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The thing is, your proposed change to the scale has to work exactly like "invisible stuff on the scale." So, we can observe dark matter in the early universe wi
by yk 5y ago
The thing is, your proposed change to the scale has to work exactly like "invisible stuff on the scale." So, we can observe dark matter in the early universe with the CMB, we can observe it in the large scale structure, and we can observe it in rotation curves. And the results of these observations is, that dark matter has to behave like matter, just dark. So your proposed new theory would need to deviate from standard theory in precisely the way an additional matter component would.
- veilrap 5y agoYou're describing a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautology_(logic) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautology_(logic) Dark matter works well because it's designed to fill in the gaps in our current understanding of astrophysics data. Given it's origin it of course can perfectly explain the data, because that's what it was designed to do. However, that doesn't necessarily make dark matter particularly useful for understanding how nature actually works.
- MadcapJake 5y agoThis is not a tautology because it's not being used as a final explanation. It's called "matter" because the observational gaps appear to fit what would be some mass that we're missing and we think of matter as "stuff with mass". It's called "dark" because we can only observe it's gravitational impact and by all other observables, it doesn't show up. > Dark matter works well because it's designed to fill in the gaps in our current understanding of astrophysics data. "Works well" seems like you are looking at it the wrong way. Nobody is touting "dark matter" as a solution. It's the problem itself.