The search for dark matter

[Cypress]

Leads to decent philosophical questions: Planck's constant, the cosmological constant, the gravitational constant - where do they come from? Is it beyond the realm of science to even understand their essence and origin? Is this the limit of science and reason? Is the universe finely tuned and balanced on the edge of a razor, or is it impossible for these physical constants to take any other value other than what they are?

Is There Really A Cosmological Constant? Or Is Dark Energy Changing With Time?

According to physics, the universe and everything in it can be explained by just a handful of equations. They’re difficult equations, all right, but their simplest feature is also the most mysterious one. The equations contain a few dozen parameters that are – for all we presently know – unchanging, and yet these numbers determine everything about the world we inhabit.

Physicists have spent much brainpower questioning where these numbers come from,

whether they could have taken any other values than the ones we observe,

and whether their exploring their origin is even within the realm of science.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.for...with-time/amp/

[Bubba]

"... Early humans kept dinosaurs as pets.

Um ... Didn't they??

[Cypress]

Um ... Didn't they??

Only in the Flintstones, and at the Republican's Creation Science Museum in Tennessee.

[Cypress]

Hopefully dark matter is some kind of boson energy field. It would be a total nightmare if we learned there is something fundamentally wrong with Newtonian gravitational mechanics.

Dark-matter detector result is consistent with previous hint of exotic particles

New data from the PandaX-II particle detector in China leave open the possibility that the XENON1T experiment in Italy has found evidence of new physics. In June 2020 researchers working on XENON1T announced the detection of around 50 events above background levels and concluded that hypothetical solar axions or very magnetic neutrinos might be responsible. The new results from PandaX-II are consistent with these hypotheses but further work will be needed to settle the issue.

The events reported in 2020 involved electron, rather than nuclear, recoils. Elena Aprile of Columbia University in the US and colleagues reported 53±15 such recoils at low energy that they could not tie to other identifiable sources of background (these events themselves being considered noise in the search for WIMPs). Careful not to claim any discovery, researchers instead laid out several possible explanations for the observation.

These explanations included two novelties associated with particles arriving from the Sun – either hypothetical particles known as axions (postulated originally to fix a problem with the strong nuclear force) or neutrinos with a greater magnetic moment than previously observed. Another possibility, they said, was “bosonic dark matter”, which would be absorbed, rather than scattered, by the xenon nuclei and cause electrons to be emitted.

https://physicsworld.com/a/dark-matt...tic-particles/

[Cypress]

-------------------------------------------------
Dark Matter’s Last Stand

A new experiment could catch invisible particles that previous detectors have not

Scientists are fond of saying negative results are just as important as positive results, but after several decades of not finding something, researchers can be forgiven for feeling impatient. Back in the 1990s, experiments began trying to detect the particles that make up dark matter, the ubiquitous yet untouchable invisible material that apparently fills the cosmos. Since then, physicists have found more and more evidence that dark matter is real but not a single sign of the stuff itself. A new version of the long-running XENON experiment that started up late last year aims to finally break that pattern.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...rs-last-stand/

[Bulletbob]

All of the natural world, all of reality, is composed of quantum fields. What we think of as particles is a convenient fiction.

Sidebar: My prediction for the top five discoveries of the next 20 years:

Discovery of dark matter
Discovery of dark energy
Discovery of habitable exoplanets
Discovery of Ghengis Kahn's tomb
Unification of quantum mechanics and general relativity

maybe in 100 years

[Cypress]

maybe in 100 years

I doubt it will take 100 years, but it depends on the expectations one has for what counts as an explanation -- a scientific explanation, or a deeper ontological understanding.

Dark matter may just require a modification of Newtonian mechanics. Even if it is expression of some exotic particle physics, I would be surprised if we have to wait until the 22nd century to find out.

Dark energy might just be an expression of Einstein's erstwhile cosmological constant, although that explanation would probably preclude us from a deeper ontological understanding.

I think it is possible there are people in Mongolia who know where Ghengis Khan's tomb is, but they are not talking. There are spiritual and cultural reasons to keep it secret for now.

We are probably less than a decade from developing tools and techniques to observe biosignatures in the atmospheres of exoplanets, so I doubt we will have to wait until the 22nd century to to observe habitable alien planets.

I was just guessing about a grand unified theory for general relativity and quantuum mechanics - but it would be disappointing to wait to the 22nd century for that.

