Study: Dark matter doesn't exist, the universe is 27B years old

https://www.earth.com/news/study-dark-matter-does-not-exist-and-the-universe-is-27-billion-years-old/

by msolujic • 2 years ago

54 78 2 years ago

Filligree2• 2 years ago

Thank you for your submission of a proposed revolutionary theory to replace dark matter. Your new theory claims to be superior to dark matter models and will transform our understanding of the universe. Unfortunately, your theory will likely fail, because:

[ ] It cannot explain galaxy rotation curves across all galaxy types.

[ ] It fails to account for gravitational lensing observed in galaxy clusters.

[ ] It cannot explain the Bullet Cluster observations where dark matter appears separated from normal matter.

[ ] It is inconsistent with the cosmic microwave background anisotropies.

[ ] It cannot explain the large-scale structure and formation of the universe.

[ ] It introduces arbitrary parameters without physical justification.

[ ] It lacks a sound theoretical foundation or violates established physics principles.

[ ] It fails to explain the observed velocity dispersions in dwarf spheroidal galaxies.

[ ] It cannot account for empirical relations like the Tully-Fisher relation.

[ ] It cannot be tested or falsified by current or near-future experiments.

[ ] Your claims are unfounded or exaggerated.

——

I’m not a physicist, and cannot fill this in, but I thought I’d provide the template for the first physicist who turns up.

deknos• 2 years ago

It introduces arbitrary parameters without physical justification.

you could argue the same about dark matter/energy.

It cannot be tested or falsified by current or near-future experiments.

Did we actually directly observe dark matter or dark energy now?

wavemode• 2 years ago

you could argue the same about dark matter/energy.

Well, not really. The physical justification is, the multitude of observations that appear consistent with the theory that there is some form of matter out in space that does not interact with photons. It's not something someone just had a dream about one night - it's a real-world observation, with telescopes.

If, tomorrow, a laboratory discovers a new or existing particle that is able to actually, or even just apparently, avoid interacting with photons and matter, then dark matter could be done and proven.

By contrast, most dark matter competitors require us to rethink large swathes of what we know about physics and cosmology. That doesn't mean they're necessarily wrong, it just means the bar of skepticism is a bit higher.

taylodl2• 2 years ago

This hypothesis is based on the idea that the physics isn't uniform throughout the universe, a philosophical idea that has been debated for over a century and so far, all the evidence points to physics being uniform throughout the universe.

Claiming physics isn't uniform throughout the universe is more problematic than positing the existence of dark matter/dark energy. Lacking any evidence for either position, the principle of Occam's Razor informs us to stick with dark matter/dark energy.

One of the purposes of exercises such as this is to get people thinking of new ways to falsify existing models. So far, dark matter/dark energy are in remarkable alignment with observations. Falsifying either of these ideas would be huge.

normalaccess2• 2 years ago

I've always found "Dark Matter" explanations unsatisfying. No-matter how deep you dig you always end up at a point where dark matter is nothing more than a contrivance.

Nothing from the observable universe, just bundling all the mathematical loose ends together and stashing them under the rug.

chrbr• 2 years ago

The paper calls out a few things that they didn't cover:

The CCC+TL model predicts the age of the Universe as 26.7 Gyr against the generally accepted value of 13.8 Gyr. This is of deep concern and needs the model validation against multiple observations, including BAOs, CMB, Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), and globular cluster ages. Our focus here is on BAOs.

I am not in academia and therefore am not qualified to have strong opinions on any of this, but I do like the idea of papers not swinging for home runs all the time by explaining everything, and instead being happy with hitting a single by proposing something intriguing and asking for others to chime in.

zigzag312• 2 years ago

Can you also post a list of what dark matter models fail to explain or are inconsistent about?

mr_mitm5• 2 years ago

The dwarf galaxy problem might qualify: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_galaxy_problem

1oooqooq2• 2 years ago

but doesn't the current models of DM also ticks all those boxes. and they were worked backwards to plug the ones they don't, right?

OutOfHere• 2 years ago

Your claims are unfounded or exaggerated.

That's not true though. It says in its abstract that it can fit the Type Ia supernovae Pantheon+ data as accurately as the ΛCDM model, and also fit the angular size of cosmic dawn galaxies observed by the JWST. It is the data produced by the JWST that has led to this model.

The article goes on to say:

The galaxies observed in the early Universe, some less than 500 million years after the Big Bang, appear to have shapes, structures, and masses similar to those in existence for billions of years

dang2• 2 years ago

Did you copy this from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41760747? I just noticed that the two comments are almost identical.

