<br /><br />2) There is some exotic form of matter out there that makes up the majority of the mass budget. It interracts gravitationally, but very weakly or not at all electromagnetically. This would be the true "dark matter" that is different from anything we have found so far.<br /><br />3) Gravity doesn't work the way we think it does over galactic distances. The MOND theory would be a subset of this.<br /><br />4) Any combination of the above.

 

[michaelmozina]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>There are a number of proposals for Dark Matter as real particles as well as proposals to suggest gravity behaves differently at different scales. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />There are also less "exotic" proposals to explain "missing mass".<br /><br />http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/07/23/sun.iron/index.html<br /><br />Any theorized "missing mass" we might come up with need not necessarily be contained in "dark matter" (whatever that is).<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Most particles have antiparticles and some particles are their own antiparticle. When a particle is its own antiparticle, it is a matter of how long on average a particle has to travel to meet its antiparticle and destroy both leaving decay particles such as x-rays to mark the event, even though the original particles did not interact electromagnetically.<br /><br />The usual particle is called a neutralino. This seemed a bit promising at first because the decay might explain the absence of dark matter nearer the core of a galaxy.<br /><br />The major flaw to such an idea is that a large variety of netralinos are needed to explain the various wavelengths needed to explain its length not only within galaxies, but also clusters of galaxies and the lack of halo holes within clusters. Dark matter is also monitored to exist on the very small scale of globular clusters which represents an extreme problem for neutralino type theories.<br /><br />It is not so much that new ideas may continue to come up, but rather to use the scientific method to eventually rule them out. There may still remain multiple sources of Dark Matter rather than just only one cause for it. It has not been proven that there is only one cause.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />What you're proposing is all well and good in theory, but extraordinary claims re <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> It seems to be a natural consequence of our points of view to assume that the whole of space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions of all kinds. - Kristian Birkeland </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

Nice summary!! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

I think anyone who has critically examined the issue realizes the term "dark matter" is a placeholder for something that we don't understand yet.<br /><br />However, the flatness and scale harmonics of the CMBR, as understood by current theory, do robustly lead to the conclusion that there is something that acts as "dark matter" that makes the whole thing work.<br /><br />With no unequivocal evidence, everything is speculation...even whether it is matter, or a force (MOND) or yes, even a "plasma" effect.<br />No evidence yet. Barely a few clues, other than the reliable gravitational effect, which is what defines "dark matter".<br />From galactic rotation, to gravitational lensing...dark matter exists as far as it's effect on our universe. But WTH is it?<br /><br />Whatever it is, it acts like dark matter, so that's what we call it for now.<br /><br />Various searches are underway to determine the "actor", through all means of astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, mathematics,, physics, ....etc.<br /><br />Wayne<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[robnissen]

I agree with everything in your post. My complaint were the bald speculations stated as fact in the article:<br /><br />"We know that dark matter is made of particles," along with the ridiculous conclusion:<br /><br />"Since we didn't see anything when we looked at what we believe is dark matter, the half-life of dark matter must be trillions of years."<br /><br />Dark Matter is a place holder for a scientific effect that we do not understand, but that is all it is. We do not know if it is made of particles, how to detect its half-life, or if it even has a half-life. For these "scientists" to put forward their bald assertions as factual, or at least as even a theory, is laughable.

 

[MeteorWayne]

I agree 100% Rob.<br /><br />The assumption it IS made of particles...totally unsubstantiated.<br /><br />The half life of particles that haven't been proven to exist....ludicrous.<br /><br />It is labeled by it's effect, which acts like matter we can't detect.<br /><br />That much we know.<br />The article (which was in a news item, not a peer reviewed paper yet AFAIK)<br />would not survive long if the authors came to SDC for a tryout <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br />Unless they could back up their "facts". <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

True.<br /><br />Peer Review in the Slaughterhouse. Our speciality: turning wrong-thinking theories into Hamburger. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[vandivx]

"Peer Review in the Slaughterhouse. Our speciality: turning wrong-thinking theories into Hamburger."<br />---<br /><br />hear hear<br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[vandivx]

