(Continuation of the series A-E)
There has been an unsuccessful attempt to close down The Dark Matter Crisis. Here is the story (and an email by Jim Peebles): UPDATE: The guest post is now online.
As regular readers of our blog know, and first-time readers may be able to guess from this blog name, Pavel and I mostly write about the problems and shortcomings of the dark matter hypothesis. One aspect of our research is to test dark matter models on cosmologically small scales such as the Local Group of galaxies. Over the past years, our research and those of others has revealed that numerous model expectations of the dark matter hypothesis are not met by observations. This led us to the conclusion that we should consider a paradigm shift in how we understand the dark matter phenomenon. Maybe, we thought, a modification of the laws of gravity, one possible approach being Mordehai Milgrom’s MOdified Newtonian Gravity (MOND), could solve these issues.
Doing research that identifies shortcomings in a widely-held assumption and that is skeptical of a mainstream hypothesis is certainly a very interesting and rewarding endeavor for a scientist. It is closely connected to the fundamental scientific method of falsification and holds potential for groundbreaking discoveries. However, working on a controversial scientific topic also has its downsides. For one, papers criticizing basic assumptions are less attractive to be cited in mainstream publications. And before publication, controversial science already faces a more challenging peer-review process. For example Ashutosh Jogalekar explains in his blog The Curious Wavefunction:
“[…] reviewers under the convenient cloak of anonymity can use the system to settle scores, old boys’ clubs can conspire to prevent research from seeing the light of day, and established orthodox reviewers and editors can potentially squelch speculative, groundbreaking work.”
In addition to these ‘formal’ scientific interactions via academic publishers, there is also communication amongst scientists. For instance, early PhD students, who are still in the process of learning about the business of doing science, may be looking for advice from mentors and other more experienced scientists. Unfortunately, when the talk comes to controversial areas of science, students are often discouraged from getting involved in non-mainstream research (note, however, Avi Loeb‘s opposite advice). This begins with the commonly expressed belief that such research might “hurt your career”, but sometimes even more direct warnings are made. For example, a few years ago a professor told me that he would never hire someone who has published even a paper on MOND. A fellow PhD student got a similar piece of “advice” while visiting a different university, where one scientist advised him that he should only publish results which are negative for MOND, but nothing in support of it.
For people who are just starting in science, especially, such comments may be alarming. Graduate students do not yet know much about the job market. They therefore tend to believe what the ‘old boys’ tell them. To researchers who have a bit more experience, such warnings are often incomprehensible since they know by then (if they didn’t already initially) that it is entirely unscientific to withhold research results that do not fit a pre-determined picture.
The difficulties of working in a controversial field of research do not stop here. Communicating such science to a wider audience can also result in problems. While the public is generally very interested in the challenges faced by prevailing theories, there are difficulties to overcome. One of them is the question of how to differentiate completely unscientific things (the paranormal, creationism, …), from actual, albeit controversial, science.
A promising approach to overcome this difficulty is to discuss controversial science publicly. This way, the public can follow and be part of the debate, learn that arguments are backed by references to peer-reviewed research and see that hypotheses need to be tested through comparison with observational data—essentially the public gets to view the scientific process as it is applied in any branch of research. By demonstrating that scientists stick to facts, respond to opposing arguments and do not resort to emotionally driven rhetoric, we can adequately demonstrate the strengths of science.
The strength of the scientific method over dogmatic beliefs should always prevail in order to be able to contemplate the possibility of paradigm shifts. This is indeed a complex idea to explain, and presenting research results as absolute truth is something scientists should be prepared not to do. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Sometimes, some people profess the ideas they subscribe to as the scientific or absolute truth. Such claims of absolute truth completely contort the nature of science. It is certainly going too far when science bloggers, in an attempt to protect their preferred mainstream theory, demand that a scientists’ blog be closed because their views differ. Scientists who publish their research in scientific journals, who go through the peer-review process and who in the end publish slightly unorthodox but nonetheless valuable ideas, should not be censored from the science blogosphere.
Unfortunately, this is what happened to our blog, The Dark Matter Crisis.
A popular science blogger demanded that SciLogs.com discontinue our blog and has, for a short time, succeeded. We would like to use this occurrence as an example of the reactions and difficulties faced when doing online communication of controversial science topics. The incident demonstrates why debate in science must be based on objective facts and not be driven by personal opinions. It illustrates the dangers of mixing scientific convictions with personal goals and emotions.