Filligree2• 2 years ago

Absolutely. More’s the pity that I cannot tag them, because they were 100% right.

It was only nine days ago, and here’s the next one. Yet, we have several fields that are only indirectly coupled to EM — neutrinos come to mind - and if you graph the fundamental fields you get a rather sparse graph.

It should be a surprise to no-one that there are disconnected segments.

WithinReason2• 2 years ago

I wonder if CCC would also explain the Fermi paradox: We're alone because physical laws are exactly right for life only here, even the smallest change reduces the probability of intelligent life significantly

adventured2• 2 years ago

The distances are so great and the duration + resources that it takes to cover that distance with high function and accuracy is so ridiculous, that it ends up being pointless to attempt it. Intelligent life expires long before it spreads widely.

The answer to Fermi is that there's no point to expanse, which culls the effort given enough time (the exploration effort is very expensive in exchange for rapidly diminishing returns for most civilizations). Intelligent life that makes it to our stage and beyond chooses to go inward long before it spreads super wide outward. There is vast, unlimited, easy, lower cost satisfaction inward (virtual space), there is nothing of great value outward at any reasonable cost of resources and time (humanity doesn't grasp this widely yet, it's still in the naive, neighborhood exploration stages). The only thing out there is disappointment, once you discover it's almost all low value repetition (extraordinarily vast repetition of very low value entities).

mr_00ff002• 2 years ago

This entire theory seems to be based on only current technology.

Tell someone in the 1600s about the concept of cellphones and they would say it’s impossible to ever instantaneously communicate with someone around the world.

It’s so energy intensive with our current technology, which isn’t really an answer to fermi.

2OEH8eoCRo0• 2 years ago

I wonder if there are any solar systems with multiple habitable planets where an intelligence is more likely to colonize and tackle space travel.

Imagine if Mars and Venus were just habitable from the start, with plants, animals, and resources. We would probably have colonies there. Some intelligence somewhere probably had such a predicament.

rolandog• 2 years ago

I hadn't thought of it that way. My personal explanation for the Fermi Paradox is that it's darn-tootin' hard overcoming our economic and political systems' unsustainability: once a certain amount of hurt and/or distrust is exchanged, people are almost irreversibly coaxed on hate spirals.

We're not smart enough — collectively — to recognize we need to work on our feelings... even if our collective existence depended on it.

Source: Points at the geopolitical theater. (What a shame that our dumb systems and shallow leaders allow for so much hurting over petty squabbles. It's deplorable.)

Buttons840• 2 years ago

If there is one universe, and we're the only life, that's remarkable.

If there are many universes (multiverse), then it's plausible only 1 instance of life forms in a few of them, and we might be the only life in the entire visible universe.

Is there a name for this theory?

I share this because I frequently see assumptions that there must be other life somewhere.

oidar• 2 years ago

The paper under discussion: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ad1bc6

ThrowawayTestr• 2 years ago

Would make things a lot simpler

kibwen• 2 years ago

Alas, there is no law of nature that says that the universe must be simple, elegant, and understandable.

mr_mitm5• 2 years ago

The author doesn't think so:

Admittedly, the CCC+TL model is significantly more complex to work with than the ΛCDM model.

uticus• 2 years ago

Outside the field, but generally acquainted with scientific studies of things much closer and easier to study: I wonder how much guesswork really goes into astrophysics vs other areas?

exitb• 2 years ago

Maybe it's a messaging problem. Even for that article, the headline appears more decisive every time it's repeated. How long until it appears in mass media as "Science wrong again?"

teamonkey4• 2 years ago

Guesswork is part of forming a hypothesis, as it is with any science. The thing about astrophysics is that it's very hard (or impossible) to conduct an experiment to prove a hypothesis, and with very few exceptions it's impossible to see something happening in real time.

What you do have is a vast amount of data in the obseravable universe. So for a theory to be valid, it needs to not contradict all that out there which we can see. Or if it does contradict it, it needs to explain why that is and not contradict other things.

Often, as with particle physics, we're limited by what we can see, so we need new technologies (such as the JWST) to give us greater insights. Just as with modern particle physics, in a lot of cases this helps to reduce the size of error bars in observations or hypotheses, which then helps to reduce the problem space and weed out theories that then fall out of these error bars.

This is why you can have several competing theories at once (for example, various alternatives to dark matter). Some may be more popular than others, or may be more likely than others, but they stay on the table until actually disproven[1].

