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Zamicol | 10 months ago

It doesn't, and the problems have only become more problematic over time, but it's the least bad hypothesis that's broadly accepted. I suspect a generational succession is required for new paradigms to be contemplated.

There are many researchers proposing simpler, novel, and testable solutions that seem to go unnoticed. For example, I'm a fan of Alexandre Deur's work. He has some simple and elegant solutions that I've never seen discussed even though they appear "obvious". For example, from 21 years ago: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2004.05905

That paper is suggesting that one of the reasons why galaxies are spinning faster than some calculations expect is because they're failing to account for the gravitational lensing of gravity itself, which bends gravity down towards the disk.

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mr_mitm|10 months ago

That paper focuses on rotation curves, like all DM skeptics. I can only assume because this problem is understandable with high school level math. But that's neither the only nor the best evidence for DM. If your new hypothesis doesn't even mention the CMB power spectrum, it's not really worth listening, sorry. And to be taken seriously, it has to explain at least most of the data. DM does that, everything else does not.

magicalhippo|10 months ago

I'm just a layman, but in this[1] paper from 2023 Deur and his collaborators took his model[2] and applied it to the Hubble Tension problem. This paper does mention fitting the CMB well (as I understand it), and the model having no Hubble Tension.

I know his work has been contentious in the past, and that his past work has used multiple models that are not entirely compatible for different problems, weakening his claims.

That said, at least from my armchair it seems like a worthwhile direction to pursue.

[1]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.10861

[2]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.02481

naasking|10 months ago

> If your new hypothesis doesn't even mention the CMB power spectrum

MOND successfully predicted the first peak of the power spectrum. I wonder why everyone focuses so much on LCDM predicting the second peak.

> DM does that, everything else does not.

Whenever someone says DM "does that", it's often after its initial prediction was falsified and the calculation was modified in some way to account for the new observations [1,2]. This has been going on for decades, so that's hardly a ringing endorsement.

I'm not surprised mind you, this is the hallmark of the confirmation bias that's been characteristic of LCDM for decades now.

[1] From Galactic Bars to the Hubble Tension: Weighing Up the Astrophysical Evidence for Milgromian Gravity, https://www.mdpi.com/2073-8994/14/7/1331

[2] Not that MOND is a suitable replacement because it too has its problems. My only point is that this tendency to sweep these inconveniences under the rug as if DM is a compelling and successful theory and saying "nothing else does the job" is disingenuous at best. What you should say is that "nothing does, period, not even our best DM theory", because that's the truth.

sfifs|10 months ago

The phrase "Dark Matter" literally means we don't know and therefore until something testable is postulated and tested (to be fair i believe some candidates have fallen by the wayside over the years as measurement has improved), it's principally equivalent to plugging in a giant X and giving it properties not unlike Fermi's famous elephant curve fitting comment.

teamonkey|10 months ago

> I suspect a generational succession is required for new paradigms to be contemplated.

There are a constant stream of new paradigms contemplated (including this one!)

The problem is that they’re contemplated, tested and found wanting.

The notion of dark matter (and dark energy, which is a completely different animal) isn’t hanging around because of stubborn professors or a lack of imagination, it’s because nothing better has come along yet.

The good thing about this theory is that it seems easily testable. Maybe it’ll be different.

mnky9800n|10 months ago

Change happens in physics one funeral at a time.

DrNosferatu|10 months ago

Very true - but the CMB has outlived quite some funerals.