One of the more puzzling unsolved mysteries in modern physics and cosmology is what Dark Matter .
Fritz Zwicky first theorized its existence in 1930 after measuring the rotational speed of individual galaxies in several galactic clusters. He found they could not be predicted by Newton laws of gravity based on mass of all of the visible objects in them. Therefore, he concluded that these clusters must contain a dark or invisible form of matter.
Later observations of gas clouds in the outer parts of disk like galaxies independently confirmed the fact that approximately 90 percent of the mass in the universe is invisible or undetectable with today’s technology.
However, since the discovery in 1930 by Fritz Zwicky that approximately 90 percent of the matter in the universe is invisible physicists have not been able to determine or agree on its form.
For example, on page 92 of Mario Livio book “The Accelerating universe“, he lists the three forms that many scientists feel this invisible or dark matter can have.
The first is that it could consist of ordinary non-luminous matter such as planets, brown dwarfs, or black holes. The second possibility is that it could be composed of neutrinos. A third candidate is some exotic elementary particle that is a relic of the early universe.
He then goes on to explain the problems with each of these scenarios.
The existence of enough non-luminous matter to make up the invisible matter in the universe is not supported by observations based on gravitational microlensing events.
Relativity tells us that light “bends” as it moves through a gravitational field. Therefore, we should expect to see the effects of this “bending” or gravitational lensing of the light coming from stars that are behind any non-luminous matter. However, to this date the observed number of these gravitational lensing events indicates the mass of non-luminous matter associated with them can only be a small percentage of the universe’s missing mass.
There are some who say that this may be because of none of the non-luminous matter in our universe happens to be situated between a star and us. However, as Mario Livio points out in his book the sheer number of non-luminous objects that would be required to make up the missing mass of the universe is so large that this seems likely.
The second possibility or the existence of neutrinos has been confirmed though observations. This makes them prime candidate for dark matter along with non-luminous object because observations indicate they do have mass.
However, on page 98 he explains that neutrinos are probably not the dominate component of dark matter because the existence of enough neutrinos is not supported by the observed structure of our universe.
Neutrinos because of their mass are characterized by high random speeds in the early universe. However, observations of the early universe indicate the matter that condensed to form individual galaxies was not hot enough to support the high random speeds that would have been required to create the large number of neutrinos necessary to make up the observed quantity of dark matter that is known to exist.
The third and final possibility is that it may be made up of some exotic elementary particle such as WIMPs. However, the existence of these particles is not based on observations but only on theoretical perditions and therefore there is no way to either confirm their existence or that they are responsible for the gravitational force associated with dark matter.
However, there is another form of energy/mass, which could be a component of dark matter that has not yet been considered.Â
As we have shown throughout this blog there are many observations that support the existence of a continuous non-quantized or non-particle field of mass.
The most significant is the observation made by Louis de Broglie that all particles should have a wave component. This conclusion was confirmed by Davisson and Germer in 1927 when it was discovered that electrons and other particles were diffracted by crystals. This provides the most direct observational evidence of its existence because it is the only thing that could support the internal continuous wave properties of particles.
Another one is the fact that one can explain and predict the quantum properties of mass in terms of its continuous field properties.
For example in the article “Why is energy/mass quantized?†Oct. 4., 2007 it was shown that one can derive its quantum mechanical properties by extrapolating the laws of classical wave mechanics in a three-dimensional environment to a continuous non-quantized field of mass.
Briefly it showed the four conditions required for resonance to occur in a classical environment, an object, or substance with a natural frequency, a forcing function at the same frequency as the natural frequency, the lack of a damping frequency and the ability for the substance to oscillate would be present in a continuous non-quantized field of mass.
The existence of a continuous non-quantized field of energy/mass would provide the “substance” of oscillating medium thereby fulfilling one of the requirements for classical resonance to occur.
These oscillations would be caused by an event such as the decay of a subatomic particle or the shifting of an electron in an atomic orbital. This would force a continuous non-quantized field of energy/mass to oscillate with the frequency associated with the energy of that event.
However, the oscillations caused by such an event would serve as forcing function allowing a resonant system or “structure” to be established in it.
Classical mechanics tells us the energy of a resonant system can only take on the discrete or quantized values associated with the fundamental or a harmonic of it fundamental frequency.
However it also explains tell us the reason an electron cannot fall into the nucleus is because, as was shown in that article all energy is contained in four dimensional resonant systems. In other words the energy released by an electron “falling” into it would have to manifest itself in terns of a resonate system. Since the fundamental or lowest frequency available for a resonate system in either four dimensional space corresponds to an energy of an electron in the lowest orbital it must always be occupied.
Therefore observations that mass is quantized is supported by the existence of a continuous non-quantized field of energy/mass because one can derive their discrete properties of particles in terms of the resonant system in it.
Additionally a continuous non-particle field of mass would have all the observable properties of Dark Matter, because, as was shown in the article “What is Dark Matter?“ Sept 10, 2007, being mass it would have a gravitational component which would define the casually of the gravitational forces associated with it. However, it would be dark or not emit light because being continuous it would not be visible to modern scientific instruments which are only calibrated to detect light in a particle or photonic format.Â
History has shown it is not necessary to directly observe or detect a substance or entity to “confirm” its existence. For example, the existence of the atomic nucleus was indirectly “confirmed” by observing how alpha particles were deflected as they moved through gold foil.
Therefore, solving the mystery of what Dark Matter may require reanalyzing current and past observational data, unbiased by the preconceived assumption that all mass is in the form of particles and consider its existence of it in a continuous non-quantized form.
Later Jeff
Copyright Jeffrey O’Callaghan 2008