Dark matter is not a theory or even a hypothesis. It is a collection of observations.
Having “matter” in the name is kind of a presumptive thing, like “our observations act like there’s too much gravity, and matter creates gravity, and we can’t see any extra shit, so…”
As I understand it, the “matter” part is a hold over from physicists trying to fix their faulty calculations.
Looking for “matter” that only interacts with gravity is a bit like looking for the perfectly smooth frictionless plane. I mean, somethings gotta account for the sums being off, but the real world explanation is anybody’s guess.
Yeah, I like to think of it this way:
Dark matter is not a theory or even a hypothesis. It is a collection of observations.
Having “matter” in the name is kind of a presumptive thing, like “our observations act like there’s too much gravity, and matter creates gravity, and we can’t see any extra shit, so…”
As I understand it, the “matter” part is a hold over from physicists trying to fix their faulty calculations.
Looking for “matter” that only interacts with gravity is a bit like looking for the perfectly smooth frictionless plane. I mean, somethings gotta account for the sums being off, but the real world explanation is anybody’s guess.