Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?

[Wangler]

The first link ignored the fact that the universe is actually mesured to be homogeneous on sufficiently large scales. In addtion it is a not even a scientific preprint (no citations).

The second link is the usual overstated nonsense that we see from the Alternative Cosmology Group. The "analysis" is from Eric Lerner whose expertise in astronomy and cosmology has often been brought into doubt. I will wait until the paper is published and astronomers or cosmologists review it:
Observation number correlation in WMAP data

However Eric Lerner should have read the paper more carefully:
The discussion states the authors position clearly:

In other words - if the sky was observed equally then there would be none of the large scale anomalies that plasma cosmology crackpots like Eric Lerner mistakingly think are evidence for their theory.

When I read that paper, I understood the authors as bringing into doubt the error-managment in the current WMAP datasets, which might have serious implications for any conclusions drawn from those datasets. Regardless of whether those conclusions support LCDM or PC.

 

[Michael Mozina]

All wrong, obviously.

Well, no more than you folks, but at least he wasn't dependent upon mythical entities to find "missing mass". His ideas also suggest the possibility of "dead" Nickel/Iron shells that simply aren't emitting visible light because they are no longer producing energy in their core. I have a sneaking suspicion you'll need to tweak his iron ion calculations, toss in a few dead stellar carcasses and you'll eventually find your missing mass.

They might indeed. But "dead iron suns" are not invisible by a long shot.

You wouldn't recognize them if you saw them in the first place would you? If so, how, and what would you "assume" it to actually be from this distance?

We have the technology to see them but we don't.

Which technology might that be? Who in the industry is actively looking for dead iron and nickel suns? What specific method are they using to identify such objects?

Therefore it is entirely reasonable to conclude that they are not there.

No. It's not "entirely reasonable" to assume you got everything right about you mass calculations and the are somehow "perfect" in every detail. I've seen article recently that suggest that we:

A) grossly underestimate the amount of "dust" and debris in galaxies as Birkeland's ideas would "predict",
B) are using mass calculations that are off by at least a factor of two.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=25444

Then there is the problem of actually figuring out some new law of physics that would allow all those "dead iron suns" to exist at all. Now that's a real example of "marketing hype and empty promises".

You and I have a lot to discuss yet about the solar images, the Doppler image, the RD images, the ones on the video that you haven't seen yet. You'll just have to accept that we haven't scratched the surface yet of that discussion.

FYI, I was reading some of Sir William Herschel's work from 1801. Not only did he use nearly the same technique I used as it relates to sunspots, he managed to do it 200 years ago. He also talked about a crust, recognized the sun/earth energy connection, etc. I haven't even finished the paper yet, but I'm *BLOWN AWAY* and how similar a technique we used to actually "analyze" sunspots. He actually did analyze them too, not just go "flying stuff"? What flying stuff. His work is really amazing in terms of the conclusions he came to, based on many of the same pieces of information I used when looking at sunspot images. I did of course have the benefit of 200 years of technology and tons of satellite images, but even still, he was able to beat me to this realization of a crust and a luminescent cloud like layer 200 years before I realized that was what I was looking at. Amazing stuff.

 

[Michael Mozina]

It certainly doesn't hurt my feelings if my colleagues hold a different point of view to me.

You are a true "gentleman" and "scientist" edd, and I'd say you probably represent 90% of the astronomy industry too in that sense. Most folks are highly professional, and very willing to hear all sides of the argument. They can agree to disagree on "issues", and "ideas" in a logical and rational manner. That's unfortunately not the case with the remaining 10%. They tend to be *HIGHLY* intolerant of dissent. I wish everyone was like you edd, but in the last four years, I've learned a lot about the "dark side" of this industry in a very personal and also impersonal way.

Look for instance at the "rules' posted over at BAUT for a moment. It's not like one can't talk about only iron sun ideas over there anymore. *ANY* and *EVERY* "EU" theory is immediately moved to the witch trial forum (against the mainstream) where the heretic is immediately put on trial and forced to answer endless and often times unrelated questions while the crowd is not even required to answer or respond to any of their key points. After 30 days, the thread is shut down and the topic can *never* be spoken of again at BAUT. If that isn't "cult like" behavior edd, what is? The fear of all things "EU" oriented is palpable in this industry and even demonstrated in their online behaviors.