[Bulletbob]

dark matter is of yet beyond expiation and will be something we may not comprehend for may decades if not longer . we need to actually find some to understand it and its not floating around like neutrinos.

we are just discovering true habitual plants is a long way off right now we dont come close to the tec to know for sure whats going om . we may be able to learn more about other planets atmospheres but not from earth and in the end we would have to send something there to know form sure as for bio signatures thats a long way off and again would probably require going there with a probe to learn much .


as for people in Mongolia who know where Ghengis Khan's tomb is,well maybe but I doubt it we cant even find jimmy Hoffa and no one is talking


Dark energy is a complete mystery to me and Im clueless about it

[Cypress]

dark matter is of yet beyond expiation and will be something we may not comprehend for may decades if not longer . we need to actually find some to understand it and its not floating around like neutrinos.

we are just discovering true habitual plants is a long way off right now we dont come close to the tec to know for sure whats going om . we may be able to learn more about other planets atmospheres but not from earth and in the end we would have to send something there to know form sure as for bio signatures thats a long way off and again would probably require going there with a probe to learn much .


as for people in Mongolia who know where Ghengis Khan's tomb is,well maybe but I doubt it we cant even find jimmy Hoffa and no one is talking


Dark energy is a complete mystery to me and Im clueless about it

In physics it almost never takes over a century to confirm an observational hypothesis.

In the history of modern physics it seemingly takes less than 50 years. The Higgs field was hypothesized and confirmed in about 50 years. And actually it only took a few years once we had the correct tools - the Higgs boson was confirmed about only two years after the CERN particle accelerator opened.

Black holes were confirmed within a few decades of when they were originally hypothesized.

The only road block I see is if somehow the Dark Matter hypothesis is somehow completely off on the wrong track, and the gravitational anomalies in the universe are actually because we have Newtonian mechanics and general relativity slightly wrong.

[Bulletbob]

^ an attempt at rightwing humour.

^ Sounds like you have never heard of dark matter, which happens to be one of the most important research topics in physics of the last 30 years.

You appear to be deficient in rudimentary scientific knowledge. Let me guess, you think climate change is a Chinese hoax, the Earth is 6000 years old, and early humans kept dinosaurs as pets.

You mean the earth os older then 6000 years

[Bulletbob]

In physics it almost never takes over a century to confirm an observational hypothesis.

In the history of modern physics it seemingly takes less than 50 years. The Higgs field was hypothesized and confirmed in about 50 years. And actually it only took a few years once we had the correct tools - the Higgs boson was confirmed about only two years after the CERN particle accelerator opened.

Black holes were confirmed within a few decades of when they were originally hypothesized.

The only road block I see is if somehow the Dark Matter hypothesis is somehow completely off on the wrong track, and the gravitational anomalies in the universe are actually because we have Newtonian mechanics and general relativity slightly wrong.

black holes were theorized in 1916 the first one discovered was 1971 the first photo of one was 2019 and we still dont know what they really are. so over a 100 yers has gone by and we still dont know that much about them and they are simple compared to dark matter and dark energy

[evince]

Dark matter. That sounds racist and you therefore are a racist you racist!

Well, that is how the Progressive Left rolls these days isn't it?

Only in the perception of a Russo bot hole

[evince]

black holes were theorized in 1916 the first one discovered was 1971 the first photo of one was 2019 and we still dont know what they really are. so over a 100 yers has gone by and we still dont know that much about them and they are simple compared to dark matter and dark energy

But you guys hate science remember


All the scientists are bought according to you

[evince]

In physics it almost never takes over a century to confirm an observational hypothesis.

In the history of modern physics it seemingly takes less than 50 years. The Higgs field was hypothesized and confirmed in about 50 years. And actually it only took a few years once we had the correct tools - the Higgs boson was confirmed about only two years after the CERN particle accelerator opened.

Black holes were confirmed within a few decades of when they were originally hypothesized.

The only road block I see is if somehow the Dark Matter hypothesis is somehow completely off on the wrong track, and the gravitational anomalies in the universe are actually because we have Newtonian mechanics and general relativity slightly wrong.

And Bush43 turned down the building of it in the USA

[Cypress]

black holes were theorized in 1916 the first one discovered was 1971 the first photo of one was 2019 and we still dont know what they really are. so over a 100 yers has gone by and we still dont know that much about them and they are simple compared to dark matter and dark energy

No, people noticed a strange mathematical consequence of Einstein's theory of general relativity shortly after it's publication in 1915.

But nobody hypothesized that it would manifest as a region of space we could potentially observe -- aka, the hypothesis of black holes was not published until the 1950s.

Sure we have a lot to learn about black holes. But they have been confirmed.

For that matter, we really do not fundamentally know why mass causes gravity. We can just describe the gravitational effect mathematically as curvature of space-time. We still have a lot to learn about gravity 400 years after Issac Newton.

And that is precisely why I was crystal clear about drawing a distinction between what counts as a scientific explanation, and true ontological knowlege.