Why we started the Dark Matter Crisis blog
In late 2009, Pavel and I wrote an invited article for the German popular science magazine Spektrum der Wissenschaft about dwarf galaxies as tests of cosmology. During the process, Spektrum asked us to also start an accompanying science blog on SciLogs.eu, to provide a place for discussions that might arise due to the controversial nature of our work. We were very hesitant initially, but after talking to students and colleagues we agreed to start a blog. What convinced us to blog was the possibility to get in touch with readers, which would allow immediate feedback and discussions, and the ability to continuously provide current information about our active field of research. When the Spektrum article was published in July 2010, the blog The Dark Matter Crisis went online, too. We blogged on it for about two years, and then agreed to move The Dark Matter Crisis to the new SciLogs.com network. The first article on the SciLogs.com blog was published on January 3, 2013.
The discontinuation of The Dark Matter Crisis
On January 28, we received an email from the SciLogs.com community manager. The email informed us that our blog had been discontinued and that we would no longer be able to update it, although the blog’s archive would remain on the site. The short explanation provided was that the “thesis pushed by The Dark Matter Crisis is now overwhelmingly considered incorrect by the scientific community and as such cannot be considered sound enough to be promulgated by SciLogs.com”.
As we blog mostly about our own and related research, such a justification not only attacks our blogging but also hits at the very heart of our scientific work. Consequently, the first reaction to this email was shock, quickly followed by many questions. Which “theses pushed” by our blog “is now overwhelmingly considered incorrect”? That the currently prevailing hypothesis of cold dark matter has serious problems? This certainly is not considered overwhelmingly incorrect, as there are many scientists working on addressing these problems, both within the framework of standard cosmology (e.g. Mutch et al. 2013, Fouquet et al. 2012), as well as by modifying it (e.g. Lovell et al. 2012, Macció et al. 2012) or even by taking a completely different approach (e.g. Famaey & McGaugh 2012). Also, we were invited to start the blog because of the controversial nature of this topic.
Furthermore, at the time of discontinuation, the SciLogs.com version of The Dark Matter Crisis had only one blog post thus far. The sole post presents the recent discovery of a co-rotating plane of satellite galaxies around Andromeda reported in Ibata et al. (2013, Nature). It discusses possible implications which are right now actively debated among scientists. In fact, that blog post was, as far as I can tell, the only one on the web to provide a detailed explanation as to why the Nature paper might be a threat to Einstein’s theory of gravitation, which was explicitly alluded to by numerous publications, but explained by none (most articles in classical media focussed on the 15-year-old co-author of the study). Surely, it is not the aim of SciLogs.com, as a service to provide information to the public, to censor a blog that was communicating science to the public. Therefore, we concluded that this blog post could not have been the reason for the discontinuation.
But even expanding the scope to the old SciLogs.eu blog, we cannot see where we push a thesis which is not scientifically sound. Our blog posts are full of references to peer-reviewed publications. While we often discuss non-mainstream interpretations, we always remain within the realm of science and discuss an active field of research. For example, we frequently mention alternatives to dark matter which try to explain the missing mass phenomenon by non-Newtonian gravity laws. As an active scientist in this field, one can certainly not say that this is not scientifically sound and “overwhelmingly considered incorrect”. Just looking at the number of citations to the first paper about MOND by Milgrom, shows a citation count that has been constantly rising over the last few years and is currently at 1066.
So, what might have triggered the decision to discontinue our blog?
What Who has triggered our blog’s discontinuation?
Digging around on Twitter revealed several interesting discussions which were obviously related to the discontinuation of The Dark Matter Crisis. It turns out that a former-scientist-turned-blogger, who had spent a few years doing research in cosmology (publishing 5 first-author papers with now 88 citations), demanded the discontinuation.
The blogger (@StartsWithABang) contacted @scilogscom on January 24 by replying to a 15-day old tweet that announced our blog’s move to the new domain. He tweeted “Bummed that @scilogscom is in the business of promoting contrarian scientist viewpoints.”, and asks the SciLogs.com community manager (@notscientific) “[Why] are you allowing @scilogscom to promote contrarian voices that undermine public understanding of [science]?”, adding “You have taken on “Dark Matter Crisis” blog, whose mission is to undermine all of physical cosmology & promote MOND.”