I wish it were different, and some places (like here or space.com for instance) it is different and more professional. Unfortunately astronomers are human and they have human tendencies that are quite ugly and highly irrational at times. Not everyone keeps on open mind or accepts dissent like you do. You, Tim, DD, and a number of others I've met at space.com have earned my respect over the years. Unfortunately that isn't the case with lots of folks.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Easy, if stars were made of iron and nickel but had the same mass that wouldn't change the dynamics at all (look at Newton's law of gravity).

Well, I actually do accept that idea as it relates to our own sun, so yes, there may be little change in *SOME* instances, but our sun is a relatively small sun.

If they had greater masses than we thought then our understanding of gravity would be wrong... not just on a galactic scale but on a solar system scale!

Sure, which is why I accept that our own sun has the mass we expect it (measure it) to have, otherwise nothing works.

On the other hand that present two other issues that may have an effect on the mass of a galaxy.

In Birkeland's writings, he does some rough calculations about the amount of mass he might expect to find between stars based in "flying ions" based on the amount "iron" that a sun might spew over time. The numbers were so far skewed in the direction of "heavy" he missed the mark by several OOM's. Maybe the idea need to be toned down a bit, but there is evidence of a lot more dust that we first believed was there.

It also raises the possibility of dead "burned out' shells that no longer "light up". You might call them "dark stars".

Through multiple, independent experiments that give the same answer.

The only answer they give is that a galaxy is 'heavier" and more massive than we first suspected. It doesn't demonstrate anything more than that.

Name ten (sensible ones).

More interstellar dust and more dark stars are the two things that I think are the most promising. There is "current flow" to consider of course, but then that should at least be partially (mostly) visible in the "dust" we observe. The electrons might not show up as directly, but the rest of the ions should show up just fine and they would have the most mass.

Because we know the properties of non-exotic matter pretty well. They cannot fill the void.

Well, not with your present "headset" perhaps. From my perspective there are at least two more probable 'culprits'.

If it can't be non-exotic matter it must be exotic.

I think in light of the fact that the galaxies are brighter than we realized and there are other "options", the notion of 'can't be' is highly suspect.

Err. They're not right. That's the whole point! Because the masses calculated from visible matter and the from the rotation curves of galaxies do not agree we must conclude that there must be matter we can't see.

Ok, fine.

Because we can't see it we call it "dark" matter.

Why not call it "missing matter", or "unidentified matter"? Why "assume" any "dark matter" is anything other than ordinary matter you simply can't find?

We know it can't be unexotic matter because unexotic matter would be visible to some degree. Therefore it must be exotic.

Well, it is "visible to some degree". We know galaxies are brighter than we thought.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=25444

Most of the rest seems to be a re-hash and I'd like to hear your response to the "brightness factor" and how that affects your "missing mass".

The bullet cluster data only demonstrates that there is actually "missing mass'. It does not demonstrate that any of that missing mass is in the form of exotic mass.

From the perspective of a "skeptic" the "properties" assigned to your mythical form of mass are entirely "made up". It is not as though you went into a lab, you found direct evidence of a new form of mass, identified several of it's properties, and *THEN* tried to use it in astronomy. Instead, astronomers simply "assumed" a new form of matter exists, they arbitrarily assign it properties specifically designed to make it "fit" the visual evidence they want it to fit, nothing is falsifiable, nor is it verified in a lab. It was literally "made to order".

 

[Michael Mozina]

Inflation is a model we accept because it is required to stabalize the time required to start a universe approximately 14 billion years ago.

Isn't that sort of "arbitrary"? Why does the universe "have" to have been "created" 14 billion years ago?

If inflation was not real, we are left with a lot of time to ''flatten'' all that background energy to about 10,000th of an error.

I've got all the time in the universe.

Suffice to say, it's needlessly fussy, and is itself a creation of an outdated big bang theory. Big bang then is the main one to be concerned about, since if big bang is wrong, then inflation surely is too. But we have a lot of experimental evidence supporting the big bang, the evidence you are looking for.

Have you read Alven's "bang" theory? I put the term in parenthesis because it was a cyclical sort of process, not a 'creation event' per se. It didn't "assume" that all matter condensed to a "near singularity', instead it expanded again when it was maybe 10% of it's current size due to matter/antimatter interactions between galaxies. What evidence is there that all matter and energy was once condensed to a single "point' (smaller than a breadbox)?

