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from the making-light-work-of-dark-energy? dept.
The first results from a 5-year survey of millions of galaxies have been released:
Researchers have released the most accurate map ever produced of the dark matter in our Universe. The team surveyed more than 26 million galaxies in the largest study of its kind. The map will help scientists understand what dark matter is made from and learn more about another mysterious phenomenon called dark energy.
[...] The survey involves taking pictures of 26 million galaxies across a large expanse of the sky using the Blanco telescope in Chile. To do this, the research team had to build one of the most sensitive cameras ever built. The 570-megapixel camera is capable of detecting light from galaxies that are eight billion light-years away. By studying the way in which the light was distorted by the intervening dark matter, researchers were able to calculate its distribution. And by studying the way in which the distribution changes over time they can calculate the way in which dark energy acts on it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 05 2017, @11:13PM (6 children)
Does dark energy explain anything except the anomalous accelerations?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 05 2017, @11:23PM (4 children)
Do you have a better theory?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 05 2017, @11:47PM
Your question presumes there is a "theory" here...
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday August 06 2017, @03:08AM (2 children)
Quantum inertia.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 06 2017, @07:39AM (1 child)
Which is....?
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Sunday August 06 2017, @04:58PM
physicsfromtheedge.blogspot.com
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 06 2017, @01:09AM
Not at present. As I understand it, it is a ridiculously small effect (basically a small shift in curvature (basically a really small negative/hyperbolic curvature of the universe) that can only be observed at cosmological scales. My WAG is that we'll be more likely to discover the effect that causes dark energy (assuming it's for real, of course) before we observe locally the dark energy effect itself.
But I don't buy that it is actually energy. That name is terrible and based on a flat curvature model that probably isn't applicable.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 05 2017, @11:45PM
Universe #1: "I'm the universe that spawned you, and I say who you can marry!"
Universe #2: "I'm my own universe, dad! And i love him!"
Universe #1: "But he's 96% dark matter!"
http://smbc-comics.com/comic/2009-12-11 [smbc-comics.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by RedBear on Sunday August 06 2017, @05:35AM (7 children)
Just a gentle reminder: Including this study, we've been looking for dark matter for decades now and never detected a single particle of the stuff. Not even the most recent and most expensive experiments have detected any actual dark matter. It remains just an imaginary substance for attempting to explain a few strange astrophysical anomalies that don't fit our expectations based on the predictions of General Relativity. But there are a bunch of other anomalies in physics that dark matter could never explain even if it did exist.
On the other hand, there exists a remarkably simple alternate theory, proposed by an astrophysicist and published in multiple papers in multiple peer-reviewed journals, that seems to do an excellent job explaining a number of different physics anomalies including galaxy rotation, all without needing any dark matter or any kind of adjustable parameters. Just one very compact equation. It's called MiHsC or Quantum Inertia. See the author's blog below, where it is explained much more thoroughly than I ever could. Did I mention that he has published papers in scientific journals, which you will find links to from his blog? Yeah, he does. I mentioned that.
http://physicsfromtheedge.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 06 2017, @07:43AM (2 children)
Just a gentle reminder: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html [ucr.edu]
40 points for claiming that the "scientific establishment" is engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike.
40 points for comparing yourself to Galileo, suggesting that a modern-day Inquisition is hard at work on your case, and so on.
40 points for claiming that when your theory is finally appreciated, present-day science will be seen for the sham it truly is. (30 more points for fantasizing about show trials in which scientists who mocked your theories will be forced to recant.)
50 points for claiming you have a revolutionary theory but giving no concrete testable predictions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 06 2017, @01:47PM
You forgot to add points for the incorrect assumption that dark matter and dark energy refer to the same thing. Now, should we go with items 2, 3, or 4 and do we add points for every sentence, or just once for the whole post?
(Score: 2) by RedBear on Sunday August 06 2017, @03:34PM
I knew there would be some jackass who would call "crackpot" without even looking. None of those claims exist in the linked blog.
And -1000 points for dismissing the theory without bothering to read the blog or the published papers, where you would have noticed that MiHsC in fact provides several concrete, fully falsifiable predictions. Ones that we can test for right now, today, with current equipment and data.
On the other hand, neither dark matter nor dark energy are falsifiable. If they don't actually exist we can literally keep looking for them forever and just keep saying we don't have the right equipment to find them. Now, who are the crackpots again?
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 1) by dvader on Sunday August 06 2017, @09:45PM
I tried to find a serious review by a astrophysicist (McCulloch is not a physicist) but the best I could find was this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EmDrive/comments/3hjmtv/my_conversation_with_dr_mcculloch_on_mihsc_some/ [reddit.com]
It is a looong explanation of some of the issues. I was hoping to find something about how his modifications alter/explain/modify existing models like quantum mechanics, relativity etc but it seems like I was hoping for too much.
The full discussion is here
https://www.reddit.com/r/EmDrive/comments/3g4fg3/mcculloch_on_the_emdrive_energy_paradox/cty35ml/ [reddit.com]
(Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Monday August 07 2017, @03:56PM (2 children)
Research on the bullet cluster (and many other studies) refute your assertion. https://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/aug/HQ_06297_CHANDRA_Dark_Matter.html [nasa.gov]
(Score: 2) by RedBear on Monday August 07 2017, @09:16PM (1 child)
Uh, no, I think you've misunderstood the nature of "dark matter". That press release simply shows that some astrophysical anomalies were catalogued, and the authors of the press release _believe_ those anomalies are proof of dark matter, because they are dark matter proponents. Yet it remains a scientific truth that no particle of dark matter has been directly detected. What we've detected are anomalies, and we invented the concept of "invisible stuff that can't be detected" to try to explain those anomalies.
Did you know that according to some of the observations of galaxy rotation, the dark matter would need to somehow distribute itself into a flat disc shape with nothing in the center in order to make the star accelerations make sense? No known physical system in the universe works the way dark matter would have to work in order to get it to explain the anomalies we see. It continues to be a very unscientific, unfalsifiable theory. Magical stuff that gets added in differing amounts and differing shapes to every galaxy in order to explain why the star accelerations don't conform to general relativity.
If dark matter had truly been scientifically proven, we'd all know about it already. It would be the biggest science story of the century, and they wouldn't keep launching new experiments to try and find it. The first paragraph in this article from just a week ago (11 years after the press release you linked to) states that dark matter "has yet to be directly detected".
https://futurism.com/scientists-are-one-step-closer-to-finding-dark-matter/ [futurism.com]
Oddly, we've been "one step closer to finding dark matter" for decades now. Yet MiHsC, with one simple equation, seems to be able to predict not just nearby galaxy rotation anomalies but the even faster rotation anomalies of much older galaxies further out, all without the necessity of dark matter or dark energy. With the right experiments MiHsC could be proven (or just as importantly, disproven) within the next decade.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Tuesday August 08 2017, @03:28PM
I don't believe I have. Perhaps your working with a different definition. Baryonic vs non-baryonic, cold dark matter, warm dark matter, hot dark matter... According to at least one dark matter researcher I've been to lectures for (Dr. Elise Jennings) would consider certain neutrinos as cold dark matter.
And how do the opponents of dark matter explain the anomaly in the bullet cluster if not particles that interact via gravitation but not electromagnetism?
...That we know of yet.
And yet, here we are. It took 50+ years to find the Higgs Boson. We're just now being able to construct devices to detect dark matter/gravitational waves. We've known about gravity practically forever and yet we still don't know the causes or carriers for it. Doesn't mean we should or would stop looking or researching it.