Dark Matter
The current cosmological model only works by postulating the existence of dark matter – a substance that has never been detected, but that is supposed to constitute approximately 25% of all the universe. But a simple test suggests that dark matter does not in fact exist. If it did, we would expect lighter galaxies orbiting heavier ones to be slowed down by dark matter particles, but we detect no such slow-down. A host of other observational tests support the conclusion: dark matter is not there. The implications of this are nothing short of a revision of Einstein’s theory of gravitation. Why the scientific community is in denial about the falsification of the dark matter model is a question that requires both a sociological and philosophical explanation.
The severity of the mass discrepancy in spiral galaxies is strongly correlated with the central surface brightness of their disks. Progressively lower surface brightness galaxies have ever larger mass discrepancies. No other parameter (luminosity, size, velocity, morphology) is so well correlated with the magnitude of the mass deficit.
The rotation curves of low surface brightness disks thus provide a unique data set with which to probe the dark matter distribution in galaxies. The mass discrepancy is apparent from R = 0, giving a nearly direct map of the halo mass distribution. The luminous mass is insignificant.
Interpreting the data in terms of dark matter leads to troublesome fine-tuning problems. Different observations require contradictory amounts of dark matter. Structure formation theories are as yet far from able to explain the observations.
It is astonishing that there is a deep mystery and controversy about something as apparently simple as the dynamics of our galaxy, the Milky Way. This is not a problem with something esoteric like quantum field theory or general relativity, this is a problem at the level of simple high school physics, ie, Newton’s laws and gravity. It is not about disagreements between theory and experiment of fractions of a percent, but, rather, 5-to-10-fold errors.
I am referring to the problem of the rate of the rotational velocity of gases at the outer fringes of spiral galaxies. The steady state rotational velocity is the resultant of the balance between the centrifugal force and the gravitational force from the mass of the rest of the galaxy. The observed velocity is greater by a factor of two or more than is predicted from Newton’s laws and the known experimental mass density of the stars, gases and dust. To account for this using standard Newtonian theory, it is necessary to postulate that there is some extra missing mass, representing about 75% of the total galaxy gravitational mass, that is made of some exotic particle(s) referred to as “cold dark matter” (CDM). Despite enormous experimental efforts to directly detect CDM, representing hundreds of sophisticated searches using everything from the large hadron collider at CERN to exotic underground detectors, all have come up with absolutely nothing..
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