Dark Matter is simply a matter which does not experience the elecromagnetic forces

But you didn't "demonstrate" that it does not experience the EM field, you simply *assumed* so because that will fit into the gaps of your otherwise failed galaxy mass estimation theory. That "property" you assigned to the "Dark matter' was "made up" and "made to order". It wasn't something that anyone had ever demonstrated in a controlled experiment on Earth.

so it is not visible to light,

The "invisibility" property is simply an ad hoc assumption that was "assumed" so it would fit right into the mass calculation theory. So was the "property" of passing through ordinary matter unfettered by anything in particularly other than gravity.

however, we have just recently discovered the existence of the axion,

Um how did you "discover' them and was it via controlled experimentation or did you just "Assume"" their existence from distant uncontrolled events?

which is a dark matter candidate. The implications? Who knows, time will tell.

IMO time will tell that old mythical ad hoc creations will give way to real empirical physics. That's the way it has always worked.

 

[Michael Mozina]

If you have a statement from the paper where P.L. Jain and G. Singh claim to have definiely discovered the axion then please produce it.
I suspect that what they say is what the language of the paper's title and abstract suggests: their analysis supports the posibility that axions exist.

Hey, we finally agree on something.

I will admit however that it's the first time anyone has even suggested that they found even a "hint" of a SUSY oriented particle in a controlled experiment. This will definitely need to be scrutinized very carefully. The fact the "evidence" is stored on film however is highly promising IMO.

 

[Wangler]

Galaxy Mass Estimates

If we are talking about galaxy mass, this might be if interest:

Astronomers Karl Gebhardt of The University of Texas at Austin and Jens Thomas of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics have used new computer modeling techniques to discover that the black hole at the heart of M87, one the largest nearby giant galaxies, is two to three times more massive than previously thought.

Weighing in at 6.4 billion times the Sun's mass, it is the most massive black hole yet measured with a robust technique, and suggests that the accepted black hole masses in nearby large galaxies may be off by similar amounts.

 

[Michael Mozina]

If we are talking about galaxy mass, this might be if interest:

Yes, that is of interest alright.

 

[Ziggurat]

What evidence is there that all matter and energy was once condensed to a single "point' (smaller than a breadbox)?

It's the only theory anyone has come up with which is consistent with general relativity, observation, and the assumption of large-scale homogeneity (which, while not provable, certainly looks true).

But you didn't "demonstrate" that it does not experience the EM field, you simply *assumed* so because that will fit into the gaps of your otherwise failed galaxy mass estimation theory.

That is not an assumption at all. It is an observation. Dark matter can be detected (gravitational lensing), but it neither emits, absorbs, nor reflects light. If it interacted with electromagnetism to any significant extent, it would do one or more of those things.

 

[Skwinty]

I will admit however that it's the first time anyone has even suggested that they found even a "hint" of a SUSY oriented particle in a controlled experiment. This will definitely need to be scrutinized very carefully. The fact the "evidence" is stored on film however is highly promising IMO.

Don't expect lot's of support for the film data. Given the criticism of the Spawar CR 39 detector, and they were looking for run of the mill matter.
Just a thought.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Don't expect lot's of support for the film data. Given the criticism of the Spawar CR 39 detector, and they were looking for run of the mill matter.
Just a thought.

I hear you. It's just promising IMO to see anything that "might be" actually useful in making a real scientific case. It's probably not going to go anywhere once the real scrutiny begins, but at least it has some hope of being falsified or verified in the standard scientific manner.

The fact it's data from a controlled experiment is at least is "progress" IMO. Most of the papers that have reported to have found "proof" of dark matter turned out to be pure hype and were based upon uncontrolled distant observations in space. At least this "evidence" comes from a controlled experiment here on Earth, and it has the potential to be verified and/or falsified in the standard manner.

 

[Michael Mozina]

It's the only theory anyone has come up with which is consistent with general relativity,

GR does *NOT* support your case. You're stuffing real GR with mythical entities. That isn't GR anymore, that's Lambda-Gumby theory. All you might imply by GR theory is that mass is *attracted* to other mass. Period.

observation,

You didn't observe "dark energy", you observe "acceleration". You don't observe dark matter, you observe "unidentified mass". You don't observe "inflation" because it's dead and impotent in today's world. You think it's exists based on "blind faith".

and the assumption of large-scale homogeneity (which, while not provable, certainly looks true).