The two agreed to discuss the issue via email, with the blogger adding that he was “*personally* worried that you are promoting clicks & false controversy over quality science content”, and states that he is “very, VERY disappointed about this move that @scilogscom has made”.
By now the SciLogs.com community manager has explained to us what happened after these tweets. He and the publishing director responsible for SciLogs.com unfortunately assumed that the blogger’s criticism was justified. They decided to close our blog without conferring with others or asking us for a statement. After we complained about the discontinuation, they performed an internal investigation, which involved reaching out to astrophysicists and other people, and have realized that discontinuing our blog was a big mistake. We attribute SciLogs.com’s poor judgement to two factors: neither the community manager nor the publishing director has an (astro)physical background, it was the first time that SciLogs.com had experienced an attack against one of its blogs.
So, the result was that four days after the tweets about The Dark Matter Crisis were posted, our blog was discontinued. Interestingly, only a few hours later the blogger who complained about our blog tweeted: “Shout out to the @SciLogscom team, esp. @notscientific and @laurawheelers, for stepping up & vetting their #science blogs for quality!”. (@laurawheelers was not involved in the decision to discontinue our blog. She only referred @StartsWithABang to SciLogs.com’s community manager.) @StartsWithABang added “They are storing the archives, but the blog is inactive and will not be continued”. While until then this situation was only an example of one blogger attacking our blog and our research with contorted accusations, the reactions of a few other Twitter users were disheartening. Some of them, science communicators and even an active astronomer, welcomed the blog’s discontinuation. One would have hoped that they would see the value of our science blog, regardless of their own opinions on the controversial topic we blog about.
Some slightly earlier attacks
The incident seems to be related to a recently published paper by us: Kroupa, Pawlowski & Milgrom (2012). When the paper appeared on the preprint server arXiv on January 18, this lead to a short discussion on Twitter, during which the same blogger who would later led to the short-timed discontinuation of our blog, made some pretty harsh accusations against “the MOND zealots”, whom he seems to call a mix of skeptics and liars and deniers who trot out misinformation and undermine confidence in science. In reaction to our paper, he published a blog post in which he claims to rule out MOND with one graph. Unfortunately, his blog post does not address any of the issues discussed in our recent paper, nor does it address those discussed in many other papers over the recent years.
In reaction to the accusations and contorted depiction of our research, I submitted a comment to the blog post. It asks for a clarification of the accusations and tries to start an objective discussion. There was no reason to censor it. Nevertheless, the comment was not published the first time, so I submitted it again the following day. Again, it was not published. I then decided to ignore the issue and the blogger in the future, as a factual debate seemed to be undesired and emotion-laden quarreling on the web is a waste of time. However, as our blog was actively attacked only a few days later by that very same blogger, the comment is being published here for transparency:
“When I understand your Twitter tweets from yesterday correctly, you think that “Kroupa and some of the other MOND zealots” are, at least to a certain extend, liars and deniers who “trot out misinformation & undermine confidence in science”. Is this what you were saying or did I misunderstand something? My honest opinion is that this would be unnecessarily aggressive, insulting, unprofessional and unscientific as it does not help to establish a well-founded discussion of the scientific issues.
The fact that you do not address the numerous problems of LCDM, many of which are mentioned in the recent paper, does not help shaping a discussion. In your blog post, you base your argumentation on only one problem of MOND: the the strong oscillations in the matter power spectrum. However, according to e.g. Famaey & McGaugh (2012), this problem is not as clear-cut as you claim. They write: “the non-linearity of MOND can lead to mode mixing that washes out the initially strong signal by z = 0”, and even suggests a more robust test.
More fundamentally, basic logic tells us that falsifying one hypothesis does not provide information about the validity of an opposing one. Just to give an example: Disproving that the world is a disk does not prove that the guy who is claiming that the earth is donut-shaped is right. As it turns out, the earth is neither a disk nor a donut, but essentially a sphere. Nevertheless, you jump from this graph to a conclusion about “MOND, MOG, TeVeS, or any other dark-matter-free alternative”. In addition, if you would consider the numerous failures of the LCDM model in a similar way like those of MOND, according to your argumentation we would have to give up on both, modified gravity theories and dark matter.
