Pensive wrote:
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Man invented the word "God" yes... but I wouldn't say that we invented waht it is anymore than Franklin invented electricity...
If noone had observed electricity in the first damn place, I really don't see it existing at all.
Same with god :D
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Dark matter is the new 'ether'.
I brought this up with an astrophysics professor once, asking upon what grouds exactly man could seriously consider the presence of dark matter rather than just perhaps establishing a new paradigm based on new physics. I'm quite aware that a little bit of knowledge, especially in cosmology, can be a dangerous thing, but the answer of "well our current laws of gravity apply well enough for earth, so logically they apply to the entire universe" as just a tad unsatisfactory.
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Yes EP, that's an invitation for schooling.
Edited, Jun 29th 2006 at 3:01pm EDT by Pensive The above statement that "well our current laws of gravity apply well enough for earth, so logically they apply to the entire universe" is a bit misleading. Most cosmologist use as much data as they can to determine that very question: "Do the basic laws of physics apply universally", and to assume that dark matter research is based on this, contridicts the very essence of the research.
In fact, current Big Bang cosmology requires several seconds of super-c acceleration of the universe's matter to account for current expansion. Meaning that current physical limitaions in place by our quantum foundations may in fact have been radically different.
Dark matter, is simply a name for an unknown amount of mass in the universal expansion equation. But you are right, our current results violate either basic gravity(the expansion is not relative to the amount of observable matter), or it violated the constant speed of light.
One answer: The constant speed of light is relative to the limiting structure of the quantum particles that make up that energy.
Answer two: There is a bunch of "dark matter" that is not observable and accounts for the expansion rate.
idk, take your pick, or insert option number 3.