Why is there so much crackpot physics?

[Michael Mozina]

Right. That's why WIMPs are only hypothetical and they are performing experiments. That's what scientists do. Think think of models and then test them.

FYI, I find 'dark matter' theory to be the least objectionable of the three metaphysical amigos. It's the only *ONE* that actually might find experimental support in the lab. In that sense, it's not really any more objectionable than particle physicists looking for the Higgs IMO. It's "fair" in terms of science, it just seems "premature" to "assume" there must be some other form of mass based on *pure observations* from millions if not billions of light years away. Compared to DE or Inflation theory however, it's really "fairly" acceptable IMO.

We'll have to wait and see how it pans out. If dark energy and dark matter fail, so be it. I don't know why you are so animated about this whole thing.

The problem is that "dark energy" is pretty much guaranteed to "fail' to show up in the lab. According to the theory, it's affect on the solar system is negligible, and it has no effect on a physical experiment on Earth. Nobody has clue where it even comes from. Inflation is supposedly dead/gone/nonexistent now so it's never going to have an effect on physical things here and now.

 

[ben m]

I agree with you that there is 'missing mass' to account for based on that study (and other studies as well). You cannot be sure from here that it is not composed of ordinary matter however.

Nope. We've been through this before. We went through every possible configuration of normal matter and ruled them all out.

It's not stars. (Emit light.)
It's not diffuse neutral gas. (Collisional + light-absorbing)
It's not diffuse plasma. (Collisional + light-emitting)
It's not some mid-density clumping of gas, too loose to be a hot star but with empty space between (who ordered that? Anyway, emits IR and absorbs everything)
It's not a small population of supermassive black holes (would disrupt the Galactic disk)
It's not stellar-mass black holes or neutron stars (microlensing).
It's not compact object of any size down to ~Moon mass (microlensing)
It's not asteroid-sized objects (Collisional enough to see)
It's not dust-sized objects (collisional + light-absorbing)

You profess to believe that "ordinary" matter could hide. But when it comes time to look for it, somehow you've acquired a brain fog that makes the actual properties of dusts, gases, plasmas, stars, etc. utterly unknowable.

 

[Aepervius]

I agree with you that there is 'missing mass' to account for based on that study (and other studies as well). You cannot be sure from here that it is not composed of ordinary matter however. You're assuming that it's exotic in some way based on a whole host of other assumptions that are frankly off topic in this thread.

Hum. no. The assumption that it cannot be normal matter are based on the fact that if it was normal matter, the observation we do would be different. just like if we assume EU, the observation we do are not in agreement with it.

That is why dark matter/dark energy comes in. And why EU is rejected.

But feel free to harp on, while you get repeated why EU do not match the observation.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Nope. We've been through this before. We went through every possible configuration of normal matter and ruled them all out.

It's not stars. (Emit light.)

You cant even *SEE* small stars in distant galaxies! You *ESTIMATE* them based on the number of 'larger' ones, and I've already provided articles that show you underestimate the small ones by up to a factor of FOUR.

It's not diffuse neutral gas. (Collisional + light-absorbing)

I also provided a paper showing the universe is twice as "dusty" as you originally estimated, meaning that there are LOTS MORE STARS in galaxies than you "estimated" too.

It's not diffuse plasma. (Collisional + light-emitting)

Again, this *ASSUMES* homogeneous layouts of matter that are *HIGHLY UNLIKELY* in PC theory.

I won't bother to go through the rest since we're seriously off topic at this point.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Hum. no. The assumption that it cannot be normal matter are based on the fact that if it was normal matter, the observation we do would be different. just like if we assume EU, the observation we do are not in agreement with it.

An EU/PC orientation means you have to 'give up' the notion that mass is evenly distributed in interstellar space. The plasma's are likely to be "threaded" and "bunched", not homogeneously spread out as is ASSUMED in standard theory. This complicates things dramatically.

That is why dark matter/dark energy comes in. And why EU is rejected.

DE is a whole different topic IMO, and I don't personally any problem with "missing mass' concepts, just "exotic matter" theories that completely lack any empirical support at this point in time.

But feel free to harp on, while you get repeated why EU do not match the observation.