(Have an astrophysics degree, not a professional astrophysicist)

[1] Although as far as I was aware, Tired Light was actually considered off the table.

wtcactus2• 2 years ago

Interesting. How do we explain the missing mass in the galaxies then (the observed rotation curve of galaxies needs a bigger mass than that of the stars that it is made of)?

abakker2• 2 years ago

I haven't read the original paper, but my assumption is that if their model suggests the universe is much older and that things like light speed actually decay over distance, then maybe they are suggesting that some of the other constants of the universe are also decaying leading to the different observed rotations. But, I'm not a physicist.

slowmovintarget3• 2 years ago

Speed of light decay should be fairly easy to disprove.

Anything that contradicts Special Relativity requires an exceedingly compelling argument or preponderance of evidence in favor, and Tired Light does not have it.

wtcactus2• 2 years ago

But we observe this everywhere, even in the Andromeda galaxy, so, universe age is not a factor for the rotation curve of galaxies.

deeznuttynutz• 2 years ago

Quantized Inertia is a new theory that works and is interesting. Although, not rigorous and is speculative at best

austin-cheney2• 2 years ago

You gather more evidence. If the evidence you need is out of reach then you have identified a more immediate problem to solve.

adventured2• 2 years ago

I've got another one for you.

"Spacetime" also does not exist. Time doesn't exist as a force of nature or tangible entity, it's nothing more than a subjective measurement. It exists like your height measurement exists, or the measurement of four meters of distance from you to the wall exists. The matter contained in the space of distance being measured exists, and the events between (subjective) time measurements existed, time itself does not exist. You can measure your height from the ceiling to your head (impractical but you can do it). You can measure time based on Mars going around the Sun. Neither entity exists (your height, nor time; both are subjective based on the anchor chosen). It would be silly to think height measurements are a tangible force of nature, we'll call it HeightSpace, now we must discover how it rules over the universe and seek to observe its magic principles.

The bogus nature of "spacetime" has held back multiple fields for many decades. It has wasted a generation of brains that fell for it.

1oooqooq2• 2 years ago

... uh, that is (sort of) the common place view since a couple centuries.

brianf0• 2 years ago

This seems obvious and is how I have always understood it. How is this not the case? Where is time treated like a tangible entity?

sebzim4500• 2 years ago

Where does your view diverge from special (or general) relativity? The fact that the time axis is observer dependent has been an accepted part of physics for a century.

agos• 2 years ago

luckily, a serial entrepreneur from hacker news has seen where theoretical physicists could not!

vundercind• 2 years ago

The insight at the beginning of this is exactly one of the things that enabled the development of relativity and the notion of spacetime.

Workaccount2• 2 years ago

You can measure time based on Mars going around the Sun

You can also measure it by using something non-subjective, like atomic state oscillations that are identical anywhere in the universe. You can then use this as a counter while watching entropy increase, and see that you are moving in a single direction as those oscillations tick.

That doesn't leave much room for subjectivity at all.

slowmovintarget3• 2 years ago

Emergent phenomena are just as real as fundamental phenomena in the plain spoken-language sense. A wall's existence is only subjective if you are prevented from walking through it but the cat passes right on through because it feels there's no wall.

We don't yet know whether time is emergent or fundamental. It most certainly exists.

bluejay2387• 2 years ago

Could somebody else take a turn posting the related XKCD comic? I did it last time.

debo_• 2 years ago

Are you asking for comic relief?

indigodaddy• 2 years ago

Can this “tired light” theory attempted to be actively tested somehow, instead of analyzing/coming to conclusions upon {b,m}illions-year old data?

mr_mitm5• 2 years ago

Tired light has been thoroughly debunked. This paper came up a few times now on HN, and it's almost crackpottery. I know shallow rebuttals are frowned upon, but it's such a waste of time. I'll at least link this: https://www.iflscience.com/why-its-extremely-unlikely-the-un...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39726388

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39742010

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41760006

Twisell• 2 years ago

Proposing new competing hypothesis is the very nature of scientific progress.

Dark matter and cords theory are still imperfect working draft compared to other paradigms.

Unless you can link to a systematic study proving the CCC+TL is flawed there is no guarantee you are on the good side of scientific progress. Flat earthers where once convinced they were not on the side of crackpotery.

vegetablepotpie• 2 years ago

Researchers are hard at work trying to find ways to test the CCC+TL model.