As a last note, I’d like to point out that in our recent paper we do not present MOND as the final answer. The fact that there is not a single “MOND”, but many different attempts to construct a full theory of modified gravity (see Sect. 6) already demonstrates that more work needs to be done. But in order to search for a solution of the many problems LCDM has on scales of many Mpc and below (where MOND is very successful), scientists should be encouraged to investigate this possibility. That is what a paradigm shift is, in my opinion: acknowledging that there are problems and being open-minded for new or alternative explanations, without hiding the problems that these alternatives may themselves face. As we acknowledge in the paper, mass discrepancies in galaxy clusters and building a consistent cosmology are real challenges for MOND, but there exist more or less convincing answers to these problems in the various effective covariant theories that have been proposed to date (see e.g. the list of theories in Famaey & McGaugh 2012 and their Section 9.2). Even if most of these tentative new explanations will turn out to be unsuccessful, I am sure there still is much to learn about the Universe. We have made this clear in the final sentences of our paper, too: “Understanding the deeper physical meaning of MOND remains a challenging aim. It involves the realistic likelihood that a major new insight into gravitation will emerge, which would have significant implications for our understanding of space, time and matter.”
So, I don’t think there is any lying, denying or misinformation involved on part of us as active scientists. It is just that the Universe is a hard nut to crack. Having the strength to admit that none of the current models are the final answer should in fact increase our confidence in science.”
It is ironic that in a comment on this very blog post, the blogger suggests to a critical reader that if he does not like his way of blogging, the reader could get his own blog. Only a few days later the blogger seems to have worked towards the discontinuation of our blog …
The aftermath and an upcoming guest post
After being informed about the discontinuation and after having discovered the background story on Twitter, we got in touch with the staff responsible for SciLogs.com. As mentioned before, they quickly realized that the discontinuation of The Dark Matter Crisis was a mistake. After discussing the issue with Richard Zinken, the publishing director of Spektrum der Wissenschaft (who is also responsible for the SciLogs.com blog network), he and the community manager apologized for the incident. We have accepted the apology and understand that mistakes can happen. During the last weeks, we worked together with the SciLogs.com team, thinking about what would be the best way to re-open the blog and how to handle the recent events in a constructive way. Together with Richard and the community manager we developed this blog post on the difficulties faced when communicating controversial research.
Together, we also decided to invite a guest blogger to The Dark Matter Crisis, preferably a cosmologist who is skeptical about our views. We hope that this helps to shape the debate and keep it at a scientific level, in contrast to the seemingly emotionally driven attacks which misshape the public’s view of how science handles controversial research. We have asked a few colleagues for such posts, and are content that one experienced scientist has agreed to act as our guest blogger. We know that he is well-respected in the field. His guest post will go online tomorrow.
UPDATE (March 09 2013): In a recent blog post, supposedly trying to shut off people working on dark matter alternatives forever, the blogger attacking us wrote: “Courtesy of Scott Dodelson, I present to you the one graph that incontrovertibly settles the matter.” We now rather offer you a guest blog post on that matter by … Scott Dodelson.
In the meantime, Jim Peebles, Albert Einstein Professor Emeritus of Science at Princeton University, gave us his explicit permission to publish the full, unedited email in which he explains that he would not like to be our guest blogger. We would like to thank him for this and, given our recent experience, fully understand that he prefers to not start blogging:
“Hello Pavel
Sorry for the delay. I have been thinking about your email, and have decided that I will not contribute a commentary on your situation.
I agree with many of your points. The behavior of [SciLogs.com] is silly; this is not the way of science. As you indicate, the community is remarkably optimistic about galaxy formation within the standard LCDM cosmology. I consider this an example of the human herd instinct. With you I distrust talk of precision cosmology; we are still seeking an accurate cosmology. But I think we differ on the weight of evidence for LCDM. I am deeply impressed by the variety of independent lines of evidence that point to LCDM, and conclude that the case for LCDM as a useful approximation to reality on the scale of the Hubble length is about a good as one gets in physical science. No one can prove that there is not another cosmology without dark matter that fits the data as well as LCDM, and no one can prove that there is not another theory that works as well as quantum mechanics. I expect we both put the odds on the latter as too low to matter. I feel close to the same about the former.
You are entirely entitled to take the approach I see in your blog, but I do not want to state my opinion on your blog. I don’t want to take up [blogging] anywhere!
Regards, Jim”
In addition, you can have a look at a recent article in New Scientist: “Dark matter rival boosted by dwarf galaxies”. The article mentions James Binney, from the University of Oxford, who says that he “believes that some sort of MOND-like behaviour may manifest itself on small scales”, while Avi Loeb, of Harvard University, being skeptical about MOND, nevertheless states that: “The theory deserves a lot of respect.”
