"I was caught in a Dark Matter hurricane!" Topic

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I asked Jumping Jack Flash for advice on how to deal with it. He told me that it's all right. In fact it's just hitching along with gas.

But it's all right now…..in fact it's a gas.

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I think we need to see live, on-the-spot Weather Channel personalities leaning into the dark wind as it strikes.

The front of the "hurricane" may already be here. Also here is the abstract of the original paper, for those who can understand it.

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Was that the Dark Matter storm surge I felt last night around 9:45?

I know they said it's harmless, but they could be wrong. I'm gonna stand outside and hope I get superpowers…..

I'm still not on board with the dark matter/dark energy theories. Show me some real evidence, not just pretty equations on a black board that people THINK explain what we are seeing in the universe.

I'm still not on board with the dark matter/dark energy theories.

Sure, but be careful you don't conflate the two. Dark matter has some pretty good evidence for it's existence. Gravitational lensing and the movement of galaxies are but two examples. These are observations that indicate the presence of a, yet unseen and not fully understood, phenomenon. Here is an old archived website from Nasa:

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Another well documented observation is the accelerated expansion of the Universe. Obviously, something is counteracting the gravitational force that the matter should be experiencing. The expansion should be slowing down due to gravitational attraction. So an unknown and unseen force is pushing the matter away at increasing speeds. So the scientists simple fabricate a placeholder name to this and that is Dark Energy. So we are on very flimsy ground here. But the observations are real.

Now the science is in flux here. A fellow named
Erik Verlinde is making a case against Dark Matter. He calls for a phenomenon called "emergent gravity", which might be a case of Ockham's Razor. I simply don't understand enough of the physics as to whether or not this is a viable alternative. It could be. But right now Dark Matter made of WIMPS seems like the best fitting explanation.

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Bowman, thanks for the article. Definitely a take I hadn't read before, though obviously at the moment it's a bit vague to quite be clear on what he's arguing, but it sounds as if he's suggesting that the orientation of subatomic particles is linked to gravitational attraction and (potentially) the as yet unexplained repulsive force termed as "dark energy"? (That interpretation could be entirely wrong on my part, but as I said, the concept expressed in the article was a bit vague.)

Be interested to see where this concept goes, if anywhere…

Its a Chinese plot.

I think the existence or nonexistence of dark matter or dark energy is not contingent on my belief.
It's not like Tinkerbelle. I made my sister mad when I refused to believe.

Actually, I have a perfectly reasonable alternative explanation for the accelerated expansion of the universe that does not require dark energy.

But I'm not going to tell you what it is because you'll make fun of me :)

PLUS, it will be central to the plot of your next book!

That, too! :) Also, I don't want to share the Nobel Prize with anyone.

Or the Pulitzer. Hugo? National Book Award?

I to have a theory, farting space whales. Force of the farts drive large objects away from eachother.

Actually I have been nominated for the prestigious Darrell Award :)

That's awesome, Scott. Well done.

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