what's Dark Matter to you?

[dada]

Astronomers have for the first time put some real numbers on the physical characteristics of dark matter.

 

[Hanfstaengl]

I like the way dark matter travels at 9km/s

 

[fractionMan]

Professor Bob Nichol, from the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth, described the Cambridge work as "awesome".

awesome, dude.

 

[Hanfstaengl]

awesome, dude.

should be in politics?

 

[Crispy]

And in other news, dark matter, dark energy, the big bang, the arrow of time, expansion of the universe, redshift-magnitude-distance equivalence and singularities do not exist!

http://www.stanford.edu/~afmayer/

Interesting, but about 90% of the maths goes seveal gigaparsecs over my head. I'm intrigued, because dark energy and dark matter seem to me to be too much like 'the ether' in as much that they are apparently unobservable things that make the numbers add up.

 

[MikeMcc]

For info on the UK contribution into the investigation:

http://hepwww.rl.ac.uk/ukdmc/ukdmc.html

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Interesting, but about 90% of the maths goes seveal gigaparsecs over my head. I'm intrigued, because dark energy and dark matter seem to me to be too much like 'the ether' in as much that they are apparently unobservable things that make the numbers add up.

it does feel something like modern phlogiston

 

[spiralx]

Not really if you know more about it, there are plenty of valid reasons to assume that dark matter exists, it's the simplest explaination for several cosmological problems.

 

[DarthSydodyas]

I found dark matter in some public toilets, one time.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

yes but there was lots of very good reasons for phlogiston. it wasn't idiots who belived in it but reputable "thinkers" of the day and it did explain lots of problems very simply

i'm not saying dark matter doesn't exist i'm just saying the arguments were very simular

 

[Cadmus]

i just crack up at the name. 'dark matter'

it's so geekish.

 

[big footed fred]

Guiness is the only dark matter that matters

 

[Robster970]

what happens if you bump into it? does it hurt? I would imagine it does if it's travelling at 9km/s and it's 300parsecs wide.

 

[DarthSydodyas]

This is what it will do to you if you ever come in contact with it:

 

[Robster970]

This is what it will do to you if you ever come in contact with it:

I hope to meet some soon - seems to have more of a sense of humour than baryonic matter - that just hurts at that velocity.

 

[Azrael23]

dark matter is energy vibrating to a frequency we can`t measure.

This reality being 1 level of 7.

 

[spiralx]

yes but there was lots of very good reasons for phlogiston. it wasn't idiots who belived in it but reputable "thinkers" of the day and it did explain lots of problems very simply

i'm not saying dark matter doesn't exist i'm just saying the arguments were very simular

Maybe so, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong.

 

[Crispy]

Maybe so, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong.

Absolutely. Conversely, the evidence so far doesn't make it 100% right, either. I'll be convinced once they can isolate a piece of dark matter (even a minute amount in a collider somewhere) and conclusively tell me what it is.

 

[Groucho]

Interesting, but about 90% of the maths goes seveal gigaparsecs over my head. I'm intrigued, because dark energy and dark matter seem to me to be too much like 'the ether' in as much that they are apparently unobservable things that make the numbers add up.

This is what bothers me. The known rules of physics do not work when applied to the movement of planets and galaxies beyond our solar system. However, to make the known rules work nonetheless something invisible and undetectable is assumed. Dark Matter must exist to explain the unknown. But the only proof of its existance is the requirement that it must be so to make the maths add up.

It's guesswork.

 

[Crispy]

This is what bothers me. The known rules of physics do not work when applied to the movement of planets and galaxies beyond our solar system. However, to make the known rules work nonetheless something invisible and undetectable is assumed. Dark Matter must exist to explain the unknown. But the only proof of its existance is the requirement that it must be so to make the maths add up.

It's guesswork.

Aye. And then when other sums don't add up, they can say - ah this must be due to dark matter. See, now we have pinned down another of its properties. I await experimental results.

 

[Groucho]

Aye. And then when other sums don't add up, they can say - ah this must be due to dark matter. See, now we have pinned down another of its properties. I await experimental results.

Next time the riot cavalry charge I'll scatter some dark matter on the road before them. Their horses will then start flying off in all kind of random and bizaare directions

 

[WouldBe]

Aye. And then when other sums don't add up, they can say - ah this must be due to dark matter. See, now we have pinned down another of its properties. I await experimental results.

So it's just as likely then that sky pixies have painted normal matter black so the astronomers can't see it.

 

[WouldBe]

Next time the riot cavalry charge I'll scatter some dark matter on the road before them. Their horses will then start flying off in all kind of random and bizaare directions

If dark matter moves at 9Km/s how would you get it to stay put?

 

[Groucho]

So it's just as likely then that sky pixies have painted normal matter black so the astronomers can't see it.

Yes, using a sopecial paint that emits no light or radiation etc er but such a paint falls outside of the known laws of physics...as does dark matter for that matter. These sky pixies are a cunning lot methinks.

 

[Groucho]

If dark matter moves at 9Km/s how would you get it to stay put?

In a special jar....

 

[Crispy]

So it's just as likely then that sky pixies have painted normal matter black so the astronomers can't see it.

Maybe, maybe. Who knows, there might some weird layer between our solar system and the universe that makes all our telescopes act funny. All will become clear in time.

 

[rich!]

This reality being 1 level of 7.

Third floor ... Menswear...
Second floor ... Haberdashery, Wigs, Perfumes
First Floor ... Reality.

 

[dada]

interestingly enough, tonight Horizon talked about dark matter.

so do you guys buy it? the claimed 'standard' structure of the universe is now 4% atoms, 21% dark matter and 75% dark energy. i'm skeptical about this. sounds like whatever we don't understand, we just put a new label to it, in this case, the new term 'dark energy' - whatever that is! and what would be that element that made up dark matter? if it's not atom at all? something entirely new, unheard of indeed.

hmm... thinking...

 

[dada]

dark matter is energy vibrating to a frequency we can`t measure.

This reality being 1 level of 7.

do you think it creates any sound then?

 

[WouldBe]

I think dark matter is just a massive miscalculation.

Astronomers are still finding objects floating around in our own solar system so still don't know what the mass of our solar system is let alone the mass of galaxies or the universe.