We believe that all astronomers, whether skeptical or not of our controversial research, are able to agree with Loeb’s statement, and it is in this spirit that we would like to continue our endeavours in online science communication.
The Dark Matter Crisis 
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There is actually a lot to find on the net from the guy that apparently tried to shut down this blog. His name is Ethan Siegel, as can be verified from his twitter-account @StartsWithABang. He communicates science very actively indeed, but not all of it makes sense.
For instance, consider the following video by Ethan Siegel:
In this video, he tells his audience that he can dip his hands into molten lead without burning them, if he dips his hands into water first.
That works because of the Leidenfrost effect, which is explained here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leidenfrost_effect
In short, the water evaporates quickly and thereby created a thin layer of vapor between the hand and the lead. This layer insulates and thus protects the hand from the hot lead.
However, Ethan Siegel is obviosly not aware of these details, as his explanation of the Leidenfrost effect is completely wrong (starting at 1.10 min in his movie). If his explanation was right, a few drops of water on his hand would not matter.
As Ethan Siegel is ready to put his hands at risk without actually understanding what protects him (or not), I have my serious doubts that his blog posts are much better researched.
It is a pity that the accusations by such a guy actually were a threat to your blog at some point of time.
Anyway, I am glad to see that your blog is active again, especially since its topic is controversial. Controversy is the key to progress in science, and people who are interested in science should have the possibility to follow the scientific debates.
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What a weird story. Jim Peebles is wise when he refers to the human herd instinct to explain the overconfidence in standard LCDM cosmology. This herd instinct is even more pronounced in the weakest and low-level members of the herd (science communicators)
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If people (like Ethan, but surely not only him) start fighting against non-mainstream researchers with weapons like censorship, not those researchers will loose, *science* will loose.
Apart from that, I don’t understand why many people cannot talk about problems. Instead, they prefer to talk only about things that seem to work.
Sure, the standard picture does its job pretty well on explaining the large scale structures. But it also makes predictions. It assumes the existence of cold dark matter, which, in the local neighbourhood, fails to account for very simple, dynamical objects. The point is not only that things appear differently in low-resolution large-scale simulations. The properties of CDM make it impossible to explain objects like tidal dwarf galaxies.
Dear LCDM guys, aren’t you interested in finding out why CDM fails on that scale? Or do you prefer to ignore these findings?
To me it seems to be scientific practice to publish only positive findings and to hide the negative ones. This is a very depressing fact and makes me angry, because it slows down science a lot, and it complicates our daily work.
PS:
Nothing in this comment about MOND or LCDM vs. MOND. The comment is about science in general.
In science, there is actually no LCDM vs. MOND.
Science knows only MOND vs. reality and LCDM vs. reality. Got it?
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“The standard dark matter cosmology boasts numerous manifest triumphs; however, alternatives should also be pursued as long as outstanding observational issues remain unresolved, including the empirical successes of MOND on galaxy scales and the phenomenology of dark energy. ”
Arthur Kosowsky, Associate Director of Pittsburgh University Particle physics, Astrophysics, and Cosmology Center, in
http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.4802
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When people feel passionately and are convinced they are right about something then “belief” can override healthy skepticism, logic and further objective scientific study. Open minds become closed minds and only evidence in support of a belief is sort out and promoted, conflicting evidence is quickly buried. Those seeking stability over chaos feel safer to go with the crowd than stand out alone, the need to belong is a powerful binding force of society, one often exploited by religions and cults. Dark Matter is becoming a cult and is sharing space with other hypothesis like String Theory, Inflation and Dark Energy. So far there are no Earth bound experiments providing evidence supporting Dark Matter even though supposedly we must all be swimming up to our necks in it. Until someone shows me a flask full of verifiable Dark Matter I refuse to accept anyones blind faith in its existence. There are many instances of people going against the grain and in the end being right; Copernicus, Galileo, Einstein … so room for many many more. Dark Matter or MOND or …? leave no dwarf Galaxy unturned.
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I must say I am shocked. I have read Mr. Siegel’s blog on occasion, and while I do not agree with his stand on MOND, I none the less found his point of view interesting to read.
However, that he would undertake such an unprofessional action, in my mind places him in the same category as Lubos Motl.
In my humble opinion, he owes Dr. Kroupel and Mr. Pawlowsky an apology, at the very least.
