3 ms·
> nobody has yet proposed a reason that so much of the universe would be so oddly invisible to us. IANAP, but it seems pretty consistent with the brane element
by blincoln 11y ago
> nobody has yet proposed a reason that so much of the universe would be so oddly invisible to us.
IANAP, but it seems pretty consistent with the brane element of M-theory to me.
If you have a bunch of 3-dimensional branes sitting next to each other in a hyperdimensional bulk, and gravity is the only force which can pass between them, then of course you're going to end up with what appears to be invisible matter. It's the aggregate mass that has clumped together in the respective 3D branes, as close as is possible to the adjacent branes.
E.g. dropping one dimension, stack some glass sheets and magnets, with the two interleaved. The magnets on one level will be affected by the fields on other levels, but any 2D flatlanders on any given level will be unable to actually see those other magnets. It will be as if some ghostly "dark magnets" are passing right through their own.
- Steuard 11y agoPoor phrasing on my part, I think. Brane models (whether in M-theory or elsewhere) are certainly one way of producing this sort of phenomenon theoretically. (I've done research on branes in both string and M-theory.) But ultimately, what you've described is just as arbitrary as declaring "this quantum field has no electric or color charge": there's no reason known that we'd happen to have those two brane stacks in the right positions to mimic ordinary matter interacting with dark matter. (Why exactly the right branes and intersections to reproduce the standard model? Why also this separate brane or branes at a carefully chosen distance to have meaningful gravitational interactions but not gauge interactions? What stabilizes the separation of the branes over cosmological timescales? etc.)