Caption: an interview dialogue
- Are dark matter models unsuited to explain observations? [the "dark matter models" and "to explain observations" parts are poorly edited onto the image, overlaying the original text]
- In my view, they are unsuited.
- Why?
- That's my opinion, don't ask me why.
End of caption
Dark matter is the mainstream among physicists, but internet commentators keep saying it can't be right because it "feels off".
Of course, skepticism is good for science! You just need to justify it more than saying the mainstream "feels off".
For people who prefer alternative explanations over dark matter for non-vibe-based reasons, I would love to hear your thoughts! Leave a comment!
Dark matter is a case of giving a phenomenon a name and then thinking that because it has a name you've explained it. Dark matter isn't really an explanation, it's essentially just a placeholder to say, "Our equations suggest there should be matter here but there isn't, so maybe there's some kind of matter we can't observe? Or something?" It's not an answer or an explanation, it's just a term for an unexplained phenomenon that guesses vaguely about it what might be, and until we can verify the existence of dark matter through other means and explain why it defies other observations, it's little more than a placeholder and cannot be treated as settled science. This isn't really out of line with the mainstream view, the mainstream view is just that there aren't any better explanations (yet) so that's what we're stuck with (for now).
Yeah it's not settled by any means. Far from it.
But the hypothesis that it exists and is some kind of matter is pretty well supported through observing gravitational effects.
But isn't that the whole reason that the concept was developed in the first place? It's not very sound to come up with a hypothesis to explain an observation and then rely on that same observation to support the hypothesis. The concept needs to be able to predict and explain new observations, or else it has no utility and is still essentially just a placeholder.
You talked about, like, "vibes-based reasons," but is there a reason to accept the explanation of dark matter aside from vibes? If it's just about feeling satisfied that you have an explanation for the phenomenon, that's vibes. Like, relativity, you have to accept and account for or GPS wouldn't work nearly as accurately as they do. But everyone could reject the hypothesis of dark matter and it wouldn't really change anything.
Explanations for things are a dime a dozen. There's no real value in having an explanation (other than personal satisfaction, i.e. vibes) for something unless that explanation helps you to make predictions or manipulate objective reality in some way. That's not to say that it couldn't, at some later date, meet those requirements, but at this point dark matter is barely anymore useful than saying a wizard did it - a hypothesis that also explains the observations perfectly well while being only slightly less congruous with the rest of our understanding of physics.
The concept needs to be able to predict and explain new observations, or else it has no utility and is still essentially just a placeholder.
They first came up with it to explain galactic rotation curves. After that, many new observations came in and the model successfully explained them. To name a few: bullet cluster dynamics, gravitational lensing around galaxies, baryon acoustic oscillation.
Like, relativity, you have to accept and account for or GPS wouldn’t work nearly as accurately as they do.
It is neat that general relativity is used in GNSS, but I'd bet that GNSS could still be invented even if we don't know general relativity. Engineers would probably have came up with a scheme to empirically calibrate the time dilation effect. It would be harder, but compared to the complexity of GNSS as a whole not that much harder.
There’s no real value in having an explanation (other than personal satisfaction, i.e. vibes) for something unless that explanation helps you to make predictions or manipulate objective reality in some way.
You can make a lot of predictions with Lambda CDM. But yeah they're not going to help anyone manipulate objective reality. Even so, >95% of math, astronomy, and probably many other fields of research don't help anyone manipulate reality either. It's harsh to say they have no value, but perhaps you're right.
At least let me say this: finding explanations to satisfy personal curiosity (doing it for vibes, as you put it) is different from projecting personal feelings onto objective understanding of reality (the vibes-based astrophysics I was referring to in the meme).
It's a classic MEMRI TV meme. What MEMRI TV is would require a ..... "nuanced" explanation that I don't want to get into here. Look it up on Reddit or start a thread on !nostupidquestions@lemmy.ml
Im not reading on that specifically right now, but I think one problem with dark matter is that it's not a falsifyable hypothesis and likely never will be. I can make up an explanation over any body of proof of a phenomena and just say that my explanation is due to undetectable things. An alternative theory would be something like stars spinning produce electromagnetic fields which account for the apparent acceleration that's attributed to gravity caused by an invisible mass. You can measure electromagnetic fields and you can refine models of our sun to try and prove it, and then reach for further discovery. Dark matter feels like a well that's that. Can't see it, can't touch it, can't prove it doesn't exist. It should be what remains after we've actually tried explanations based on observed phenomenas. That's just my barely informed take on it.
This is a very fair take, but I'd say dark matter is harder to falsify, but not totally unfalsifiable.
You can't see it, true. But what makes sight so special? We can't smell stars either. You just need to sense dark matter in some other way. Namely gravity! We have seen the way visible matter orbit, and that points to dark matter. We have seen gravitational lensing due to dark matter. Hopefully soon we'll observe gravitational waves well enough to sense dark matter around the regions the waves are being emitted from.
Most individual dark matter models are falsifiable (and many have already been falsified) through non-gravitational means too. People have been building all sorts of detectors. The problem with this is that detectors are expensive and there are always more models beyond any detector's reaches.
MOND is a wonderful way to explain rotation curves but since then with new observations (bullet cluster, gravitational lensing, ...) MOND doesn't really hold up.