I just wanted to express the dismay of at least one member of the general public on this matter.
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An interesting alternative to LCDM and MOND: gravitational dipole fields: See http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011Ap%26SS.334..215H
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/doi/10.1007/s10509-011-0938-9 and
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011EL…..9420001V
and subsequent papers citing them. If antimatter does indeed exhibit a negative ‘gravitational charge’ (i.e., it is repelled by normal gravity) then these papers may explain a lot. CERN and the LHC may provide the answer.
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We will make a new approach for an effect known as “Dark Energy” by an effect on gravitational field.
In an accelerated rocket, the dimensions of space towards movement due to ‘Lorentz Contraction’ are on continuous reduction.
Using the equivalence principle, we presume that in the gravitational field, the same thing would happen.
In this implicates in ‘dark energy effect’. The calculi show that in a 7%-contraction for each billion years would explain our observation of galaxies in accelerated separation.
Lorentz Contraction
If we suppose that gravitational field contracts the space around it (including everything within), we can explain the accelerated separation from galaxy through this contraction without postulating ‘dark energy’.
The contraction of space made by gravity would cause a kind of ‘illusion of optic’, seem like, as presented below, that galaxies depart fastly.
The contraction of space would be equivalent to relativistic effect which occurs in a special nave in high-speed L.M.: With regard to an observer in an inertial referential stopped compared to a nave, the observer and everything is on it, including own nave, has its dimension contracted towards to movement of nave compared to a stopped observer (Lorentz Contraction).
This means that the ‘rule’ (measuring instruments) within the nave is smaller than the observer outside of moving nave.
The consequence is, with this ‘reduced rule’, this moving observer would measure things bigger than the observer would measure out of nave.
An accelerated rocket and its continuous contraction
In the same way, if we think of an accelerated increasing speed rocket, its length towards movement – compared to an inertial reference – will be smaller, and ‘rule’ within the nave will decrease continuously compared to this observer.
We would think of ‘equivalence principle’ to justify that gravitational field would have the same effect on ‘rules’ (measuring instruments) as an accelerated rocket would do within the nave, but, now, towards all gravitational field and not, in the case of rocket, only at acceleration speed.
I.e., the gravitational field would make that all rules within this field would be continuously smaller regarded to an observer outside of gravitational field and this would make, as we can see, these observers see things out of field be away fastly.
Anyway, even if “equivalence principle” can’t be applied into a gravitational field to show that the space is contracting around it, we can take it as a new effect on gravitational fields and this would explain the ‘dark energy effect’.
The “dark energy” through gravitational contraction:
Let’s think what would happen if a light emitted by a star from a distant galaxy would arrive into our planet:
Our galaxy, as well as distant galaxies, would be in continuous contraction, as seen before, due to gravity.
A photon emitted by a star from this distant galaxy, after living its galaxy, would go through by an “empty” big space, without so much gravitational influence, until finally arrives into our galaxy and, lastly, to our planet.
During this long coursed way (sometimes billion years), this photon would suffer few gravitational effect and its wavelength would be little affected.
However, during this period, our system (our rules) would still decreasing due to gravitational field, and when this photon finally arrives here, we would measure its wavelength with a reduced ‘rule’ compared to what we had had at the moment when this photon was emitted from galaxy.
So, in our measurement would verify if this photon had suffered Redshift because, with reduced rule, we would measure a wavelength longer than those was measured. The traditional explanation is “Shift for Red” happened due to Doppler Effect compared to galaxy separation speed!
End of Dark Energy
Farthest a galaxy is from viewpoint, more time this light will take to arrive us and more shrunken our ‘rule’ will be to measure this photon since it had been emitted; so it would be bigger than wavelength, which would induce us to think of faster galaxy separation speed.
This acceleration (this new explanation, only visible) from distant galaxies took astronomers to postulate the existence of a “Dark Energy” would have a repulsive effect, seems like they are getting away faster.
But if acceleration is due to our own scale reduction, this dark energy wouldn’t be necessary anymore, because what makes this separation accelerated is, actually, our own special contraction. This would be the end of dark energy.