Except for those "dark flows" you mean? The homogeneity argument is extremely WEAK and will ultimately be it's downfall IMO since nothing else could possibly kill it off.

That is not an assumption at all. It is an observation. Dark matter can be detected (gravitational lensing),

All you detect via lensing is "matter". You have no evidence from such data that any of that missing mass is in any way related to exotic or invisible forms of matter.

but it neither emits, absorbs, nor reflects light.

I wonder if you noticed that last article about a black holes being much larger than first realized? I wonder if you noticed that galaxies are twice as bright as we thought? How can you know exactly why you don't see specific photons over the distance of millions or billions of light years?

If it interacted with electromagnetism to any significant extent, it would do one or more of those things.

How handy that you can simply "make up" properties of this material as you go, without regard to any sort of empirical test of concept.

While it's theoretically possible that some aspect of SUSY particle theory will some day pan out, can you even tell me where "dark energy" or inflation even comes from? How could we even design a controlled test to demonstrate either one of these things? About the only hope you have of demonstrating any of the beloved trilogy of mythical entities is SUSY theory and that is a longshot at best. We can't even design experiments to test the other two parts of your mythical trilogy because one is now dead, and the other is shy around matter.

 

[Ziggurat]

GR does *NOT* support your case.

Yes it does. You asked about the big bang, not dark matter or dark energy. Neither of those is needed in general in order for a big bang theory. And a big bang theory is, once again, the only theory (or, more properly, class of theories) consistent with what I mentioned. Noticeably absent from your response was any alternative.

All you might imply by GR theory is that mass is *attracted* to other mass. Period.

Nope. GR only allows certain solutions for cosmologies. These solutions are further limited if we assume homogeneity. Of these solutions, all non-static solutions involve a big bang. Static solutions are unstable, and are contradicted by observations. Quite simple, really.

You didn't observe "dark energy"

Don't need to. All I need from observations is to note that they are consistent with large-scale homogeneity, and inconsistent with static solutions.

The homogeneity argument is extremely WEAK and will ultimately be it's downfall IMO since nothing else could possibly kill it off.

If homogeneity is wrong, then all sorts of alternatives exist. I don't think anyone has ever denied that.

All you detect via lensing is "matter". You have no evidence from such data that any of that missing mass is in any way related to exotic or invisible forms of matter.

Exotic? Not necessarily (though non-exotic alternatives such as MACHOs have been tested and appear very unlikely). Invisible? Well, yes: it's rather obvious that the stuff is invisible because we can't see it. That's pretty much the definition of invisible.

I wonder if you noticed that last article about a black holes being much larger than first realized? I wonder if you noticed that galaxies are twice as bright as we thought? How can you know exactly why you don't see specific photons over the distance of millions or billions of light years?

It's not a matter of not seeing specific photons: it's a matter of not seeing any photons from locations where we know there is lots of mass. Whatever that mass is, whether it is exotic or not, it's dark, because we cannot see it. Hence, dark matter. Lots and lots of dark matter.

How handy that you can simply "make up" properties of this material as you go, without regard to any sort of empirical test of concept.

I haven't made up anything. Rather, we have observed two properties which we take as defining properties: it has mass, and we cannot see it. I make no further claims than that. But those properties are observed properties, not made up.

While it's theoretically possible that some aspect of SUSY particle theory will some day pan out, can you even tell me where "dark energy" or inflation even comes from?

Don't need to in order to conclude the big bang is the most likely class of cosmologies. To disprove the big bang, you've got to do one of two things: show that GR is fundamentally wrong (good luck), or show that the universe is very inhomogenous even at large scales.

 

[Singularitarian]

Isn't that sort of "arbitrary"? Why does the universe "have" to have been "created" 14 billion years ago?



I've got all the time in the universe.



Have you read Alven's "bang" theory? I put the term in parenthesis because it was a cyclical sort of process, not a 'creation event' per se. It didn't "assume" that all matter condensed to a "near singularity', instead it expanded again when it was maybe 10% of it's current size due to matter/antimatter interactions between galaxies. What evidence is there that all matter and energy was once condensed to a single "point' (smaller than a breadbox)?



But you didn't "demonstrate" that it does not experience the EM field, you simply *assumed* so because that will fit into the gaps of your otherwise failed galaxy mass estimation theory. That "property" you assigned to the "Dark matter' was "made up" and "made to order". It wasn't something that anyone had ever demonstrated in a controlled experiment on Earth.



