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Here's an alternative theory about dark matter. Warning: this is not a proven physics model. Everything in the universe can be considered to be either light/el

Here's an alternative theory about dark matter. Warning: this is not a proven physics model. Everything in the universe can be considered to be either light/electricity or magnetic (basically an electromagnetic wave). One cannot exist without the other. Using the above as a base, you can think of vacuum as "noise", basically equal ("minimal") amounts of oscillating magnetic waves that connect and stretch across the whole universe, just like the background radiation. And you could also think of it as a sort of "medium" through which information travels. Then you can think of objects/particles as our perception of "standing waves". So under this model, the planets can be described as clumps of light/electricity, sorounded by a "magnetic vacuum". The interesting thing is you can then consider dark matter to be everything magnetic that is not light. However, it all in the end depends on the observer (us), because any light also has a magnetic component and viceversa, so "dark" just means "not in the human-visible light spectrum". But in reality not a single bit of space is "dark", that's just our (very limited) perspective/perception. So if you ask me what dark matter is, I would say it's just the same stuff as everything else, it's already all around us, but we just can't see it with our human eyes.

nablaoperator 7y ago
No, please refrain from calling this a 'physics' model. It's just playing with words.
- ta1234567890 7y ago
  Interesting, what's the definition of "physics model"? Also, can anything in written form not be called playing with words?
  - drdeca 7y ago
    There is a difference between “playing with words” and “just playing with words”. If something is said to be “just”/only “playing with words”, this suggests that there is “no meat to it”, that it doesn’t actually describe something coherent and actionable. Things can, of course, include both real and actionable content, and also wordplay.
  - krapp 7y ago
    > Interesting, what's the definition of "physics model"? A model which is based upon physics, which itself is (according to Wikipedia,) "the natural science that studies matter, its motion and behavior through space and time," and which, being a natural science, ascribes attributes and behavior to the material world and its processes through experimentation and mathematical inference. >Also, can anything in written form not be called playing with words? What "playing with words" means in the context of your former comment is that what you presented was a fantasy which ignored any of the observed and known principles (read: actual definitions) of the terms being used, and the science which led to them. Alternative theories for dark matter are all well and good (MOND[0] is popular) but your alternative only makes sense if one neither knows, nor cares, about actual physics. We already know that planets are not clumps of electricity and light surrounded by a magnetic vacuum which is the medium in which information travels. That's not physics, it's word-salad, it doesn't even make sense. That said, I still upvoted your comment because ridiculous as it is, fringe theories for dark matter aren't uncommon and they can and should serve as a basis for discussion, not just be quashed. It's understandable that people are uncomfortable or unsatisfied by dark matter and dark energy - particularly since the "dark" in those terms refers to the nature of the phenomena being unknown, and they seem counter-intuitive and humans (and perhaps CS/engineering types in particular) want the universe to not just be intuitive, but elegant and simple. Unfortunately, the more we study it, the less sense it makes. To reference XKCD[1], the universe isn't built in Lisp, it's hacked together in Perl. But that doesn't mean we should just throw out what we know and start again on first principles until we have a model that makes sense to us first, and describes reality second. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_dynamics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_dynamics [1]https://xkcd.com/224/ https://xkcd.com/224/
    - ta1234567890 7y ago
      That was a very fair and insightful comment. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond intelligently and respectfully. Now, regarding physical models, you are assuming there is a universal truth or reality that is the same for everyone. And that is just a belief. I don't think you can force anyone to believe something. You are also free to believe in whatever you want to believe.
  - hos234 7y ago
    Freeman Dyson's essay "Why is Maxwells Theory so hard to understand" is worth checking out. Words are usually not the best medium to talk about abstract stuff.
  - Koshkin 7y ago
    True, which is why we use maths.
  - Sniffnoy 7y ago
    A model has to be precise enough that you can actually draw conclusions from it. Precise: As in, precise enough to be formulated in mathematics. Conslusions: Actual, externally-visible conclusions, not just "conclusions" about how the terms you yourself have defined relate.
russdill 7y ago
It sounds like you read the word "dark matter" and didn't do any research beyond that. It's not just that we can't see dark matter, it's that it interacts very weakly with the electromagnetic field. It doesn't even react with itself very much. At the risk of suggesting other leaps based on the name, a better layman's term would be "ghost matter".

nablaoperator 7y ago

No, please refrain from calling this a 'physics' model. It's just playing with words.

ta1234567890 7y ago
Interesting, what's the definition of "physics model"? Also, can anything in written form not be called playing with words?
- drdeca 7y ago
  There is a difference between “playing with words” and “just playing with words”. If something is said to be “just”/only “playing with words”, this suggests that there is “no meat to it”, that it doesn’t actually describe something coherent and actionable. Things can, of course, include both real and actionable content, and also wordplay.
- krapp 7y ago
  > Interesting, what's the definition of "physics model"? A model which is based upon physics, which itself is (according to Wikipedia,) "the natural science that studies matter, its motion and behavior through space and time," and which, being a natural science, ascribes attributes and behavior to the material world and its processes through experimentation and mathematical inference. >Also, can anything in written form not be called playing with words? What "playing with words" means in the context of your former comment is that what you presented was a fantasy which ignored any of the observed and known principles (read: actual definitions) of the terms being used, and the science which led to them. Alternative theories for dark matter are all well and good (MOND[0] is popular) but your alternative only makes sense if one neither knows, nor cares, about actual physics. We already know that planets are not clumps of electricity and light surrounded by a magnetic vacuum which is the medium in which information travels. That's not physics, it's word-salad, it doesn't even make sense. That said, I still upvoted your comment because ridiculous as it is, fringe theories for dark matter aren't uncommon and they can and should serve as a basis for discussion, not just be quashed. It's understandable that people are uncomfortable or unsatisfied by dark matter and dark energy - particularly since the "dark" in those terms refers to the nature of the phenomena being unknown, and they seem counter-intuitive and humans (and perhaps CS/engineering types in particular) want the universe to not just be intuitive, but elegant and simple. Unfortunately, the more we study it, the less sense it makes. To reference XKCD[1], the universe isn't built in Lisp, it's hacked together in Perl. But that doesn't mean we should just throw out what we know and start again on first principles until we have a model that makes sense to us first, and describes reality second. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_dynamics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_dynamics [1]https://xkcd.com/224/ https://xkcd.com/224/
  - ta1234567890 7y ago
    That was a very fair and insightful comment. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond intelligently and respectfully. Now, regarding physical models, you are assuming there is a universal truth or reality that is the same for everyone. And that is just a belief. I don't think you can force anyone to believe something. You are also free to believe in whatever you want to believe.
- hos234 7y ago
  Freeman Dyson's essay "Why is Maxwells Theory so hard to understand" is worth checking out. Words are usually not the best medium to talk about abstract stuff.
- Koshkin 7y ago
  True, which is why we use maths.
- Sniffnoy 7y ago
  A model has to be precise enough that you can actually draw conclusions from it. Precise: As in, precise enough to be formulated in mathematics. Conslusions: Actual, externally-visible conclusions, not just "conclusions" about how the terms you yourself have defined relate.

russdill 7y ago

It sounds like you read the word "dark matter" and didn't do any research beyond that. It's not just that we can't see dark matter, it's that it interacts very weakly with the electromagnetic field. It doesn't even react with itself very much. At the risk of suggesting other leaps based on the name, a better layman's term would be "ghost matter".