Lerner's presentations put us "in the ballpark". It's not as "refined" as one might get with 'magic' stuff, but it's at least a respectable position. The fact the mainstream *INSISTS* on comparing *empirical physics* to "magic" however, makes this pretty much an unfair fight. A PC proponent can't just "make up" gap filler to stuff into the gaps like the mainstream does on a regular basis.

 

[nvidiot]

Michael, I know for a fact that you have had this explained to you countless times, but do you even understand why cosmologists don't think the "dark" matter is normal baryonic matter?

_{As my laymans mind understands it the "dark" in "dark matter" means that it doesn't appear to give off any electromagnetic radiation we can detect, which all baryonic matter does in one form or another, but its presence can be detected through gravitational effects. So we can't directly "see" it in the sense that we can capture photons this mass would give off if it was normal matter, but we can tell by careful, repeated and consistent observation and measurement that something with a lot of mass is affecting galactic spin rates. Does that make sense?}

 

[ben m]

You cant even *SEE* small stars! You *ESTIMATE* them based on the number of 'larger' ones, and I've already provided articles that show you underestimate the small ones by up to a factor of FOUR.

Stars that are numerous enough to be dark matter, but too dim to emit light, fall under the microlensing search. There are enough of them to be interesting for the stellar IMF, nowhere near enough to be dark matter.

I also provided a paper showing the universe is twice as "dusty" as you originally estimated, meaning that there are LOTS MORE STARS in galaxies than you "estimated" too.

Nope. You're just fiddling around the edges. 2x as dusty does not mean 100x more stars.

Again, this *ASSUME* homogeneous layouts of matter that are *HIGHLY UNLIKELY* in PC theory.

Nope. I made exactly the statement I wanted to make. On the continuum between totally-smooth-gas to gas-in-knots-as-dense-as-stars, there is no inhomogeneity you can imagine which makes gas invisible---not in sufficient quantities.

 

[Drachasor]

I agree with you that there is 'missing mass' to account for based on that study (and other studies as well). You cannot be sure from here that it is not composed of ordinary matter however. You're assuming that it's exotic in some way based on a whole host of other assumptions that are frankly off topic in this thread.

You can rule out ordinary matter, because ordinary matter reacts a particular way to such collisions. What we see through gravitational lensing is that there is something producing gravity which does not act like stars, gas, plasma, planets, or the like. Again, the bullet cluster is a prime example of this, because how the stars behave vs. gas, etc is very clear, and yet the gravitational lensing shows the majority of the mass was unaffected by the collision (despite the fact stars and gas were extremely affected).

 

[Michael Mozina]

Michael, I know for a fact that you have had this explained to you countless times, but do you even understand why cosmologists don't think the "dark" matter is normal baryonic matter?

As my laymans mind understands it the "dark" in "dark matter" means that it doesn't appear to give off any electromagnetic radiation we can detect, which all baryonic matter does in one form or another, but its presence can be detected through gravitational effects.

I would say that is an accurate representation of the term *TODAY*. I've seen it morph however over the last 30 years. The "dark matter' theory I was exposed to was mostly along the lines of "MACHO" forms of dark matter. It's 'morphed' over the years to include SUSY particle physics theories (non standard particle theory).

So we can't directly "see" it in the sense that we can capture photons this mass would give off if it was normal matter, but we can tell by careful, repeated and consistent observation and measurement that something with a lot of mass is affecting galactic spin rates. Does that make sense?

The idea "makes sense" to a point. The "point" of failure comes in the lab. To this point in time no 'cold dark matter' with all the necessary 'attributes' (cold for instance) has ever been seen in a particle physics experiment. It's therefore no different than say "string theory" or "MOND" theory. There's "some very limited" support at the level of mathematics, and zero support at the level of actual physics.

I simply do not believe that our current technologies allow us to 'rule out' all other possibilities with any accuracy.

 

[Skwinty]

I won't bother to go through the rest since we're seriously off topic at this point.

Michael,
Whatever you say is on topic for this thread...

Sorry, could not resist, you left the door wide open.

 

[Michael Mozina]

You can rule out ordinary matter, because ordinary matter reacts a particular way to such collisions.

If we make a half dozen *ASSUMPTIONS* about the mass layout perhaps, but only if we *ASSUME* things we cannot physically demonstrate. We know that there is 'missing mass'. Ruling out "normal" matter is whole different issue. I'll grant you that there is likely "missing mass" to account for. I see no evidence that any of that missing mass exists in "exotic" forms of matter.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Michael,
Whatever you say is on topic for this thread...