The "invisibility" property is simply an ad hoc assumption that was "assumed" so it would fit right into the mass calculation theory. So was the "property" of passing through ordinary matter unfettered by anything in particularly other than gravity.



Um how did you "discover' them and was it via controlled experimentation or did you just "Assume"" their existence from distant uncontrolled events?



IMO time will tell that old mythical ad hoc creations will give way to real empirical physics. That's the way it has always worked.

I'm very sorry, for i do not say this to many people..

..but.. .... you are a head-fry.

 

[Michael Mozina]

I'm very sorry, for i do not say this to many people..

..but.. .... you are a head-fry.

Since my intent is to get people to think for themselves and I have no idea exactly what you meant by that comment, I'll just take it as a compliment.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Yes it does. You asked about the big bang, not dark matter or dark energy.

Actually the "target" of my thread was the whole Lambda-CDM theory, not one individual piece of it. Technically I see your point, but my dislike of the Lamda-CDM theory is it's severe reliance upon *MULTIPLE* "fudge factors", not just one.

Neither of those is needed in general in order for a big bang theory.

Well, if you mean we might get movement from a point without them, well, ok. I guess for that you only need a mythical, density defying, now dead entity called inflation.

And a big bang theory is, once again, the only theory (or, more properly, class of theories) consistent with what I mentioned. Noticeably absent from your response was any alternative.

I do not need an "alternative" to reject any theory on any scientific topic based upon the lack of evidence for any theory, or evidence that directly refutes that theory. The rightness and/or wrongness of your theory, and my ability to judge the scientific merits of your theory is unrelated to my ability to provide an alternative.

Nope. GR only allows certain solutions for cosmologies. These solutions are further limited if we assume homogeneity. Of these solutions, all non-static solutions involve a big bang. Static solutions are unstable, and are contradicted by observations. Quite simple, really.

It's not the simple really. You *OVERSIMPLIFIED* it. Its only "unstable" if no other factors (like persistent current flow) affect the movements of objects in space. If there are other factors involved, a stable physical universe is entirely possible. You can't tell from GR alone whether or not there are other influence (like current flow) that have an effect on objects in space.

Don't need to. All I need from observations is to note that they are consistent with large-scale homogeneity, and inconsistent with static solutions.

The universe could simply be homogeneous because it is naturally that way (for whatever reason), not necessarily because "inflation did it". What about those "dark flows"? Did you just ignore them or what? How do you know inflation actually works like your math formula predicts and claims?

If homogeneity is wrong, then all sorts of alternatives exist. I don't think anyone has ever denied that.

The homogeneity idea itself is *ASSUMED* based on a mythical property that Guth gave to a mythical, density defying inflation field. You can't demonstrate inflation actually creates homogeneity, you expect me to *ASSUME* that with you because you say so and you have a two bit math formula that claims it has that effect. Let's see you physically demonstrate a link to inflation and homogeneity and show that inflation does actually exist and have the homogeneous effect you claim it has.

Exotic? Not necessarily (though non-exotic alternatives such as MACHOs have been tested and appear very unlikely).

FYI, I accept MACHO explanations for 'missing mass' as being scientifically valid options. Whether these theories work or not is another story, but at least you aren't making up new or exotic forms of matter in an ad hoc manner by proposing MACHO forms of "dark matter".

Invisible? Well, yes: it's rather obvious that the stuff is invisible because we can't see it.

We might not be able to see LOTS of things for lots of reasons, like planets in distant galaxies. It does not mean that these things are "invisible" to photons. "Dark", as in "unseen" and "invisible to photons" are two entirely different issues and claims. One requires no special demonstration of concept, whereas the other claim does require a demonstration of the claim.

It's not a matter of not seeing specific photons: it's a matter of not seeing any photons from locations where we know there is lots of mass.

So. Do you see photons coming from something as big as Jupiter in distant galaxies?

Whatever that mass is, whether it is exotic or not, it's dark, because we cannot see it.

Sure, but there are lots of things in space we still cannot see directly based on the current limits of our technology. So what? The fact we don't see something doesn't mean it's not there, and not composed of ordinary matter.

Hence, dark matter. Lots and lots of dark matter.

The term "dark" can imply "MACHO" forms of matter. I don't have any problem with "dark" matter, it's only the SUSY "invisible" stuff I'm complaining about.