"1) more "normal" matter out there<br /><br />2) some exotic form of matter out there<br /><br />3) Gravity doesn't work the way we think it does<br /><br />4) Any combination of the above."<br />---<br /><br />LOL @the #4<br /><br />covering our behind are we <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />now that we know how things stand we feel hell of a lot better<br /><br />thing is if you actually work discovering the solution you got to believe in what option you choose, at least that's how real life in sciences is, you buy into some direction depending on your personal foible and off you go, I suppose there are some that call themselves unbiased and without opinion and call it open mindedness but such usually don't amount to much, point is one has to believe deep down about the direction one takes, for some its exotic particle and that's that, also depends on one's specialty, few physicists can work in more than one and if you believe the solution will be particle but your specialty is not in that departement, then you go do something else and don't look for dark matter<br /><br />if you do serious research and don't get results, you don't publish and you go skating, on the other hand if you have stomach for it, you come out with something like this here and you have publication behind your belt and your career advances if you don't overdo it<br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[nexium]

They assumed a half life of 2000 trillion years, based on photons they did not detect. They likely did not even look for one part per billion increase in photons at the water hole wave length or longer.<br />A good example of grant scam in my opinion. Neil

 

[alokmohan]

Last year, physicists reported seeing tantalizing experimental traces of the axion, a hypothetical subatomic particle that's been mentioned as a possible constituent of cosmic dark matter. But the axion was showing up where theory said it shouldn't be. It now looks as if it wasn't there after all. <br /><br />The axion sprang from an attempt to explain certain differences between the strong and weak nuclear forces. Cosmologists seized on the axion because its properties made it a plausible component of dark matter, the unseen material that far outweighs ordinary matter in the universe. <br /><br />In 2000, Giovanni Cantatore and his colleagues at the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Legnaro were investigating the behavior of photons by shining a laser beam through a strong magnetic field. They noticed that the light's polarization shifted slightly after it went through the field—not the effect they were looking for. <br /><br />The team posited that the polarization shift could have resulted from the magnetic field converting some of the beam's photons into axions, which would then fly off undetected. But the shift the researchers saw, while tiny, was much larger than physicists had thought possible. If such an effect occurred in the cores of stars, for example, axion emission would siphon energy away, reducing stellar lifetimes far below their actual values. <br /><br />Cantatore and his colleagues reluctantly decided to publish their data last year, after numerous fruitless efforts to find a flaw in their experiments. "We thought it was our duty to report our results," Cantatore says. <br /><br />After the announcement, at least five labs around the world began experiments to settle the issue(Science online)http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20071020/fob5.asp<br />

 

[michaelmozina]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>They assumed a half life of 2000 trillion years, based on photons they did not detect. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />That's a bit like assuming that the half life of invisible unicorns is 2000 trillion years because of the photons they did *not* detect.<br /><br />The industry of astronomy today is corrupted beyond repair IMO. They'll do anything to deny the role of electrical currents in space plasmas, and the role of EM influences in space and solar actiivity, including just making up stories about the half life of invisible pixies that are measured in the trillions of years that somehow reproduce themselves by "magnetically reconnecting" with inflation faeries. These pixie/faerie folks then run around all day "expanding the space" between objects of normal matter. Hoy Vey. The whole industry of astronomy today is intent on spending tons of money studying the influences of metaphysical nonsense IMO. If an author uses the term "dark" sormething or "inflation", the mainstream publications will publish just about anything they might say as long as the math looks right. If the author uses the term "electricity" in their paper, it will never be published in the mainstream publications. The bias against electricity in astronomy today is palpable, and it's leading to a crisis within the industry. Lot's of scientists from other industries are noticing that the "Queen" of the sciences is acting like a desperate housewife.<br /><br />http://www.cosmologystatement.org/<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> It seems to be a natural consequence of our points of view to assume that the whole of space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions of all kinds. - Kristian Birkeland </div>

 

[alokmohan]

I dont understand why you bring unicrn.Do you mean half life is absurd?unicorn isw cousin n of fictitious.

 

[MeteorWayne]

He means that with a half life that long, anything would be undetectable. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[kyle_baron]

Pixies, fairies, and desperate housewives. LOL! Very poetic, sad and true, all at the same time. <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="4"><strong></strong></font></p> </div>

 

[h2ouniverse]

