IGM Conflicting Theories

Inter-Galactic Memo
To: People with nothing better to do

Fr: W. Leavitt (who had nothing better to do)

Re: Scientists with nothing better to do . . . . .



There are two semi-fascinating articles on Physorg.com today. One, coming to us from Oxford, that ancient repository of theoretical brilliance and degenerate buggery, claims that Dark Matter (remember that? We’ve talked about it before) does not exist. It had to happen, right?
In order to explain the phenomenon they’ve been seeing, the boys (and girls I assume) at Oxford say that it is more likely we (the earth, Milky Way, local group) just happen to be in an area of the universe that is “a huge void where the density of matter is particularly low.” Well, that makes sense. Occam comes to the rescue again.
In other words, I guess, instead of there being a hundred times more matter than we see out there, we live in a place that is unusually low in matter. The rest of the universe has lots more, which accounts for the motion of galaxies, etc.

Just two doors down from that article is another from NASA. Scientists there have found a new, very small motion in distant galactic clusters. Not individual galaxies mind you—not enough mass in just one—but in clusters of hundreds of galaxies that are gravitationally connected. They have decided ( I imagine them voting on napkins in the break room) that "The clusters show a small but measurable velocity that is independent of the universe's expansion and does not change as distances increase." In other words, there is apparently something beyond the known (visible) universe. A great deal more mass, which is exerting its own, independent influence on the visible universe as a whole.

What's more, this motion is constant out to at least a billion light-years. "Because the dark flow already extends so far, it likely extends across the visible universe," Kashlinsky says.
The finding flies in the face of predictions from standard cosmological models, which describe such motions as decreasing at ever greater distances.

Now, that’s interesting. In order to make such an effect constant over a billion light years, there would have to be a lot of matter out there beyond what we can see. Much more than in that part of the universe we can see. And how would the effect of that matter not decrease over distance? They don’t know. Neither do I, but I have a theory.

So on the one hand, and at the same time, we have a group of very capable, educated people claiming Dark Matter may not exist after all, that we just live in a relative empty region of space, (which would make the Copernican concept of the universe in error) and on the other hand we have a similar group claiming that not only does Dark Matter exist, but that even more of it must be beyond our ability to detect it, beyond the known universe. Actually, the stuff we can’t see—which has to be much more massive than the entire visible universe—could be regular matter, like dirt and pet dander. Nobody knows. Unlike dark matter which we can’t see because its invisible, and currently undetectable, we can’t see that other stuff because it’s just too far away.
So now we have people suggesting that the big bang might not have happened, that the universe is infinite, and that matter and energy are therefore infinite. Hey, that sounds a lot like a religious claim. Specifically, the Christian concept of the universe. “No beginning, no end, stars without number,” all that stuff. See? Science and religion can live together after all.