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'Cosmic radio' detector could discover dark matter within 15 years

(phys.org)
34 points rbanffy | 4 comments | 17 Apr 25 12:26 UTC | HN request time: 0.214s | source
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resource0x ◴[19 Apr 25 15:31 UTC] No.43737088[source]▶
Dark matter is a pseudo-scientific variant of the "God of the gaps". Rather of acknowledging an obvious (default) assumption that the laws of Universe (including all "constants") depend on local conditions, the community prefers spending inordinate amounts of money on nebulous ideas.
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vihren ◴[19 Apr 25 15:39 UTC] No.43737143[source]▶
We do have a pretty substansive evidence that dark matter exists: from the cosmic background radiation, gravitational lensing, galaxy formation simulations, galaxy rotation curves, etc.

Why is it so hard for people to believe that there are some particles that are not interacting with electromagnetism that we haven't detected directly yet? It's not even a precedent, the neutrino is just like that.

I guess the name "dark" matter was a mistake because it implies something weird, when in fact it just means whatever this is, doesn't have electric (or chromo) charge.

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1. DoneWithAllThat ◴[19 Apr 25 17:13 UTC] No.43737768[source]▶
Not trying to be a mindless skeptic but your “why is it so hard” question seems bizarre to me. It seems quite understandable that it’s hard for people to believe there’s a particle responsible for a significant percentage of all matter in the universe that we have no direct evidence of and the only reason it’s believed to exist at all is because a lot of otherwise well-understood equations and observations require it to exist.
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2. tekla ◴[19 Apr 25 18:12 UTC] No.43738231[source]▶
If people understood that the last 200 years of science has shown that we are still utterly ignorant about the underpinnings of the universe, they might accept it better.

But we are not very well educated so yeah, they will doubt it for no good reason other than "it doesn't feel right"

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3. dventimi ◴[19 Apr 25 19:24 UTC] No.43738758[source]▶
"If people understood that the last 200 years of science has shown that we are still utterly ignorant about the underpinnings of the universe"

That's a bit of an exaggeration, don't you think?

"But we are not very well educated so yeah, they will doubt it for no good reason other than "it doesn't feel right"

That's also an exaggeration. Laypersons are under no more obligation to understand the details of the scientific professions than scientists are to understand the details of, say, the legal profession. A healthy skepticism within the general public is harmless and even helpful if it maintains an interest in science. I would just gently urge people not to veer from skepticism into dogmatism.

4. dventimi ◴[19 Apr 25 19:31 UTC] No.43738816[source]▶
"the only reason it’s believed to exist at all is because a lot of otherwise well-understood equations and observations require it to exist."

I mean...those are pretty good reasons. If a particular theory successfully predicts more out of "a lot" of observations than any other competing theory does, and is a smaller departure from "a lot" of existing theory than any other competing theory is, would you choose to spend your career researching those competing theories?