Does dark matter actually exist?

[fdcg27]

We had Sixty Minutes on while sipping a nice Californian Zin and preparing our dinner of fresh green beans and beefsteak.
The show had a segment about the large hadron collider and entered into a discussion of dark matter.
I explained to my wife that there would have to be a great amount of matter that we cannot see to have enough mass and therefore gravity to hold these large structures together and that what we can observe isn't sufficient and that the difference was known as dark matter.
As a good CPA, she replied "So it's a plug number".
She has a point. In accounting, you don't get to plug in a number and call it good. This shouldn't be the case among cosmologists either.
Is there really that much dark matter out there, or do we simply not understand gravity as well as we think we do?
I've long had a problem with the notion that there's that much mass out there that we cannot observe or detect.
Would be great to see an alternative theory that explains what we can observe or some confirmation that dark matter is real beyond the plug figure my accountant wife cites.

 

[skyactiv]

What does mankind have to gain theorizing dark matter?

 

[fdcg27]

What do we have to gain from a better understanding of the universe we live in?
Knowledge for its own sake is always nice to have and often leads to practical applications.
What did we have to gain from the discovery of fire?

 

[Balrog006]

Originally Posted By: skyactiv
What does mankind have to gain theorizing dark matter?


Without questioning the limits of our understanding we would all still be living in caves, wearing animal skins, communicating in grunts and battling daily for mere survival.

It's human nature to question, test, explore and expand our understanding of the world around us and ourselves.

 

[HerrStig]

Originally Posted By: fdcg27
What do we have to gain from a better understanding of the universe we live in?
Knowledge for its own sake is always nice to have and often leads to practical applications.
What did we have to gain from the discovery of fire?
Apples and oranges. Fire wasn't "discovered" it existed and was adapted for human use.

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: skyactiv
What does mankind have to gain theorizing dark matter?

Your question should be framed: "What does mankind have to gain by understanding Science"
My own hunch is that even though we have learned a lot. we may be a long way from the really deep understanding of Nature

 

[Balrog006]

Originally Posted By: HerrStig
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
What do we have to gain from a better understanding of the universe we live in?
Knowledge for its own sake is always nice to have and often leads to practical applications.
What did we have to gain from the discovery of fire?
Apples and oranges. Fire wasn't "discovered" it existed and was adapted for human use.


Apples to apples, if dark matter exists it would be just like fire. Always there and just waiting for us to see it, realize a use for it and adapt it to our purposes. Dark matter is likely to be a much longer, harder journey to bring it under our control than fire was but both existed prior to human beings noticing them....

 

[CT8]

The problem with dark matter is that it is too dark to be seen and the grant $$$ is too good to refuse.

 

[Nickdfresh]

Originally Posted By: CT8
The problem with dark matter is that it is too dark to be seen and the grant $$$ is too good to refuse.


People said the same thing about radioactivity in the 1900s....

 

[Shannow]

LOL, I raised dark matter in the ghost thread.

To me, if you need to invent something that's 9 times as big as everything that we CAN touch and see, is all pervasive and permeating to get the rules to work properly, you probably need to review your rules first.

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted By: skyactiv
What does mankind have to gain theorizing dark matter?


And for that matter, there's also dark energy.

Maybe it will lead to better understanding that will lead to the singularity.

 

[CT8]

Originally Posted By: Nickdfresh
Originally Posted By: CT8
The problem with dark matter is that it is too dark to be seen and the grant $$$ is too good to refuse.


People said the same thing about radioactivity in the 1900s....
The may have been partially correct.

 

[Merkava_4]

It's a bunch of hokus pokus [censored]. Don't buy into it.

 

[Nick1994]

Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
It's a bunch of hokus pokus [censored]. Don't buy into it.
Yeah, and the world is 6,000 years old right?

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
Don't buy into it.

You don't have to. If you want to learn about it, you're free to do so. If you want to get a PhD in theoretical physics, and do a thesis on the topic, theorizing a universe with it or lacking it, you're free to do that, too. In any event, the concept doesn't require "belief." It either is, or it isn't. As it stands, it's a construct to account for certain observations.

 

[abycat]

if it is real it could possibly do things like make long distance space travel possible or cure diseases. or could be the secret to our existence.

 

[KingCake]

Blackholes are dark matter. Dark matter exists. We just don't know what makes up all the dark matter in the universe.

 

[Urshurak776]

You guys must be much smarter than I. All I can think of in this subject is Big Bang Theory........

 

[Merkava_4]

Originally Posted By: Garak
You don't have to. If you want to learn about it, you're free to do so. If you want to get a PhD in theoretical physics, and do a thesis on the topic, theorizing a universe with it or lacking it, you're free to do that, too. In any event, the concept doesn't require "belief." It either is, or it isn't. As it stands, it's a construct to account for certain observations.


The physical world is made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons; that's it.
There's no dark matter and there's no imaginary strings holding everything together.

 

[CourierDriver]

We have now entered the Twilight Zone and left the Walmart Zone where many of us unfortunately live and exist on the oil isle of life.......................oboy....