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I don't have access to the paper, but it seems to make zero testable predictions and is therefore just mathematical fiction. If it's not falsifiable, it's not s

I don't have access to the paper, but it seems to make zero testable predictions and is therefore just mathematical fiction. If it's not falsifiable, it's not science. EDIT: the last sentence is "Given sufficient redshift (or, equivalently, time) resolution effected by the redshift slicing, one might just find that the Hubble diagram exhibits jumps in the redshift distance relation, which would be very revealing." So they say it's testable. However, we see the effects of "dark matter" (or whatever it really is) today affecting the spin of galaxies, so I don't see how that's compatible with the explanation of these events being "rare".

Xelbair 1y ago
welcome to modern physics, enjoy your stay.
mr_mitm 1y ago
He wants to look for discontinuities in the Hubble relation. Quoting from the article: > Looking to the future of his research, Lieu says the next step to validating his model of the cosmos could come through observations using earthbound instruments rather than something like the James Webb Space Telescope. >"The best way to look for the proposed effect is actually to use a large ground-based telescope—like the Keck Observatory [Waimea, Hawaii], or the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes in La Palma, Spain—to perform deep field observations, the data of which would be 'sliced' according to redshift," the researcher notes. >"Given sufficient redshift (or, equivalently, time) resolution effected by the redshift slicing, one might just find that the Hubble diagram exhibits jumps in the redshift distance relation, which would be very revealing." Not sure how feasible this is though.
ForOldHack 1y ago
I would argue that it is falsifiable. What I think you are looking for is verifiable and repeatable. It took almost 30 years to verify Einstien. He said about the collection of a hundred papers trying to prove he is wrong, "you only need one paper to prove it wrong." It's a therotical paper. Leave it to the expermentaliats to design a test to prove it right. Diffraction gratings prove QED. Right. Feynman's biographer said that.
ColinHayhurst 1y ago
Paper here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.08733 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.08733 TL;DR - replace one big singularity with multiple singularities. As in last sentence there is "The only difference between this work and the standard model is that the temporal singularity occurred only once in the latter, but more than once in the former." tldr
andy_ppp 1y ago
I’ve never really understood how just adding extra invisible stuff to make the equations work is justified either? It seems more likely there is simply something wrong with the equations.
- mr_mitm 1y ago
  This is basically the first and most common objection laypeople have. (In fact, this comes up in every single thread on HN about DM, not exaggerating.) Believe it or not, scientists have thought of that as well. They tried, and nothing fits the data as well as the standard model. The trope is so common that there even is an xkcd for it: https://www.xkcd.com/1758/ https://www.xkcd.com/1758/
  - JackSlateur 1y ago
    A common objection, and for good reason: just because you do not know the right model does not make your bad model somehow true I mean, when you miss 85% of the stuff, you gotta admit that, perhaps, your stuff is wrong And yes, it can work even if it is wrong
    - mr_mitm 1y ago
      Nobody said it's "true", whatever that even means for a model. The claim is that it's the best anyone has been able to come up with. And not for a lack of trying. Everybody also acknowledges that there are issue with DM, it's just that every other known model has bigger issues.
      - JackSlateur 1y ago
        Ha, my bad When you write "this is the [..] most common objection laypeople have", I understood "In contrast with the experts who know better" Of course, if as you say, everybody knows that this is a wrong, specifying "laypeople" seems unnecessary
        1y ago
nodfyr 1y ago
All these papers miss the fact that our main evidence for dark matter (or something like it) is the cosmic microwave background. I see no mention on how this very convoluted model can reproduce it. The evidence is in the oscillations of the primordial plasma seen directly in the CMB. These come from the gravity pulling the plasma and pressure pushing back. Without DM they would be too shallow, DM helps by pulling the plasma gravitationally without opposing the fall with pressure of its own.
- nobody9999 1y ago
  >All these papers miss the fact that our main evidence for dark matter (or something like it) is the cosmic microwave background. I see no mention on how this very convoluted model can reproduce it. I am not an astronomer, but IIUC (and I may not), the first evidence for dark matter was posited by Fritz Zwicky[0] in 1933 based on the rotational velocities of galaxies, work by Vera Rubin[1] confirmed Zwicky's hypothesis in more detail decades later. Since then Rubin's work has repeatedly been confirmed. And while Penzius and Wilson "discovered" the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) a few years before Rubin published her data, (again, IIUC) the CMB was not used as a reliable tool to look for dark matter until better quality data was gathered in the 1980s and 1990s. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Zwicky#Dark_matter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Zwicky#Dark_matter [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Rubin#Rotational_curves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Rubin#Rotational_curves Edit: Clarified prose.
  - andrewflnr 1y ago
    They didn't say it was always the main evidence, just that it now is. I'm not personally sure about that either, but it's definitely one of the major lines of evidence.
- Tagbert 1y ago
  “ All these papers miss the fact that our main evidence for dark matter (or something like it) is the cosmic microwave background. ” There is also the galactic rotation curve evidence. With Newtonian physics, the visible mass in galaxies should rotate faster toward the center and slower toward the edge. This is the rotation curve. We actually observe a very linear curve, where the outer stars and gases rotate at the same speed or even faster than the centers. A dark matter halo would provide the additional gravitational mass for cohesion.
baxtr 1y ago
Not sure why you’re being downvoted. If a theory doesn’t generate at least one falsifiable prediction it’s not a scientific theory.
T-A 1y ago
> I don't have access to the paper https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.08733 https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.08733 > it seems to make zero testable predictions and is therefore just mathematical fiction I'll have a look when I get the time, but the reference to his previous paper really doesn't bode well.

