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Thousands of physicists, astrophysicists, and astronomers are searching for dark matter, mysterious stuff whose gravity seems to hold the galaxies together. However, an old and highly controversial theory that simply changes the law of gravity can explain a key property of galaxies better than the standard dark-matter theory, one astronomer reports. That claim isn't likely to win over many skeptics, but even some theorists who favor the standard theory say the analysis hands them a homework problem they should solve.
That's a good article about placeholders, worth a read.
Physics has a long history of particles that were predicted based on the math and not detected for years, sometimes decades. But it's not simply physics. Other areas of science have produced evidence that suggests something must be present, but haven't hinted as to what that something must be. These situations, where scientists insert a placeholder for a something they don't understand yet, have sometimes led scientists down the wrong path—phlogiston and aether spring to mind.
But these erroneous placeholders carry the seeds of their own destruction, since they make predictions that the natural world can't fulfill. And, possibly more often, the placeholders turn out to be right, and an understanding of the phenomena behind them revolutionizes our knowledge of the natural world. In this feature, we'll take a look at some of the most successful placeholders in the history of science, and then consider how even a placeholder that has gone wrong can help advance a field anyway.
If you learn much about dark matter, you'll find that pretty funny! Actually it's pretty funny even if you don't know much about it.
The number nine is the missing particle in the universe known as Dark Matter.
He's the guy that claims a proton is more massive than mount Everest. If you want to learn real science then stay away from him, he's a fraud.
Originally posted by windword
I am no scientist, but I was just watching this series on youtube "Nassim Haramein 1/45".
The "standard model" or consensus view hold that about 95-96% of the universe is "missing". The breakdown is roughly:
Originally posted by Illustronic
How does MOND explain the ever increasing expansion of the Universe? Is this where the MOND theory fails? Layman logic would preclude that expansion should gradually slow, by friction caused traveling through not so empty space.
"Mond only explains galaxies - everything else it fails to do or simply can't address."
As important as dark matter is believed to be in the cosmos, direct evidence of its existence and a concrete understanding of its nature have remained elusive. Though the theory of dark matter remains the most widely accepted theory to explain the anomalies in observed galactic rotation, some alternative theoretical approaches have been developed which broadly fall into the categories of modified gravitational laws, and quantum gravitational law