I haven't made up anything. Rather, we have observed two properties which we take as defining properties: it has mass, and we cannot see it. I make no further claims than that. But those properties are observed properties, not made up.

The observation that we cannot observe photons from distant mass is not evidence that invisible fairies must exist at that location. You'll need to explain why you're sure we *SHOULD* see photons from "dark" or "small" objects like planets, even relatively large planets, or iron shells of stars. While we can observe the effect of mass on distant objects we have no idea why we observe no photons from that mass. It could simply be (and probably is) related to current limitations in technology.

Don't need to in order to conclude the big bang is the most likely class of cosmologies. To disprove the big bang, you've got to do one of two things: show that GR is fundamentally wrong (good luck),

GR as Einstein taught it does not include dark matter or dark energy, so your point related to GR is moot.

or show that the universe is very inhomogenous even at large scales.

You never demonstrated that "inflation" exists or existed, or could or would have the homogenous effect you claim. I have to simply "have faith' in your mythical mathical dead inflation diety based on pure faith in your math formula alone. No physical test of concept is now even possible evidently. You don't get the high ground on that issue until or unless you can physically demonstrate your claim in controlled experimentation. Until then I have no faith in your math formula, and I have no faith that your math formula is in any way related to the homogeneous (or otherwise) layout of matter in the natural physical universe. You literally created a "supernatural" entity in your creation mythos that does density defying tricks for breakfast and then inconveniently hides from us and doesn't interact with us for the rest of eternity.

 

[Tim Thompson]

Quantitative

I have a sneaking suspicion you'll need to tweak his iron ion calculations, toss in a few dead stellar carcasses and you'll eventually find your missing mass. ... You wouldn't recognize them if you saw them in the first place would you?

We most certainly would! First, as I have already pointed out, if there were any "dead iron suns" anywhere in the halo of the Milky Way, then they would have been detected by gravitational microlensing observations. We know from that source alone that there are not enough MACHOs of any kind, iron or not, to account for the total non-luminous mass of the Milky Way.

Furthermore, your "dead iron suns" would stand out like hot ovens in the infrared, but are not seen there either.

Furthermore, it is not physically possible to create "dead iron suns" anyway, so the discussion of such things is moot.

Furthermore, with you it's always the same thing; you "guess", you have a "sneaking suspicion", or you insist that something must be so because it "looks like it". You have never once made any concrete, quantitative statement about anything. You think the sun has a "crust", yet you can't say anything about it; you don't know where it is, you don't know what it is made out of, you can't produce even one single observation that shows the crust on the sun, you can't show even one single "controlled laboratory experiment" that even suggests that such a thing is possible, and you totally ignore the fact that the laws of thermodynamics make it physically impossible. You insist that the EUV emission from loop footpoints comes from below the photosphere, not because you can point to any single quantitative observation of such a thing, but because the pictures "look like" that's what happens.

Is that really the best you can do? Is that all you can do? Hunch? Feels like? Looks like? Guess? Sneaking suspicion?

 

[Reality Check]

Actually the "target" of my thread was the whole Lambda-CDM theory, not one individual piece of it. Technically I see your point, but my dislike of the Lamda-CDM theory is it's severe reliance upon *MULTIPLE* "fudge factors", not just one.

Just to repeat what Michael Mozinaalready knows but chooses to ignore.

There are no *MULTIPLE* "fudge factors" in the Lambda-CDM model.

The Lambda-CDM model is the Big Bang theory plus the addition of the observations of dark matter (which you do not seem to have any problem with so long as it fits your preconceptions) and dark energy, plus the addition of a theory (inflation) whose predictions are supported by observations.

As far as anyone has been able to determine this entire thread is based on Michael Mozina's dislike of mathematics rather than physics. If he cannot understand it then it must be wrong.

ETA: Don't mention negative pressure or MM's head will explode !

 

[Tubbythin]

Well, I actually do accept that idea as it relates to our own sun, so yes, there may be little change in *SOME* instances, but our sun is a relatively small sun.

Depends how you categorise it. If you say the ratio of a star's mass to that of some big star you can think of (say Betelgeuse) then yes its pretty small. However, if you were to order all the stars up by ascending mass the Sun would be something like 9/10ths of the way to the end (IIRC).

Sure, which is why I accept that our own sun has the mass we expect it (measure it) to have, otherwise nothing works.

On the other hand that present two other issues that may have an effect on the mass of a galaxy.

