33 ms·

Yes, interesting way to look at it. Calling it dark matter/energy also implies the issue is with the theory - we found something that the theory (or equations,

by hnick 7y ago

Yes, interesting way to look at it. Calling it dark matter/energy also implies the issue is with the theory - we found something that the theory (or equations, as per the article) forgot to accurately account for. It kind of implicitly throws out the notion that there could be an issue with the measurement process/tools. Sometimes this type of unconscious framing directs all our minds down the same path making us miss an obvious detour to an insight.

flukus 7y ago
> It kind of implicitly throws out the notion that there could be an issue with the measurement process/tools. AFAIK this was the assumption early on, space dust, black holes/brown dwarfs (MACHOs), weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) and more were the leading theories. These are all normal (for physicists/astronomers) matter that just we couldn't see due to measurement limitations, so dark matter was an appropriate name. Only after all these theories were falsified we had to look at more exotic explanations. Also obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1758/ https://xkcd.com/1758/
- gpderetta 7y ago
  WIMPs is still the leading theory right? The catch is that no candidate P has yet to be found and most models predicting them (Supersymmetry) have fallen out of fashion. But there are still promising and not yet completely discredited ones.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 7y ago
    Yes, though there's a (minor, understood by everyone in the field) issue with the WIMP name: "Weakly Interacting" can lead to confusion that they must interact via the Weak force. They don't strictly need to: they could interact only gravitationally. That would make all the weak-force interaction experiments (big Xenon tanks & the like) fail, leaving only the gravitational evidence.
mytailorisrich 7y ago
To me the concept of dark matter and dark energy reject issue with both the theory and measurements. These concepts assume that both are correct, in which case the answer has to be matter and energy that is there but that we don't see.

by hnick 7y ago

flukus 7y ago

> It kind of implicitly throws out the notion that there could be an issue with the measurement process/tools. AFAIK this was the assumption early on, space dust, black holes/brown dwarfs (MACHOs), weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) and more were the leading theories. These are all normal (for physicists/astronomers) matter that just we couldn't see due to measurement limitations, so dark matter was an appropriate name. Only after all these theories were falsified we had to look at more exotic explanations. Also obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1758/ https://xkcd.com/1758/

gpderetta 7y ago
WIMPs is still the leading theory right? The catch is that no candidate P has yet to be found and most models predicting them (Supersymmetry) have fallen out of fashion. But there are still promising and not yet completely discredited ones.
- SAI_Peregrinus 7y ago
  Yes, though there's a (minor, understood by everyone in the field) issue with the WIMP name: "Weakly Interacting" can lead to confusion that they must interact via the Weak force. They don't strictly need to: they could interact only gravitationally. That would make all the weak-force interaction experiments (big Xenon tanks & the like) fail, leaving only the gravitational evidence.

mytailorisrich 7y ago

To me the concept of dark matter and dark energy reject issue with both the theory and measurements. These concepts assume that both are correct, in which case the answer has to be matter and energy that is there but that we don't see.