Dark Stuff

 

 

Dark Matter and Dark Energy.  It’s the stuff that makes up 95% of the mass of the universe, but it doesn’t reflect light, or anything else we can throw at it, so we can’t see it.  It’s a giant mystery.  Nobody can figure out what it is.  We know a lot about the 05% of the universe we can see, but 95% of the mass of the universe is a mystery.

 

We know dark matter and energy are there because our understanding of the universe requires that they be there to make the math work.  We can see how the visible matter behaves and work our way back to how much gravity there must be.  It’s the gravitational force of all this unidentified matter and energy that keeps galaxies together as they spin, instead of flying apart.  That mass has to be there.  Unless our understanding of gravity is wrong. 

 

Instead of looking for dark matter, some physicists are looking at our understanding of gravity.  Is there another way to look at gravity that doesn’t require 95% of the universe to be made up of something we can’t see, smell, touch, or taste.  Really, does it make any sense that all our cosmological efforts have only resulted in the detection of 5% of our universe?  Count me skeptical.  Sure, all the theorizing and calculating that I don’t understand requires these dark things, but I’ve seen situations before where a series of apparently logical steps can lead to an illogical conclusion.  Get one tiny piece of the string of logic wrong and the whole understanding can be wrong.  Maybe there is no such thing as dark matter, and we just need a better understanding of gravity.  Wouldn’t that be cool.  It goes with Occam’s razor too.  The simplest explanation is usually the best.  An explanation of the universe that doesn’t require these mystical undetectable dark forces would certainly be simpler!