Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Dark Matter My Ass

OK, I'm just an armchair scientist. I don't have a degree. So I'll try to keep this simple and include links to people way smarter than me.

Just a short time ago, our model of the universe began with The Big Bang.



The universe began in a cataclysmic, unimaginably hot and dense explosion. In milliseconds we go from an infinitesimal point, a singularity, to a rapidly expanding universe. Like a balloon being filled with gas.

From it's birth 14+ billion years ago, the universe has continued to expand. The biggest question was whether the universe would continue to expand forever until the last star died and the universe went dark and cold? Or whether there was sufficient gravitational attraction to eventually halt the expansion and even pull the universe back together into The Big Crunch, where the universe would once again collapse into a singularity. Perhaps even to generate another Big Bang and give birth to a brand new universe.

Simple enough.

Without getting into the complexities, I'll just say that in recent years, shit has changed. No, scratch that. Things didn't just change. They got fucking bizarre.

Strange Punchbowl Turd #1: It appears that the universe is mostly invisible. Everything we can see and detect, every planet, every star, every galaxy, every atom that makes up every single object in the observable universe, only accounts for about 0.5% of the matter that should exist according the most bleeding edge cosmological models.

WTF?

Cosmologist and physicists have postulated the existence of Dark Matter to make up this matter deficit. This Dark Matter is supposed to make up the other 95.5% of the universe.

So, 99.5% of the universe can't be seen, detected or measured. But wait, there's more.

Strange Punchbowl Turd #2: It was thought that in an expanding universe that originated in a cataclysmic explosion, the expansion would be slowing. It was just a question of whether it would slow enough for gravity to regain control over the expansion and pull everything back together, or whether the ever slowing expansion would outpace the reach of gravity leaving every bit of matter cold, dark and alone.

But no! That isn't what's happening! The expansion isn't slowing at all. It's accelerating! Over 14 billion years after the initial push of the only source of energy we can explain, "something" is shoving everything in the universe apart from every other thing in the universe at an increasingly rapid rate. Cosmologists and physicists have dubbed this unknown force "Dark Energy".

So, let's recap. Over 90% of the universe is shit we can't see, detect or explain but seems to form the gravitational "scaffolding" or "superstructure" of the entire universe. It is all being shoved apart by some mysterious energy source that we can't detect or explain, but which must be more powerful than anything known to man and seems to defy the laws of known physics and thermodynamics.

I call both bullshit AND shenanigans on Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

Sounds to me like a lot of shucking and jiving, trying to put a familiar face on shit we know nothing about.

It sounds a lot like the theory of Luminiferous aether.

Like I said, I'm not a scientist. But I do have common sense, a sound grounding in scientific theory, and a great bullshit detector.

I'm going to go out on a limb right now and predict that "Dark Matter" isn't really matter, and "Dark Energy" isn't really energy.

My theory is that the observable effects that we attribute to Dark Matter and Dark Energy in our own universe are actually manifestations of a much larger structure made up of multiple universes and extra dimensions.

No, I haven't been smoking crack.

I'm talking about Colliding Brane Cosmology, a.k.a. ekpyrotic cosmology.

"In ekpyrotic cosmology — which was proposed in 2001 by physicists Paul Steinhardt, Justin Khoury, Neil Turok and Burt Ovrut — there is no beginning of time. Instead, our visible universe exists on one of two four-dimensional “branes” floating in a five-dimensional space. These two branes are locked in an endless oscillatory motion in which they creep together, “bounce” through each other, withdraw and then creep together again (see animation: Branes collide). At each bounce, which is like a fresh Big Bang, ripples in the branes collide and liberate energy at different places to produce the initial density perturbations."

The universe is a much larger and stranger place than we can explain today.

But I am absolutely 100% confident that the universe is completely explainable, adheres to consistent laws, and involves no supernatural hocus pocus. Which is exactly what makes it so magnificent, awe inspiring and humbling.

8 comments:

Spyder said...

"Dark Matter My Ass" You talking about skid marks in your boxers? LOL

Satyavati devi dasi said...

What would you do if tomorrow they announced that they found God in the center of the universe?

This is a serious question and I want a serious answer.

Would you call bullshit because it doesn't align with what you already believe?

Honest science involves being willing and able to revise the theory as new data arrive.

Even if it's data you don't want to believe.

May said...

Here! Here!

Xavier Onassis said...

satyavati - I'd have a whole lot of questions for the researchers.

1. How do you know what you found is "God"?

2. If it is "God", which God is it?

3. Is it anthropomorphic?

4. How do you know it's not just an advanced alien?

5. How do you know it's the center of the universe?

6. Is this "God" bound by physical laws?

7. If "God" is not bound by physical laws, do you have repeatable, verifiable evidence of this?

8. If your claim to have located God is true, how does that impact this whole concept of faith that seems to be so important to so many people. If you can see God with a telescope, then you don't need faith.

I'd start with those.

Xavier Onassis said...

OH LOOK! Now we have "Dark Flow" to add to the mix!

"Patches of matter in the universe seem to be moving at very high speeds and in a uniform direction that can't be explained by any of the known gravitational forces in the observable universe. Astronomers are calling the phenomenon "dark flow."

The stuff that's pulling this matter must be outside the observable universe, researchers conclude."

Full article here:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080923-dark-flows.html

Anonymous said...

Spyder you nailed it. In the areas of Dark Matter & Asses, XO's underwear represents a paved highway into a black, or at least a very dark and formidable, hole.

Heh.

Heath said...

This is an old blog evidently, but I found it by googling dark energy bullshit.
I watch a lot of documentaries that keep talking about this new theory. They say that new observational data around 1998 changed all the theories because of type 1a supernova etc.
1998 was not that long ago. I still have underwear that old (seriously). So basically, the last decade plus, theoretical physicists have been scrambling to explain a total shift in what they taught as FACT only a few years ago, that the universe was destined to slow down and cool to a cinder. Yet when I see these guys explaining the new theories on these documentaries, they don't present it as, "hey this is all new and we're still trying to figure it out". They present it in the same way the old theories were presented, as fact. Just as arrogantly and as doubtlessly as before, yet before they were evidently wrong. Why can't scientists present new data and say, hey, give us some time, all theories are out the window, we have no clue right now but we're working on it. No, they have to have SOMETHING to present as FACT, or else their textbooks in their university classrooms would be meaningless BS and students would take physics as a joke class. They have to be arrogant to give their jobs meaning, even if no observable or testable or detectable actual THING can be demonstrated that "is" dark matter or dark energy. I'm getting very disillusioned by science, it's beginning to take on the air of Sunday morning infomercials.

Schrodinger's Kat said...


Got here 6 years late, but dark matter/energy is all over the sci media now.
It's the same friggin bullshit as string/M Theory, another assklownshow.
They think that bec they know a li'l vector calculus, they can say any goddamm thing they want.
Michio Kaku needs to get a real job.
Oh, that's right, he had one, apparently didn't like the concept of REAL scientific work.