At what point would we consider giving up the chase?

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BeAChooser
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Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:24 am

At what point would we consider giving up the chase?

Unread post by BeAChooser » Wed Mar 01, 2023 6:48 pm

Good question. Apparently asked and answered here ...

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... onal-glue/
The hunt for dark matter: The universe's mysterious gravitational glue

In pursuit of dark matter, researchers are doing everything from burying vats of xenon deep underground to sending a balloon floating above the Antarctic. When will their creativity pay off?

By Michael Brooks

… snip …

We reckon around 85 per cent of the universe’s matter is exotic stuff that doesn’t reflect, emit or absorb light, which is why it is called dark matter. The only force that this hypothetical stuff definitely deigns to interact with is gravity, as far as we know, which makes it incredibly difficult to detect. “When I gave talks on this in the 80s, I was telling people, ‘Oh, we’re going to figure this out in 10 years’,” says Katherine Freese, an astrophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin. Decades later, we are still waiting. “It’s obviously a harder problem than we realised.”
Finding gnomes always is, Katherine.
In the face of that hard truth, dark matter hunters have become ever more inventive. Attempts over the years to pin down what it is made of include burying vats of liquid xenon deep underground, measuring the straightness of lightning bolts, a plan to detect nanoscale explosions in minerals, examining ancient rocks for dark matter scars and checking the James Webb Space Telescope’s observations for “dark stars”. All of which raises the question: are some suggestions for dark matter searches a long shot too far? And at what point would we consider giving up the chase?
Unfortunately, the article goes behind a paywall at that point. I have no interest in feeding the beast more than I already am through taxes, but I can guess the answer with almost 100% certainty. NEVER. They’ll always be some other DM possibility and since they are certain DM exists, they will never give up. Especially not as long at taxpayers are willing to fund their snark hunt.

I did find two interesting twitter comments from or about the article here …

https://twitter.com/newscientist/status ... 1485204480
@newscientist

For some, the fact that pretty much “anything goes” is a sign that the whole enterprise is a wild-goose chase

“You can’t just keep moving the goalposts,” says Stacy McGaugh
@cwru. Now, he is working on the idea that we can explain galaxy rotation anomalies in a different way
It bet his idea has to do with MOND, not plasma physics.
@newscientist

But Katherine Freese, an astrophysicist at
@UTAustin
is loving the hunt for dark matter, which she has been involved with for decades now

“I’m not giving up. In fact, we’re really having fun," she says
Like I said. I’m sure Katherine thinks she has a great job. It probably pays quite well, has tremendous job security, has little real responsibility and she can’t be wrong. Why in these times of growing unemployment and hardship would she should ever dream of giving that up? Just saying ...

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