More Mainstream Nonsense ...

[BeAChooser]

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... d-why-the/

Collapsing Sheets of Spacetime Could Explain Dark Matter and Why the Universe ‘Hums’

I don't see ANY value to this research at all, yet we're being forced (that's right, FORCED) to pay for it.

[BeAChooser]

https://www.livemint.com/science/physic ... 98569.html

Physicists are reimagining dark matter

After reading that article I’d retitle it …

Dark Matter Physicists Grow Desperate

The leading hypothesis, which goes by the name “Cold Dark Matter" (CDM), suggests that dark matter is a fluid of particles that move sluggishly relative to the speed of light, and interact with each other and everything else in the universe mainly through gravity.

Giving up the ghost

But after more than half a century of fruitless searching, compounded by a string of recent astronomical anomalies, CDM is in trouble.

You don't say Sherlock!

Physicists are gravitating towards a different theoretical framework, known as “Self-Interacting Dark Matter" (SIDM), which proposes the existence of a hidden universe of dark particles and dark forces, that exists in parallel with the familiar particles and forces of normal matter. This dark universe could even have had its own “Dark Big Bang", a birth event that would have taken place some time after the more familiar Big Bang that began the universe 14bn years ago.

In other words, inventing a whole new zoo of gnomes.

The [CDM] theory is agnostic about exactly what particles make up dark matter. But the most promising candidates until now have been known as Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). … snip …

Dozens of highly sensitive detectors have been built around the world to spot WIMPs. … snip … Unfortunately, despite more than 40 years and millions of dollars spent on the search, WIMPs have remained stubbornly elusive.

Make that BILLIONS of dollars. The mainstream wants to downplay how much money they’ve wasted the DM gnome.

That is not the only problem with CDM. … snip …

Two anomalies stand out. The first concerns the structure of galaxies. CDM implies that, since it moves slowly and feels the effects of gravity, dark matter ought to accumulate in unfathomably high densities in the cores of galaxies. But this is not what astronomers observe. The density of dark matter does rise as you travel from the edge of a real galaxy towards its centre. But, several thousand light-years from the middle, the density reaches a plateau and then remains steady all the way to the core.

Gee, they posited the existence of DM based simply on a discrepancy they could explain in the rotation curves of spiral galaxies because they ignored what electromagnetic effects could do, but now that the shoe is on the other foot … now that DM densities are not agreeing with what astronomers observe ... they’re not about to throw the DM baby out with the bath water. BECAUSE THEY MAKE TOO MUCH MONEY OFF THE BABY.

The second anomaly concerns satellite galaxies. CDM implies that large galaxies ought to be orbited by thousands of smaller satellite galaxies. But this is also not what astronomers observe. The Milky Way, and galaxies like it, tend to be orbited by a handful of satellite galaxies and those that astronomers observe are also smaller than predicted by CDM.

It took them over 40 years to learn this? No, I think they just ignored the problem for 40 years.

These discrepancies can be explained by SIDM. Simple versions of the theory propose just one new elementary dark matter particle and one new fundamental “dark force"; in more complex versions there is a smorgasbord of new dark particles and forces, continually interacting with each other.

In other words, a whole new zoo of gnomes is in the works, none of which I predict they will find. But with them, they can keep the golden goose alive for another 20 to 40 years … enough time to pay off all their mortgages and get their kids through college.

One version of SIDM introduces a new dark force that is equivalent to electromagnetism, which is felt by a hypothetical particle with “dark" charge—a dark electron, essentially—that interacts by exchanging “dark photons". Unlike the familiar photon, however, which is massless and carries the electromagnetic force, dark photons could potentially carry a mass.

See? They know they need to include electromagnetism, but rather than just acknowledge the one we know exists, they need a gnome, because then they can do study after study after study where failure to find anything is called a success, and keep lining their pockets and bank accounts.

Beyond solving issues with CDM, SIDM also makes predictions that allow it to be tested against CDM. In the conditions that defined the early universe, but which are thankfully no longer present in the universe today, both CDM and SIDM allow for the possibility of “dark stars".

Another gnome.

These are not stars as we know them today but, instead, solar-system sized clouds of gas in which dark matter and its antimatter counterpart—dark antimatter—waged a war of constant mutual destruction.

Isn’t it ironic that Alfven posited a universe where antimatter still exists and they dismissed it?

Dr Freese has also made the case for a Dark Big Bang that could have given rise to dark matter independently of normal matter in the days after the Big Bang.

That gnome should be worth a new house or two.

One explanation for this is that matter and dark matter did not, in fact, appear together, but that dark matter entered the universe in a second cataclysmic release of energy from the vacuum—the Dark Big Bang—as much as a month after the traditional Big Bang.

Wow! So they already know the Dark Big Bang occurred about a MONTH after the Big Bang. Yet they can’t find dark matter even with all the effects they say that it’s had on the universe? Call me a LITTLE skeptical.

If there was such a Dark Big Bang, it would have left a clear signature—a pattern in the frequencies of the gravitational waves that hum across the universe—that could be picked up by future gravitational-wave detectors.

Finally, there may also be ways to detect self-interacting dark matter directly. The fact that SIDM candidates are considerably lighter than WIMPs means that traditional WIMP detectors, operating in the past few decades, are likely to have missed them. New experiments could change that.

Ka’Ching, Ka’Ching, Ka’Ching. This is going to keep generations of mainstream astrophysicists employed in nice cushy jobs … just like the last few generations. All on the struggling taxpayer’s dime.

For now, however, dark matter remains resolute in its refusal to yield its secrets. Fortunately, physicists are rarely short of ideas. SIDM may not be the one that unlocks the true nature of dark matter, but one idea eventually will.

Did you get that? They’re already hedging their bets on the new gnomes. They’re not all that confident, are they? But, as they themselves admit, new gnomes are dime a dozen. There will still be plenty of ways to scam the taxpayer if the SIDM gnome turn out to be easily disproven.

In the meantime, it offers a romantic vision of the cosmos. There is comfort in the idea that, somewhere, astronomers made up of dark atoms peering through telescopes that magnify dark photons might also be scratching their heads, wondering why a small amount of matter is missing from their universe.

Can you believe these idiots? I think if aliens are scratching their "heads", they're scratching them for entirely different reasons.

[BeAChooser]

https://www.livescience.com/physics-mat ... tudy-hints

Giant 'rogue waves' of invisible matter might be disrupting the orbits of stars, new study hints

The title is deceptive. They did NOT find that dark matter might be disrupting orbits of stars. They have found no evidence of that so far. Their "study" simply *imagined* that this might happen and recommended that we spend mega-bucks observing binary pairs of star to see if any of them start drifting away from each other ... WHICH THEN MIGHT be an indication of what they claim. In other words, this was just a paper to justify their spending more of your dollars so they can keep living their comfortable lives. And of course Paul Sutter, wishing to continue living his comfortable life thanks to the mainstream's astrophysics gnomes, happily played his part in the process ... publishing an article to push the idea as useful research to a gullible public. But Don’t Feed The Monster!