It’s not a scientific theory unless it’s testable. I’m going to withhold judgement on this and take it for what it is: an interesting idea, and nothing more.

sbergot• 2 years ago

I am not an expert but is the dark matter theory testable?

mumblemumble2• 2 years ago

Dark matter is not a theory, per se. There are many, many theories that attempt to explain dark matter. Some of them have yet to produce testable hypotheses, others have already been tested.

Rumengol• 2 years ago

It's not, but it's accepted as it is the theory that best fits the observations. It has holes, but not as much as others. It will continue to be the accepted model until another one is an even better fit to the data or we can prove/disprove the existence of dark matter.

mr_mitm5• 2 years ago

Of course it is. It already passed many tests (for example gravitational lensing) while some dark matter candidates (WIMPS, primordial black holes) have effectively been ruled out through tests.

mumblemumble2• 2 years ago

Testable hypotheses are at the core of the scientific method, yes. But that's not just limited to the actual testing of hypotheses. All the work that goes into formulating hypotheses is also explicitly part of the scientific method.

Worth noting, too, that the paper outlines several possible experiments. It also specifically mentions some relative shortcomings of the model, and lists existing observations that they haven't tried to reconcile with it yet.

primer42• 2 years ago

This is how theoretical physics has worked for quite some time - someone figures out a hypothesis that works mathematically, and the experimentalists then prove or disprove it.

andrewjl• 2 years ago

Is there a plausible experiment that can falsify dark matter? The study here used observational data and it didn't do that. (Deducing that non-existence of dark matter is plausible given what else was observed isn't the same thing.)

“There are several papers that question the existence of dark matter, but mine is the first one, to my knowledge, that eliminates its cosmological existence while being consistent with key cosmological observations that we have had time to confirm,” Gupta confidently concludes.

scientator• 2 years ago

Although the Big Bang is widely referred to as a theory, cosmologists actually categorize it as a model not a theory. Does that mean it's not scientific? No. It's just that a lot of cosmology isn't testable, per se. The same is true for the historical sciences in general (evolutionary biology, geology). Given the time scales involved, there's no way to design tests or experiments.

WithinReason2• 2 years ago

Just like string theory?

austin-cheney2• 2 years ago

I am not sure why people become so emotionally invested in the defense of something which they have no evidence of. In the context of religion that investment is called faith, which makes sense in the context religion but not in science. Theology is the exploration of a belief system, but science is the exploration of knowledge.

It seems dark matter and dark energy exist to balance deficiencies observed in our current understanding of particle physics applied to a cosmological model, particularly for observations that span vast distances extremely far away. From a purely logical perspective we should anticipate great deficiencies the further away we look because our entire understanding of the universe is derived from observations of various EMF transmissions only and only from Earth, or near Earth in the case of JWST. That is an exceptionally limited perspective. We have much to learn and more evidence to gather before conflating one avenue of science into a practice more akin to a religion.

meindnoch• 2 years ago

I'm convinced.

whatshisface• 2 years ago

This article confuses dark matter with dark energy. They're totally separate concepts.

wrsh07• 2 years ago

Let's talk about the article and then dark matter, I guess:

We’ve always been taught that the fundamental constants of nature — like the speed of light or the charge of an electron — are unchanging. But what if they aren’t fixed after all?

I mean, sure, what if? Honestly, if you can vary things like gravity, I don't think you need any additional components to explain the dark matter observations.

The CCC+TL model needs to provide testable predictions that can be confirmed or refuted through observations and experiments

This step is important!

Ok, so dark matter generally: this YouTuber [1](physicist/physics PhD) notes that there are many theories that explain the dark matter observations. But to her, "dark matter" is the data that we need to explain.

Essentially: we have a bunch of weird observations where it looks like there's way more matter than we see. But the actual explanation for what it is, there are tons of those. So throw one more in the pile (this one says "oh there's no extra matter, the universal constants are different over there and light maybe moves slower as it travels farther")

[1] https://youtu.be/qS34oV-jv_A?si=z2KcSSIhezXppNAc

MattPalmer1086• 2 years ago

The article confuses dark matter and dark energy. The theory in question relates to dark energy, not matter.

m3kw9• 2 years ago

To me "light loses energy" is as absurd as scientists making up "Dark matter". This really tells me they are like math researchers solving problems by assuming a "constant" and solving it.

dang2• 2 years ago

Recent and related:

New research suggests that our universe has no dark matter - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41760006 - Oct 2024 (36 comments)

Study: Dark matter doesn't exist, the universe is 27B years old

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