Phantom menace to dark matter theory

[glenc]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327164.200-phantom-menace-to-dark-matter-theory.html
"A SUBTLE anomaly in the orbit of the planets in our solar system (http://www.newscientist.com/topic/solar-system) could prove a controversial idea that goes beyond Einstein.
The orbit of the innermost planet, Mercury (http://www.newscientist.com/topic/solar-system), departs from what it should be under Newton's laws. A century ago, when Einstein explained this anomaly, it confirmed his theory of gravity (http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/Cyberia/NumRel/EinsteinTest.html) - the general theory of relativity.
Now an Israeli physicist predicts that a similar but far more subtle anomaly in the orbits of the planets, if detected, might prove his own theory, known as modified Newtonian dynamics, or MOND..."

[xelasnave]

Glen I find all of that most interesting but until "they" establish how "pull" works it seems that all the speculation upon gravity being a force that works via attraction will continue to present greater problems... Now I dont know if I have ever suggested this before but it may be that there is no force that we describe as "pull" and therefore a lot of the current thinking has been based upon a faulse premise... It would seem to me that if "push" is the way gravity works we firstly eliminate the need for dark matter... it is interesting that the more dark matter one adds in an effort to make the current sums work one finds one must just keep adding more and more and never will a point be reached where there is enough to explain our observations so as to fit them within a context of "pull"...
I think the use of a comparrison between a man in a lift and gravity is reasonable however the assumption there is a force we call attraction is not science and I have yet to see any experiment that establishes attraction as a force... that does not mean there is none but that I do not know of it... I simply say what we assume is that one body attracts another because we see them move toward each other and I find when one examines any action where we assume it works via pull I find that at the point of contact the action is one of pushing... Tailway and I argue about his gate ..that he pulls it shut and certainly such seems reasonable however at the point of contact we can only exert a force that is a push and that occurs even if we pull the gate in our direction..the point of contact is always push..and so although a simple observation and hardley appropriate to apply to the greater universe in the way the man in the lift has sucessfully applied to formulate the Theory of General Relativity my example is merely to say that when examined close up things can be the opposite to what we assume.

I think the MOND thing is still beating the same horse but with a different stick and that horse is never going anywheres because it is a dead horse.

alex

[Nesti]

Glenc: Thanks for the link - amazing.

Thinking back to a comment from my Astrophysicist acquaintance, he did say that there are issues surfacing much the same as this, such as the sharpness between the swept areas and debris areas within Saturn's rings, which suggest there is more operators in the background.

Cheers
Mark

[renormalised]

And then you have things like the Pioneer Anomaly....it only goes to show that we don't understand gravity, space and/or time like anything we seem to think we do. There's a lot we have to learn.

Hmmmm...electrostatic forces, maybe (w.r.t. Saturn's rings), micro-gravitational effects, who knows. Subject for a few PhD theses I feel:D

MOND has been floating around for sometime.