Sorry, could not resist, you left the door wide open.

It really irks me that I actually enjoy your sense of humor even when it's at my expense.

 

[Skwinty]

It really irks me that I actually enjoy your sense of humor even when it's at my expense.

No matter what people say about your scientific expertise, you are still a winner in the persistence and stamina stakes.

For that you have my respect.

 

[Michael Mozina]

No matter what people say about your scientific expertise, you are still a winner in the persistence and stamina stakes.

For that you have my respect.

Ya, I'd probably be bored silly if nobody disagreed with me.

 

[Michael Mozina]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/science/space/17univ.html
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=2287

It's extremely hard for me as a skeptic to believe that you already know with any *PRECISION* how much ordinary matter is "out there" when I read these sorts of articles.

 

[Drachasor]

If we make a half dozen *ASSUMPTIONS* about the mass layout perhaps, but only if we *ASSUME* things we cannot physically demonstrate. We know that there is 'missing mass'. Ruling out "normal" matter is whole different issue. I'll grant you that there is likely "missing mass" to account for. I see no evidence that any of that missing mass exists in "exotic" forms of matter.

What you are doing here is clutching at imagined straws to try to justify a rejection of current cosmology. Again, we can SEE how the various types of visible mass react in the Bullet Cluster. We can SEE how the stars act. We can SEE how the gas reacts because it gets energized through the collision. We can also see that how these masses react only play a small role in the gravitation lensing, clearly indicating that there is mass that doesn't react to electromagnetic radiation there.

You're the one here proposing invisible faeries to explain things, in actuality. Scientists have carefully determined that normal matter cannot account for the masses we observed (dim stars and gas would produce notably different galaxies than we observe). This was a long and drawn out process, and something they were forced to admit reluctantly. That's what 30 years ago they weren't talking about it, because they were still convinced normal matter could account for everything. This wasn't some flight of fancy, and there's some firm theoretical ground from particle physics and symmetry on where this matter could come from.

You however, reject this careful science and propose invisible "normal" matter that can't be detected by any means and makes up the vast majority of a galaxy's mass, yet even in high-energy collisions doesn't show itself or act like the other matter present.

"Magical ordinary matter" is what is truly ridiculous.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Nope. You're just fiddling around the edges. 2x as dusty does not mean 100x more stars.

Well let's just "assume" then that since everything is twice as bright as you first thought, you underestimated the large stars by a factor of 2. That stellar recount paper now suggests that you grossly underestimated the number of smaller stars by a whopping factor of 8 (4 x 2)! How then can you tell me you *KNOW* how much "normal" matter is "out there"?

 

[Drachasor]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/science/space/17univ.html
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=2287

It's extremely hard for me as a skeptic to believe that you already know with any *PRECISION* how much ordinary matter is "out there" when I read these sorts of articles.

The thing is, even if predications were off by a factor of 10 or more, it still would produce nearly enough mass.

 

[Skwinty]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/science/space/17univ.html
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=2287

It's extremely hard for me as a skeptic to believe that you already know with any *PRECISION* how much ordinary matter is "out there" when I read these sorts of articles.

You must remember that the more objects there are out there, the more space there is for all the dark matter to hide in.

 

[Michael Mozina]

What you are doing here is clutching at imagined straws to try to justify a rejection of current cosmology.

Not at all. I explained which parts I specifically reject on empirical grounds which does not include any of the lensing data by the way.

Again, we can SEE how the various types of visible mass react in the Bullet Cluster.

You see how "neutral gasses/plasma" might react because that is all they are really looking for. That study would suggest that the bulk of the "missing mass" is found in the galaxy infrastructure (stars, arms, etc) of the galaxy, not in the plasmas around them.

That's congruent with those two articles I posted earlier by the way that suggests that the mainstream *SERIOUSLY* underestimates the star count in distant galaxies.

We can SEE how the stars act.

How so? We can only 'see' light from one large start in every 2000 or so small stars in a galaxy. We can "assume" that due to the distance between stars in a galaxy (light years), the likelihood of a "direct hit" is pretty small. We might then "assume" most of the stellar infrastructure should "pass on through' the "collisions' processes, and only interstellar plasmas are likely to 'collide'.

How about dealing with those two articles I just posted for Ben.