
Dark matter might be a type of particle not many scientists are looking for - dnetesn
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/january-2015/dark-horse-of-the-dark-matter-hunt
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guscost
Does it bother anyone else when science reporters talk about some hypothesis
endorsed by a lot of people as if it is just a plainly observable thing? A
sentence like this

> Dark matter comprises most of the mass of a galaxy.

means just about nothing. It reminds me of when Richard Feynman was ranting
about the science textbook with "energy makes it go" as the answer to some
questions, and saying that you could just as easily substitute the word
"wakalixes" and it would communicate exactly the same amount of information.
Dark Matter is the popular name for a variable in some models of how fast
galaxies of different sizes rotate. The current definition basically goes
"maybe there is a lot of extra mass that we can't see and somehow doesn't
interact with the visible matter in other ways."

I'm sure it's a very sophisticated hypothesis and a lot of smart people have
good reason to support it, but that's what it is. Why condescend to the
general public by pretending that Dark Matter is some well-defined observable
thing that scientists are simply trying to measure, instead of a proposed
explanation for observations that we don't understand yet?

Maybe it helps get funding, I don't know. This experiment looks neat because
they're having a go at falsifying one model.

~~~
jordanpg
It's a dirty little secret. There are two physics, the public-facing one and
the actual one. The public-facing one is the one that builds and maintains
public interest in physics in the name of maintaining the substantial amounts
of money needed to conduct experiments and get research grants.

This physics is very loosely based on the actual physics, which can't be
understood beyond a superficial level without an appreciable amount of
advanced mathematical training (nothing special: advanced undergrad/basic
grad, but way, way, way beyond what 99.9% of people are conversant on).

The result is metaphors that are barely, tangentially related to the math.
They are evolved, tested talking points: black holes, string theory, warp
drives, dark matter. Any one with any physics training at all has been to
umpteen cocktail parties where they were pumped for information about the "God
particle" or the movie Interstellar, and has bitten the bullet and done their
best.

It is a necessary side effect of a democratic society where funding for the
sciences is tenuous, granted by scientifically illiterate half-wits, where the
public could care less about anything not on BuzzFeed, and where the level of
mathematical literacy maxes out somewhere south of Algebra I.

~~~
stolio
If you can't talk about Interstellar with somebody who doesn't understand
topology, I will gladly do it for you. Maybe they're below you, but they're my
favorite people because they're the people who will get as excited as me about
how stars form and what happens when they collapse and how friggin awesome it
is that the computer simulations in a sci-fi movie were so accurate that Kip
Thorne thinks he can publish a few articles about them[0]. This is _SO MUCH
BETTER_ than having to talk to people about _What the bleep do we know?_

[0] - [http://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-
black...](http://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-black-hole/)

~~~
jordanpg
I didn't mean to imply they're below me, but I do stand by the idea that those
kinds of conversations are only a shadow of the real big picture.

But I definitely raise a glass to preferring Interstellar over What the Bleep.
:) Here, here.

~~~
stolio
I apologize, I was being a bit presumptuous.

When it comes to quantum physics I do see your point.

For astrophysics I view the math as a stepping stone to understanding those
things in the sky that we see at night. In that sense there's a bigger picture
behind the big picture of the physics and we can all share in it. In QM, maybe
not so much.