In Birkeland's writings, he does some rough calculations about the amount of mass he might expect to find between stars based in "flying ions" based on the amount "iron" that a sun might spew over time. The numbers were so far skewed in the direction of "heavy" he missed the mark by several OOM's. Maybe the idea need to be toned down a bit, but there is evidence of a lot more dust that we first believed was there.

It also raises the possibility of dead "burned out' shells that no longer "light up". You might call them "dark stars".

Dead stars still radiate. The time for a white dwarf to become a black dwarf is billions upon billions of years.

The only answer they give is that a galaxy is 'heavier" and more massive than we first suspected. It doesn't demonstrate anything more than that.

The lensing observations certainly do.

More interstellar dust and more dark stars are the two things that I think are the most promising.

Interstellar dust isn't invisible. MACHOS are ruled out by weak lensing observations.

There is "current flow" to consider of course, but then that should at least be partially (mostly) visible in the "dust" we observe. The electrons might not show up as directly, but the rest of the ions should show up just fine and they would have the most mass.

I don't know what you mean here.

Well, not with your present "headset" perhaps. From my perspective there are at least two more probable 'culprits'.

Your above suggestions are ruled out by observations.

I think in light of the fact that the galaxies are brighter than we realized and there are other "options", the notion of 'can't be' is highly suspect.

I don't see how. You've failed to provide any other viable options and even if we have the brightness completely wrong it cannot explain the rotation curves.

Why not call it "missing matter", or "unidentified matter"?

Its called dark matter because its matter that's dark. Calling it "unidentified matter" would also be fine but its longer to write. Missing matter would be somewhat misleading since its not missing at all. In a sense its the exact opposite of missing; we can detect that its there so its not missing.

Why "assume" any "dark matter" is anything other than ordinary matter you simply can't find?

"We're" not assuming anything. And we can find it. In fact galactic rotation curves tell us pretty accurately where it is. And like I said, it doesn't exhibit the properties of ordinary matter therefore it cannot be ordinary matter (unless you want to reject the last 100 years of lab study of ordinary matter).

Well, it is "visible to some degree". We know galaxies are brighter than we thought.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=25444

That article is about dust.

Most of the rest seems to be a re-hash and I'd like to hear your response to the "brightness factor" and how that affects your "missing mass".

It cannot explain the rotation curves.

The bullet cluster data only demonstrates that there is actually "missing mass'. It does not demonstrate that any of that missing mass is in the form of exotic mass.

Yes it does.

From the perspective of a "skeptic" the "properties" assigned to your mythical form of mass are entirely "made up". It is not as though you went into a lab, you found direct evidence of a new form of mass, identified several of it's properties, and *THEN* tried to use it in astronomy.

"Entirely "made up"" as in based on repeated observations in multiple independent experiments. Sounds like a pretty weird definition of "made up" to me.

Instead, astronomers simply "assumed" a new form of matter exists,

Incorrect. I think the popular theory used to be MACHOS (though I could be wrong). But this has been conclusively ruled out by lensing observations. It cannot be ordinary matter therefore it must be, by definition, exotic matter. No assumption involved whatsoever.

they arbitrarily assign it properties specifically designed to make it "fit" the visual evidence they want it to fit,

Well it would be pretty stupid to assign properties to it that don't match observation wouldn't it?

nothing is falsifiable, nor is it verified in a lab. It was literally "made to order".

WIMPS are falsifiable, axions are falsifiable, heavy neutrinos are falsifiable... Stating that these are not falsifiable is either:
a) grossly miss-informed.
b) a lie.
I'm assuming the former. The paper Edd linked to yesterday describes some of these things though.

 

[Tubbythin]

Well someone sure is paying attention to this thread and I'm the one that started squealing. This thread that I started now has nearly 30,000 views. Someone is certainly interested in this topic and others also believe that Lambda-CDM theory is woo. I'm not the only pig that is squealing, that is certain.

http://www.cosmologystatement.org/

I missed this yesterday. The cosmology statement... again. Even after its been explained to you that the most respected scientists on this (maybe) are dead. That most of the people on the list aren't particularly qualified in this area of physics. That it also includes a fundamental religious nut or two. That petitions hold no sway in science whatsoever; what science looks at is evidence. That this is a tactic commonly employed by creationists (with serious egg-on-face consequences). And yet you still choose to repost this thing? Seriously, why?