Dark Matter

[Xavier]

I was skimming an article about the Cluster Collision that NASA announced the other day. In the piece was this paragraph:

[url=http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2004/0831galaxymerger_media.html

"NASA's Press Media"[/url]] Here we see an enlargement of the central region in the simulation on the left, showing a higher-resolution calculation of the merger. In this picture we can see the structure of the two merging clusters as well as smaller groups that will later merge into Abell 754. Note, however, that this image represents the distribution of dark matter, not gas. Because gas is attracted by the gravity from dark mater (and is heated as it flows down dark matter's gravitational well), the X-ray images of cluster gas serves as a tracer for dark matter. Credit: The Virgo Consortium

© source where applicable

Now they talk about dark matter in here... However, I've only ever known Dark Matter as a theory.

What steps have been made in the proof of Dark Matter?

Yours,
Xavier

PS: Having not had Quantum Mechanics... Please dumb down a tad...

[anthrogirl]

dark matter: nonluminous material that evidently holds clusters of galaxies together.


You may enjoy the book The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe Report, by Timothy Ferris.

It's fascinating, easily accessible to the layperson, and a general good time. I highly recommend it.

ag

[Xavier]

I'll look for that... Thanks...

[sylas]

Now they talk about dark matter in here... However, I've only ever known Dark Matter as a theory.

What steps have been made in the proof of Dark Matter?

Gravitational lensing, primarily.

Images are taken of distant galaxies that are in line with a much closer cluster of galaxies. The additional mass can be detected in the extra light curvature; sufficient to map the distributions of the additional mass. This is indirect, but observers consider it strong confirmation of the dark matter idea.

There are lots of links around with more detail on this work. Google for "dark matter" and "lensing". For example: CFHT Gives First Glimpse of Dark Matter Distribution. Sky surveys by French scientists with an Earth based telescope give distributions of dark matter. (From 2000)

Cheers -- Sylas

[studyhound]

PS: Having not had Quantum Mechanics... Please dumb down a tad...

Ya Thinks thats fun you need to try unified theory and string theory, thats were the brain cells die a firey death...

[Sparko]

I made an avatar from the nasa animation of the Galaxy clusters colliding if anyone wants it. click on it to animate it. 300 million years in 12 frames.

[attachment=1]

[Augustine2004]

. . . unified theory and string theory, thats were the brain cells die a firey death...

Oh, no! you lost the thought that string theory IS one of them those unified theories.

[Seasanctuary]

I find it amazing how well theoretical sciences turn out to be on the right (or a close-by track).

Heck, most of what I'm learning in my Computer Science curriculum was developed before computers existed.

[studyhound]

Oh, no! you lost the thought that string theory IS one of them those unified theories.

Right A theory, but not THE Theory.

[kofh2u]

I find it amazing how well theoretical sciences turn out to be on the right (or a close-by track).

Heck, most of what I'm learning in my Computer Science curriculum was developed before computers existed.

Yes. Seems amazing at first.

Then, upon reflecting that the Universal Powe,r through natural laws in regard to evolution, is purifying the mind that reflects it's image, maybe not strange at all.

Islamic mullahs teach that, if you know the Koran, you know all that is important to know. I am not sure they mean what I mean, that if you know Torah, it is the same pattern as all other knowledge.

I think they heard this while Muhammad investigated Judaism, before the Jews rejected his insights and he departed to Medina.

However, Abu Bakr may not have actually received the "keys of the heaven" of man's mind, since the Koran doesn't parallel the Torah in the Kabballah of its secret esoteric doctrine of 3-7-12.

When we examine, in hindsight, all of our theories, particularly in the sciences, we begin to see how the pattern of the temple of our mind repetituiously reinforces every new speculation (theory) which we painstakingly elucidate and confirm by the empirical method.

It is not strange to those who see how this works, that the present theory of a "two fold" Dark Matter is giving way to speculation of a mathematical requirement for another and third member to its Trinity.

The Wimp and Axion will be joined in the near future by the addition of a third, heavy, yet unnamed particule of Dark Matter.

I think it ought be called the KOFH since I have gone out on the proverbial limb in telling yoj this.

[Xavier]

You may enjoy the book The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe Report, by Timothy Ferris.

I picked this up at the campus library and thumbed through it real quickly today. I was especially interested, nay amused, by the inclusion of the Theological Afterword...

I'm going to try to read the rest over this weekend.

Yours,
Xavier

[Seasanctuary]

The Wimp and Axion will be joined in the near future by the addition of a third, heavy, yet unnamed particule of Dark Matter.

I think it ought be called the KOFH since I have gone out on the proverbial limb in telling yoj this.

If you really want to go out on a limb, establish a limiting date then stake the validity of your faith on it.

I'll help you lobby to name it Kofh.

[Augustine2004]

This postulated form of dark matter is found only between the ears of a certain contributor to this thread. No, not me. Not Seas.

[kofh2u]

If you really want to go out on a limb, establish a limiting date then stake the validity of your faith on it.

I'll help you lobby to name it Kofh.

Hmmmm....
help.... that would really help, some helpers.

Well, here is how Mendeleev did it in Chemistry.
He predicted from the same pattern to which I refer, though he had no idea it was the pattern described in the Torah. It was merely a pattern that occured to him on a wintery Russian night, snowed in for a month of nights.

Mendy saw all the known chemical atoms lined up in a certain pattern. The pattern had great appeal for him, even tho' others had used different chemical classifications and organizations.

It was the periodic swing of light metals to heavy elements that he saw as beauty. His Table of the Periodic Elements was just an amazingly intelligent arrangement, and the startling interdependencies made him sure this wad Father Nature's secret order.

(By the way, in 460BC, Democritus had said that "If all there is be atoms and the void, then everything... everything Must be atomic in its nature, too. So, Mendy might have realized that he was on to more than Chemistry.)

Now, we could go on here about the analogy of Truth imaged in his mind, about the simile of the Truth outside his cranium and Truth inside evidencing the Truth of knowing the Creator through knowing his Creation and all, but to cut to the chase... forget that God is Truth. Let's just talk like Wimps and KOFH up more on this Axiom, that the pattern is the Urim and Thummim.

Mendy saw three "holes" in his pattern. Either he was missing three undiscovered atoms, or the pattern was wrong.

So, like the KOFH, completing the trinity of Dark Matter here today, he named them and said they "would be" found.

Three weird names. He did have my arrogance to use "Mendy 1, Mendy 2, Mendy 3.

But, then, with no helper, the three chemical elements, when discovered were named Gallium, Scandium, and Germanium.

I am not certain, but I think his deadline was posthumous on the validation.

[anthrogirl]

I picked this up at the campus library and thumbed through it real quickly today. I was especially interested, nay amused, by the inclusion of the Theological Afterword...

I'm going to try to read the rest over this weekend.

Yours,
Xavier

wow--i must admit, i'm very suprised that you got the book. in fact, i never noticed the theological afterword until you mentioned it. very interesting.

at any rate, i'm interested in your thoughts about the book--keep me posted, will you?

my best,
ag