Thanks for taking the time to explain. Obviously a lot of very smart people are looking at this and drawing the same conclusions. Can I please trouble you to help me understand the distinction here?
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Originally Posted by madbadgalaxyman
Alex, the sums are not wrong, if we assume conventional gravitational theory, and while it seems far-fetched to believe that 299/300 of the mass of a dwarf galaxy is in some unknown form, very simple algebraic calculations of the sort that some of us learn to do in Year 12 Physics Class show that the gravitational effect of this additional matter is there and likely to be real.
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Isn't that just saying gravity theory is correct, but only if you assume it to be correct in the first place? Why assume it to be correct at all when the data suggests otherwise? That's what I don't get!
On the one hand you have the proposition that the physics is somehow wrong at large scales.
On the other you have the idea that most of the universe is made up of matter that doesn't absorb or emit any form of energy, interacts only through gravity and can't be found despite many years of searching.
Surely at some point occams razor cuts the other way where the simplest explanation is simply that conventional gravity is *not correct. Alex nailed it on the head before. Surely the response to data that doesn't line up with your predictions is to change the model and test that? Sure, Dark matter does represent a revision to the model, but why does it represent our best hope over and above any revision to gravity?
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Originally Posted by madbadgalaxyman
The case of dark matter may be compared to the case of the theory of evolution........
the story revealed by science seems extraordinary, and perhaps counter-intuitive, but "these are the truths that we must cling to, in the absence of further observations disproving them or modifying them".
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What if the story of dark matter is the same as the story of the Ether? Something made up to make the math work out?
I'm willing to accept things that are not intuitive, with evidence. Quantum field theory in bonkers, but I accept that is how the world is. The evidence in this case may have more than one explanation. Why do we exclude the other one?
Obviously I must be wrong in this because professionals who spend every waking moment of their lives thinking about this stuff all like the dark matter explanation, but I wish I knew why it's more likely than gravity theory needing a tweak. Theories come and go all the time why are we stuck on this one?
To put my devil's advocate hat on for a moment and argue against myself for a moment, I assume that an explanation that tweaked gravity theory would expect the effect to be uniform. You wouldn't have a dwarf galaxy with 300 times the effect, and a normal galaxy with, say 5 times. It would (presumably) consistently be proportional to the amount of observed matter.
*sigh. Now I need a pan-galactic gargle-blaster. :-)
-Markus