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To the authors of this contraversial blog: I am by no means a scientist, nor do I fully understand the complex debates and knowledge involved in the scientific community for, dark matter studies or the research fully. But I provide you these words of encoruagement, you guys are on too something and you will be met with controversy. Tesla predicted the atom bomb and how it was going to be disasterous…. He was right. It all came down to insight and knowing that the current method used now, which was discovered then, to achieve what they know now, would not be valid for the future. What you are going to discover will destroy all what the science community thought they knew about the Astros and space, actually “black matter.” They are wrong, but they think the math is right so they can’t be wrong. Keep it up, you are the Tesla’s of this time, and what you will find about dark matter, will change the future, for the better. And truth is, you need to get there before they do, because there methods will lead to a much worse “atom bomb”. Tesla was onto something and he knew it, you guys are too, just figure it out before they do…. Because next time it won’t be just 2 cities in Japan, it’ll be the universe. Good luck gentlemen, you have my support!
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If we suppose that gravitational field contracts the space around it (including everything within), we can explain the accelerated separation from galaxy through this contraction without postulating ‘dark energy’.
The contraction of space made by gravity would cause a kind of ‘illusion of optic’, seem like, as presented below, that galaxies depart fastly.
The contraction of space would be equivalent to relativistic effect which occurs in a special nave in high-speed L.M.: With regard to an observer in an inertial referential stopped compared to a nave, the observer and everything is on it, including own nave, has its dimension contracted towards to movement of nave compared to a stopped observer (Lorentz Contraction).
This means that the ‘rule’ (measuring instruments) within the nave is smaller than the observer outside of moving nave.
The consequence is, with this ‘reduced rule’, this moving observer would measure things bigger than the observer would measure out of nave.
[Quebra da Disposição de Texto]
An accelerated rocket and its continuous contraction
In the same way, if we think of an accelerated increasing speed rocket, its length towards movement – compared to an inertial reference – will be smaller, and ‘rule’ within the nave will decrease continuously compared to this observer.
We would think of ‘equivalence principle’ to justify that gravitational field would have the same effect on ‘rules’ (measuring instruments) as an accelerated rocket would do within the nave, but, now, towards all gravitational field and not, in the case of rocket, only at acceleration speed.
I.e., the gravitational field would make that all rules within this field would be continuously smaller regarded to an observer outside of gravitational field and this would make, as we can see, these observers see things out of field be away fastly.
Anyway, even if “equivalence principle” can’t be applied into a gravitational field to show that the space is contracting around it, we can take it as a new effect on gravitational fields and this would explain the ‘dark energy effect’.
The “dark energy” through gravitational contraction:
Let’s think what would happen if a light emitted by a star from a distant galaxy would arrive into our planet:
Our galaxy, as well as distant galaxies, would be in continuous contraction, as seen before, due to gravity.
A photon emitted by a star from this distant galaxy, after living its galaxy, would go through by an “empty” big space, without so much gravitational influence, until finally arrives into our galaxy and, lastly, to our planet.
During this long coursed way (sometimes billion years), this photon would suffer few gravitational effect and its wavelength would be little affected.
However, during this period, our system (our rules) would still decreasing due to gravitational field, and when this photon finally arrives here, we would measure its wavelength with a reduced ‘rule’ compared to what we had had at the moment when this photon was emitted from galaxy.
So, in our measurement would verify if this photon had suffered Redshift because, with reduced rule, we would measure a wavelength longer than those was measured. The traditional explanation is “Shift for Red” happened due to Doppler Effect compared to galaxy separation speed!
[Quebra da Disposição de Texto]
End of Dark Energy
Farthest a galaxy is from viewpoint, more time this light will take to arrive us and more shrunken our ‘rule’ will be to measure this photon since it had been emitted; so it would be bigger than wavelength, which would induce us to think of faster galaxy separation speed.
This acceleration (this new explanation, only visible) from distant galaxies took astronomers to postulate the existence of a “Dark Energy” would have a repulsive effect, seems like they are getting away faster.
But if acceleration is due to our own scale reduction, this dark energy wouldn’t be necessary anymore, because what makes this separation accelerated is, actually, our own special contraction. This would be the end of dark energy.
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I am not a scientists. But for me MOND represents the falsification of the present formulation of GR. My reasoning goes like this.
Every theory must explain all observations in it’s domain. Empirical laws are an outcome of a large number of observations. So the acceptable theory must explain all Empirical laws.
MOND is a very successful empirical law. It predicts the motion of all galactic sized objects by using a single universal parameter. There has been no failures for MOND at the galactic scale.
GR in its current formulation cannot explain MOND, so it is falsified. There needs to be a correction to the theory to save it.