Xelbair 1y ago

welcome to modern physics, enjoy your stay.

mr_mitm 1y ago

He wants to look for discontinuities in the Hubble relation. Quoting from the article: > Looking to the future of his research, Lieu says the next step to validating his model of the cosmos could come through observations using earthbound instruments rather than something like the James Webb Space Telescope. >"The best way to look for the proposed effect is actually to use a large ground-based telescope—like the Keck Observatory [Waimea, Hawaii], or the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes in La Palma, Spain—to perform deep field observations, the data of which would be 'sliced' according to redshift," the researcher notes. >"Given sufficient redshift (or, equivalently, time) resolution effected by the redshift slicing, one might just find that the Hubble diagram exhibits jumps in the redshift distance relation, which would be very revealing." Not sure how feasible this is though.

ForOldHack 1y ago

I would argue that it is falsifiable. What I think you are looking for is verifiable and repeatable. It took almost 30 years to verify Einstien. He said about the collection of a hundred papers trying to prove he is wrong, "you only need one paper to prove it wrong." It's a therotical paper. Leave it to the expermentaliats to design a test to prove it right. Diffraction gratings prove QED. Right. Feynman's biographer said that.

ColinHayhurst 1y ago

Paper here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.08733 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.08733 TL;DR - replace one big singularity with multiple singularities. As in last sentence there is "The only difference between this work and the standard model is that the temporal singularity occurred only once in the latter, but more than once in the former." tldr

andy_ppp 1y ago

I’ve never really understood how just adding extra invisible stuff to make the equations work is justified either? It seems more likely there is simply something wrong with the equations.

mr_mitm 1y ago
This is basically the first and most common objection laypeople have. (In fact, this comes up in every single thread on HN about DM, not exaggerating.) Believe it or not, scientists have thought of that as well. They tried, and nothing fits the data as well as the standard model. The trope is so common that there even is an xkcd for it: https://www.xkcd.com/1758/ https://www.xkcd.com/1758/
- JackSlateur 1y ago
  A common objection, and for good reason: just because you do not know the right model does not make your bad model somehow true I mean, when you miss 85% of the stuff, you gotta admit that, perhaps, your stuff is wrong And yes, it can work even if it is wrong
  - mr_mitm 1y ago
    Nobody said it's "true", whatever that even means for a model. The claim is that it's the best anyone has been able to come up with. And not for a lack of trying. Everybody also acknowledges that there are issue with DM, it's just that every other known model has bigger issues.
    - JackSlateur 1y ago
      Ha, my bad When you write "this is the [..] most common objection laypeople have", I understood "In contrast with the experts who know better" Of course, if as you say, everybody knows that this is a wrong, specifying "laypeople" seems unnecessary
      - 1y ago

nodfyr 1y ago

All these papers miss the fact that our main evidence for dark matter (or something like it) is the cosmic microwave background. I see no mention on how this very convoluted model can reproduce it. The evidence is in the oscillations of the primordial plasma seen directly in the CMB. These come from the gravity pulling the plasma and pressure pushing back. Without DM they would be too shallow, DM helps by pulling the plasma gravitationally without opposing the fall with pressure of its own.

nobody9999 1y ago
>All these papers miss the fact that our main evidence for dark matter (or something like it) is the cosmic microwave background. I see no mention on how this very convoluted model can reproduce it. I am not an astronomer, but IIUC (and I may not), the first evidence for dark matter was posited by Fritz Zwicky[0] in 1933 based on the rotational velocities of galaxies, work by Vera Rubin[1] confirmed Zwicky's hypothesis in more detail decades later. Since then Rubin's work has repeatedly been confirmed. And while Penzius and Wilson "discovered" the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) a few years before Rubin published her data, (again, IIUC) the CMB was not used as a reliable tool to look for dark matter until better quality data was gathered in the 1980s and 1990s. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Zwicky#Dark_matter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Zwicky#Dark_matter [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Rubin#Rotational_curves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Rubin#Rotational_curves Edit: Clarified prose.
- andrewflnr 1y ago
  They didn't say it was always the main evidence, just that it now is. I'm not personally sure about that either, but it's definitely one of the major lines of evidence.
Tagbert 1y ago
“ All these papers miss the fact that our main evidence for dark matter (or something like it) is the cosmic microwave background. ” There is also the galactic rotation curve evidence. With Newtonian physics, the visible mass in galaxies should rotate faster toward the center and slower toward the edge. This is the rotation curve. We actually observe a very linear curve, where the outer stars and gases rotate at the same speed or even faster than the centers. A dark matter halo would provide the additional gravitational mass for cohesion.

baxtr 1y ago

Not sure why you’re being downvoted. If a theory doesn’t generate at least one falsifiable prediction it’s not a scientific theory.

T-A 1y ago

> I don't have access to the paper https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.08733 https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.08733 > it seems to make zero testable predictions and is therefore just mathematical fiction I'll have a look when I get the time, but the reference to his previous paper really doesn't bode well.