I still wonder btw why they are so sure this cannot be normal very cold matter. Because:<br />* very cold matter is not detectable in practice: you need far infra red hence space telescope (the most difficult missions); btw we won't be able currently to detect an Earth-sized planet around the Sun at 1000AU, let alone swarms of pluto-sized or Ceres-sized objects in dwarf galaxies half a universe away.<br />* we do not know how much matter there is in Oort Cloud: if it is very massive, with mass evenly distributed around Sun, its gravity will not be easily detectable on the planets. <br />* even if mass estimates for Sun OOC are correct, we cannot be sure the Solar System is on average. We may be in a system far below the average, with masses varying in huge proportions depending on how far you are from a bulge of a galaxy (where stellar flux tends to blow protostellar gases).<br /><br />What if less dense clouds in the suburbs of galaxies, or inbetween galaxies, tend to condense in many planemos instead of stars, thus leaving today after billions of years multitudes of very cold objects?<br /><br /><br />

 

[pyoko]

Sorry if it's off-topic:<br /><br />What if dark matter is simply more 'powerful' yet-undiscovered black hole type gravity wells? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p><p><span style="color:#ff9900" class="Apple-style-span">-pyoko</span> <span style="color:#333333" class="Apple-style-span">the</span> <span style="color:#339966" class="Apple-style-span">duck </span></p><p><span style="color:#339966" class="Apple-style-span"><span style="color:#808080;font-style:italic" class="Apple-style-span">It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.</span></span></p> </div>

 

[alokmohan]

No,no ,its may favorite brown bwarf.Once you see problem solved.There is no black hole dark matter.

 

[robnissen]

<font color="yellow">I still wonder btw why they are so sure this cannot be normal very cold matter</font><br /><br />While most anything is possible (sorry FTL or temps < 0K, I'm not talkin to you), it is very unlikely that the missing mass is cold regular matter. The sun appears to contain over 99% of the mass of the solar system. The observable mass of the universe appears to be about 1/4 of the total mass, so cold matter would have to be about 7500 times more prevalent in the rest of the universe than in the solar system. While perhaps possible, there are no current theories that can account for anywhere near that much cold matter.

 

[h2ouniverse]

in reply to<br />-------------<br />sun appears to contain over 99% of the mass of the solar system<br />-------------<br /><br />Are we 100% sure? Is it so certain that the protostellar cloud spanning over thousands of AUs would condense in just one star and few planets? What if ony one fourth or one half of the protostellar mass concentrates into the star and 8 planets?<br /><br />If one solar mass e.g. was spread all over the Sun at several thousands AU in trillions of ultra-cold icy bodies, then the gravity effect would not be detectable very close to the sun (i.e. just few tens of AU): that would be locally equivalent to a hollow sphere.<br />And if the universe is very rich in small icy bodies, this means a protostellar nebula would include trillions of them. May not collapse homogeneously then. The pressure effect would make the free volatiles (gas) spiral in the protostellar gravity well, whereas the solid bodies on the periphery would be less deviated (kinetic energy).<br /><br />Note that this means just assuming on average one 1e18kg object (Pluto mass divided by 13,000!!!) for each 13AU-edged cube in a shere of 100,000 AU radius. <br /><br />Or one Pluto mass for each 300AU-edged cube.<br /><br />Not that much don't you think?<br /><br />

 

[michaelmozina]

I thought I'd dredge up this thread to point out that awhile back, some astronomers had used bullet cluster data to claim they had found "proof" (not evidence mind you, "proof") of dark matter.<br /><br />http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2006/1e0657/<br /><br />It now turns out that this supposed "proof" of dark matter that was based on Bullet Cluster lensing data isn't proof at all. The same lensing data can be used to provide evidence that dark matter doesn't even exist:<br /><br />http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,305996,00.html<br /><br />Now here is the original paper where some astronomers claimed that they had "DIRECT EMPIRICAL PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF DARK MATTER" (all in caps no less). Mind you, they didn't just claim that they had "evidence" that dark matter *might* exist, they put in all caps that they had direct empirical "proof" that dark matter exists.<br /><br />http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0608/0608407v1.pdf<br /><br />It turns out that their boastful claim of "proof" was more than a tad premature, and their claim was more than a tad presumptuous. It seems that modified gravity theory can be used to explain this same lensing phenomenon in the Bullet Cluster. Not only can it explain the lensing phenomenon, modified gravity theory completely eliminates the need for "dark matter" entirely. So much for their direct empirical "proof" of dark matter.....<br /><br />Here by the way is a link to a modified gravity type explanation for the universe:<br /><br />http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0710/0710.0364v2.pdf<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> It seems to be a natural consequence of our points of view to assume that the whole of space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions of all kinds. - Kristian Birkeland </div>

 

[alokmohan]

Thats written in standard text books:sun is 99% solar mass.Dont follow what you say.