Does Dark Matter Exist?

Philosophy Forums Science, Technology, and Math
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I’m not a physics expert by no means, so bear with me.

From my understanding, galaxies seem to gravitate toward one another, more than our laws of physics can account for, or mysteriously to certain areas. Scientists have surmised these areas are filled with intangible matter, or at least intangible to our universe, or dimension. A question arises - Why does this undetectable matter affect detectable matter gravitationally, but not in other ways, a question for which there might be no explanation.

Could there be an alternative, physical explanation? Perhaps the universe is filled with gravity zones. Areas of space and time that attract visible matter toward them.

We expect the laws of physics to everywhere be the same, but large bodies (galaxies) might possess a disproportionately powerful attraction, or, is it small bodies (stars, planets) that possess a disproportionately weak attraction. Maybe gravity begins to multiply, rather than add, when a body reaches a certain mass.

Or, scientists may have underestimated galaxy mass. They might be far more dense than we believed. “black holes” (I don’t like that name, it’s missleading) might be to blame for this. hmmm, yet another explanation. Black holes might be responsible. The universe could be teeming with black holes everywhere. Some could have the mass of dozens or even hundreds of galaxies. Black holes that have taken eons to form. Slowly they have consumed dozens or hundreds of galaxies overtime. So why haven’t we been consumed by them? Why hasn’t the earth been consumed by the sun? Perhaps the big bang will occur, if it does occur, when all the black holes in our universe have fused together. They will send all matter back outward. Then, the process will begin all over. Before this happens, because black holes are so few and so massive, from gradually consuming their neighbours, the universe could be concentrated in just a few areas.

If dark matter does exist, one explanation for why we can’t see it, is it might be too small. It only has a collective, gravitational power, it has no power to affect us individually. There may be smaller universes within bigger universe, like Russian Dolls.

Since we cannot currently directly detect whatever’s causing this excess of gravity, we can only infer and assume what it is. My explanations could be just as valid and plausible as the scientists.

On a side not, i think we should rename black holes. I don’t think they are holes, tears in fabric of space time. They’re super massive objects.

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Allow me to clarify what I mean by this…

There might be black holes in our universe, so massive and so dense, entire galaxies might orbit around, or be affected by them. They might have no stars of their own to orbit them. So grand, galaxies are the equivalent of their stars. I will call them, Dark Titans. Do Dark Titans orbit something even more massive and dense, can you imagine?

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Planets orbit stars, stars orbit black holes, what do black holes orbit? The answer, Dark Titans.

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Stars cannot orbit Dark Titans as closely as they can black holes, for Dark Titans are far, far more gravitationally attractive than black holes.

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I’m not keen on these Dark Titans, Lucis. But I do think your OP was getting warm. I’m confident that dark matter is space itself. If you have a region of space with an energy density greater than that of the surrounding space, it will have a gravitational field. That’s something that comes out of general relativity. In 1916 Einstein talked about the energy of a gravitational field resulting in gravity just like any other form of energy, and described a gravitational field as inhomogenous space in his 1920 Leyden Address.

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Are you saying that a gravitational field itself creates more gravitational fields…? That gravity causes itself?

I thought Einstein’s argument was that gravity is curvature in the geometry of space-time, not that gravity is some sort of “energy source”. Or are you saying that space-time itself is such a (potential?) energy source? That gravity is one manifestation of the potential energy enclosed within the space-time itself? This would seem more along the lines of what Tesla talked about.

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Pretty much. In The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity on page 185 of Doc 30, 3.6 Mbytes, Einstein says “the energy of the gravitational field shall act gravitatively in the same way as any other kind of energy”.

That’s what people say, but when you actually read the original material you don’t actually see Einstein say “gravity is curved spacetime”. See arxiv.org/abs/physics/0204044 for more on this.

It isn’t quite like that. Gravity is the effect. A gravitational field is a region of space where the spatial stress-energy density decreases with altitude.

Yes, only it’s better to say space rather than space-time, and stress-energy rather than potential energy. Einstein talked about this too. See his 1920 Leyden Address.

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My hunch is, space and time are not things, anymore than things are space and time. I don’t believe space can be curved or torn, I never understood this about Einstein. Now you’re telling me he never held that belief… that confirms my suspicion.

My gravity zones might do the trick. Areas of space charged with tremendous gravitational power. Perhaps we can someday harness this energy somehow, to travel across the universe.

Well, I can’t think of any other alternate explanations at this time, can you? Dark Titans or gravity zones. Any particular reason you’re not keen on them, or just a hunch?

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The other explanation is, the universe might operate differently for different sized and types of objects. Quantum objects, as far as we can tell, don’t behave like our objects, so if the really small behaves in strange ways, why not the really big?

There might be different sets of principles governing different parts of the universe, just as different countries have different constitutions. Must the universe be monological, It could be polylogical?

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First off, galaxies are moving away from each other, not toward, from my understanding. Clusters of galaxies are, or will eventually, band together because of dark energy. Dark matter and dark energy are not space, as they do not behave like space, and are not visible because they react to photons differently. The visible universe is only a small percentage of the entire universe. At less black holes are micro, they are detectable, and have been seen in photos. Also, be careful when you talk of ‘sets of principles’, as principles alone would not exist. For instance, gravity is not actually caused because of some ‘Natural Law’, the ‘Law’ is just used for our lack of understanding why gravity occurs (for instance, gravity could be caused by string theory). Laws, or principles, do not actually exist. What exists is causation.