Falsification of GR is a problem, since MOND does not provide a correction for GR. It just destroys it. This is a problem for the Cosmologists, as their work cannot be done without a working theory.
I would posit that the Cosmologists most vehemently opposed to MOND understand this subconsciously.
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I wouldn’t go as far as to say that MOND falsifies GR, because only data can. Yes, MOND is very empirical, and well confirmed on galactic scales, but it is not without problems on larger scales either. So right now, we have two approaches which both don’t work perfectly. That is a great chance to keep an open mind and explore all possibilities, but I agree that some people rather react with opposition to MOND, possibly subconsciously, because that is an easier approach that does not require to question what is thought to be known.
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Just came to know of this reply. I visit this website every few months to check if there is anything new.
I have been looking for any new theories that can incorporate MOND. And I think the most promising is the Entropic Gravity by Verlinde.
I think what you are saying is that MOND has problems at larger scales so it cannot falsify GR. But for me MOND is just an empirical formula. It is not a theory. So it need not apply at all scales. It should work at a well defined scale. I am thinking of Kepler’s Laws. Kepler’s Laws were not universal, they only worked in the solar system or similar systems. But still Newton’s theory needed to work with it to be called a Theory.
GR must incorporate MOND to be an acceptable theory of gravity. MOND is not a theory so it need not work well with light or at cluster scales or on cosmological scales. It is enough for it to work well in a well defined scale, to be able to falsify GR, if GR cannot work with it.
I had sent a mail about this to Stacy McGaugh long back, where I said that attempts to create a theory for MOND is IMO not a great idea. Any theory created will not be arrived from first principles, and can only be a toy theory. Also it will retain the failings of MOND at larger scales, and the gratuitous discontinuity at the transition scale. It’s real benefit is as an Empirical formula that destroys GR, which should force people to try and find a real theory that would incorporate MOND.
If you think that I am using the word Theory incorrectly, then you can correct me. I am not a scientist, so I don’t have to mince my words, about what is obviously a tautology. Ie GR (at least its present formulation) is no longer an acceptable theory. Existence and performance of MOND obliterates GR.
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I have a question :
In traditional General Relativity gravitational field lines come “from infinity and end at masses”.
What if the field lines come “from mass to mass” ?
If there is a beginning at the Big Bang and the conservation of the information the infinities do not exist in the physics.
The “from mass to mass” idea has its consequence :
1. On the cosmic highest level the greatest galactic clusters will be connected by the bunches of the gravitational field lines.
2. Outside of the bunches are voids with a very little field lines. It means a relatively sharp step of the gravitational potential between the thread of the filament and the void. This sharp step will shows a Dark Matter effect without any Dark Matter particles.
3. The space-time as a vacuum of the virtual particles-antiparticles has a variable density. There are higher probability of the quantum events on the thread of the filament than in the void.
4. The matter will tend to create the spiral galaxies with a plane perpendicular to the thread of the filament.
5. It may causes the pancakes of Zevidovich and galactic orientation on this thread.
6. The spiral were more frequent on the threads and elliptical galaxies in a center of the cluster because many threads crossing there.
7. The only Dark Matter particles are the virtual particles-antiparticles of the vacuum fluctuation.
Is the space-time an absolute phenomenon or it is a probability of the quantum event connecting the particles then ?
Czeslaw Hlawiczka – hlawiczes1@wp.pl
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It seems to me that the gist of the original exchange is that universities ought to support innovative thinking about the cosmos, so long as it does not venture outside institutional confines. This constraint apparently limits the scope of cosmic investigations to LCDM modifications or perhaps further development of MOND. But what about theories outside these limits? What about a wave theory for the propagation of gravity, such as has worked so well for electromagnetism, and an attendant vector potential for the gravitational field. “Oh, we self-respecting physicists would never be tainted with these low-brow approaches,” is the reply. “We might be ridiculed, even though our beloved Riemannian geometry, metaphysical theory continues to take on water despite all of the band-aids we have applied.” The sad truth is that gravitational theory, with the possible exception of MOND (which true relativists shun), has stagnated for more than a century. GR provides no viable explanations for “unimportant” phenomena such as observed anomalies in the trajectories of Pioneer spacecraft, nor the constant velocities of bands of stars as they orbit about a spiral galaxy center (“must be dark matter” is the reply), nor for many other observations being obtained by the Hubble telescope. [I am a retired physicist.]
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