Now, what do you mean by ‘DarkTitans’? You seem to mean at first that ‘Dark Titans’ are black holes big-enough to influence galaxies. But later, you say black holes orbit around ‘Dark Titans’. As far as I know, black holes are static, and only move because space is expanding, though I could be wrong on that. Also, yes, the sub-atomic world behaves differently. But in relation to size, even black holes are still close to our own size, I believe, when compared to how small the sub-atomic world is. I would say the ‘really big’ would be the universe as a whole. Space and time are not things, as all things are within space and time, and as far as I know, there are not arguments that they are things. Or do you mean that you don’t think they can be influenced? Also, why do you call them Dark Titans? Are they the dark matter/energy equivalent to a black hole? And how exactly would ‘Gravity zones’ solve what? Also, how would an area be charged with a gravitational pull?

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It isn’t quite so black and white, Lucis. Space is a “thing”, time isn’t. But it still exists. And space can be curved. It’s just that when people say “Einstein told us that gravity is curved spacetime” they aren’t being quite straight with you.

You’re missing something here - the electromagnetic interaction is far stronger than gravity.

Yes.

Lots of reasons.

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I’m utterly baffled by such questions, I see them again and again, the nature of the question itself offends me.

It should be VERY notorious that no one has found Dark Matter yet!!! IF!!! …it’s found, it would be louded and proclaimed all over the world!

Why do people keep asking questions which they should know the answer to? Is it attention whoring?

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Of course, no one has definitively proven it’s existence, hence the word “dark” and the question mark in my title. It has been inferred by scientists and inferrences can be subjected to criticism. However, in the documentaries I’ve watched (I already freely admitted I’m no physics expert), scientists seem to treat dark matter as if it is the only possible explanation for the astronomical anomalies. My purpose was to conjure up some alternative explanations for the anomalous data and ponder their feasibility and implications… is that so wrong?

I don’t like your attitude. The others seemed to think it was a decent question, if you don’t like it, go, get lost.

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Naw, I think Einstein’s theory is silly and superfluous, Newton’s theory does just fine.

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Or because of Dark Titans.

What’s the difference?

Yes and no. Black holes are to stars, what Dark Titans are to black holes. My theory is, at some point during a black holes life, it either fizzles out and dissipates, or it metamorphosizes and transforms into something more massive, more dense and blacker, a Dark Titan.

My theory is, there’s a black hole at the center of every galaxy. Clearly, black holes and their stars are attracted toward one another, in addition to being attracted to Dark Titans.

Exactly, I don’t think space and time can go somewhere. Space doesn’t move, matter and energy move within space.

Because they’re invisible and enormous.

No, because they’re in this dimension/universe. They’re tangible.

A concentration of gravitons despite a lack of matter within an area of space.

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Bye bye.

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The difference between causation and a principle, is that a principle needs a reason. Things arn’t just attracted to bigger things because of a law. Something is making that happen.

I suppose that is possible. For instance, if energy cannot be destroyed, where does it go? The answer could be the large amounts of energy cause the black hole to get bigger.

I understand this belief, and once felt the same way about time. However, we can move within space (such as walking, or driving in a car). However, movement is only relative (though you may not agree about that), so are we not moving relative to space? And if we are moving relative to space, is space not always moving, then? Though, if motion is relative, I suppose no one’s really moving.

Dark matter is in our universe/dimension, otherwise we wouldn’t even have the little knowledge we have of it. Some say the matter came from another universe, but that is only speculation.

How would you have gravitons without matter?

Like String Theory, we may never “find” dark matter. It’s not like an astroid will hit the earth, and scientists will say “Yup, that seems to be dark matter”. The nature of the question offends me, too, because it’s like asking ‘Do things unknown exist?’. We have seen large amounts of something undetectable in the universe. The only way we have learned about it, is because of it’s effects on other things. We call it Dark Matter, because we do not know what it is, but have various theories. Dark Energy is the same, as something unknown is pushing the visible universe into jumbles. Once again, though, it is called Dark Energy, because it is undectable, and unknown what it exactly is.

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The fact that smaller things are attracted to bigger things, is a natural law, in my books.

Precisely, at some point, black holes must explode and die or continue growing, possibly imploding (like stars) at some point during their growth.

This is a logical fallacy. If person x is walking to the east of a tree, you could ask, is he moving to the east, or is the tree moving to the west? But if person y is walking west of the tree at the same time as person x is walking east of the tree, you couldn’t ask, is the tree moving east for person y and west for person x? The tree can’t be moving in two directions at once, illogical. Therefore, it is not the tree that is moving, it is person x and y that are moving. After having witnessed countless scenarios such as this throughout the duration of our lives, we have a pretty good grasp of who and what is and isn’t moving and when. Is this what Einstein believed?

I haven’t figured that part out yet. Farsight seemed to have an idea.

Then why call it dark matter? Calling it matter means you know something about it. How do you know it’s matter? Maybe it’s energy, maybe it’s a force without matter or energy, maybe it’s something else entirely, something we can’t even comprhend, something the likes of which we’ve never encountered before. No Ahriman, it is you and Hex that have offended me. It ought to be called the X-force or the Y-factor.

Curious, what jumbles? You mean galaxies and galaxy clusters? That would be Dark Titans and The Big Black, my friend… well, at least that’s my theory.

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If this is what Einstein believed, then perhaps the universe is revolving around the earth. After all, based on my research (admittedly limited), acentrism is accepted more on philosophical grounds than on empirical/mathematical grounds. Scientists and philosophers said, it’s difficult to believe billions of planets and stars rotate around our planet, what makes us so special? From an aliens perspective, planet earth probably revolves around his planet. The same reasoning and principles can be applied to all people, places and things.

Take this for example. Say 100 people (including myself) are simultaneously spinning in a room. It would be foolish of me to think - all of them are rotating around me, but I am stationary. So it seems you/Einstein want me to reject the notion of ego/geocentrism when it comes to astronomy, but embrace the notion of ego/geocentrism when it comes to my position in space.