Does Dark Matter Really Exist?

No scientist ever detected any dark matter. It is allegedly invisible because it does not interact with light. Scientists claim that its existence is proved by the way visible matter moves. In the solar system, the outer planets move very slowly according to mathematical formulas devised by Newton and Kepler.  The wavelengths of light from the outermost stars in our spiral galaxies suggest that they are moving too fast. Supposedly they are moving so fast that the stars and gas should fly off into deep space. Scientists also uses light spectra; measurements to claim that galaxies in clusters are also moving so rapidly that they should escape the cluster. There is simply not enough visible mass to account for these motions using the laws of physics. If Newton and Kepler’s laws work so well here locally, why do they fail to work in distant objects?

In order to get galaxies to work according to the "laws" of gravity, scientists have to invent massive amounts of dark matter and place it outside each galaxy. The dark matter must be in a halo around every galaxy, but not inside the galaxy. No one can explain why the invisible stuff surrounds galaxies of normal matter. Why doesn't it attract itself and wander off leaving the minuscule visible galaxy to fend for itself? Why can't they just propose that ordinary matter surrounds the galaxies? Ordinary matter could be detected with instruments. Nowhere near the amount of normal gas or brown dwarf stars can be found, so to preserve their mathematical laws of physics, they invent invisible matter.

Let us think about this dark matter.

●          You can't see it.

●          You can't use any known instrument to detect it.

●          If a rock made of dark matter smashed into the earth, it would not get heated by the atmosphere, because it does not interact with normal matter in any way except gravitationally.

●          Since it does interact gravitationally, then perhaps we could weigh the invisible dark rock on a scale. Sorry! Since it does not interact electrically with our "normal matter," it would simply pass right through the scales without any deflection.

●          Dark matter may not have shape. The shape of all objects we are familiar with appears to be an interaction between light and electrons. This is known as Quantum Electro-Dynamics or Q.E.D.

Dark matter has every characteristic of the nonexistent aether. Dark matter cannot be measured with geometry like normal stuff. Like aether, it has properties that no one has ever seen or ever can see. No one has invented an experiment that can detect it directly. No one has created WIMPS (weakly interacting massive particles) in accelerators. Scientists only infer its existence by comparing what their methods tell them the universe does with their mathematical theories of how they think it should work.

Scientists invent dark matter because of gravity. Gravity is an invention from the mind of Isaac Newton. He stated, "That there is a power of gravity pertaining to all bodies, proportional to the several quantities of matter which they contain." Newton's ideas related falling objects on earth with planets orbiting the sun. Both were reacting to this strange "force" which had the remarkable ability to produce action at a distance. No one has ever shown conclusively what gravity is or detected a graviton. No one has ever detected gravity waves. Some experiments that measured the acceleration of gravity on a tower, in a deep mine or bore holes in Antarctic ice have come up with strange, unexplained anomalies.

If you believe Einstein, gravity may be nothing more than the bending of space and time by mass. In Einstein's system, gravity does not accelerate objects. What we call acceleration is just an object free to move in space-time. In Einstein’s system, one need not think of gravity as a force. Comparisons between precision clocks show that clocks slow down or speed up in ways Einstein said they should. Newton believed that time always ran the same speed regardless of anything else in the universe. Despite Einstein's ideas, Newton's laws are still used to calculate orbits or even gently land a space craft on a tiny asteroid.

Gravity allows scientists to calculate orbits and falling abject with great precision, as long as the speeds are not approaching the speed of light. The problem with gravity is that distant observations seem to act in ways contrary to the laws of gravity. The faintest (distant) galaxies in the Hubble Deep Fields seem to be ejecting dense blue material like bubbles ascending through a pond. (See the accompanying pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope).  It would seem that the laws of gravity seem to work quite well in the neighborhood of the solar system, but cannot account for the motions of distant objects, even those within our own galaxy.

  Galaxy 601 Hubble Deep Field North (The upper white object - redshift 2.49) seems to be ejecting a stream of tiny blue objects.  Some of the blue compact objects seem to be interacting with the white galaxy #593 (redshift 1.75).   #593 also has a blue object on each end.

  HDFN galaxy 472 (proto-galaxy with redshift of 1.1) has a stream of blue objects that seem to arc around the upper part of the galaxy.  The blue quasar like galaxies are #469, #470 and # 471 with photo redshifts that are off scale.  The object in the lower left is galaxy 483 with a redshift of 1.0.

Mathematics is not an instrument for detecting what is in the universe!

The problem is instruments CANNOT detect any significant amount of matter to account for all the strange motions in the outer parts of nearby galaxies.  The ejections from distant proto-galaxies are sometimes straight (no visible reactions for gravity) and sometimes curved as in HDFN #472 above,  Of course their mathematics must be correct so they have to invent something absurd. They have to invent something that cannot be detected with instruments. How much dark matter do they have to invent? Well in order to make their mathematical laws work in and around nearby galaxies, they propose that the universe is made up of about 99% dark matter and dark energy.  It would seem that they need to invent all this invisible stuff because distant matter refuses to obey the mathematical laws that scientists have invented.

What hubris!

Hubris means overbearing pride or presumption. They are so sure their mathematical system is valid, that they invent imaginary stuff to make the universe work their way. Why do they invent theories that cannot be contradicted? What if I said, “I know there is an invisible demon living in my closet. I have examined the closet carefully but I have not found him.  Of course this is natural, since demons are known to be invisible.” The rules of science don't expect people to imagine invisible things that cannot be measured or seen. Inevitably when scientists invent things that cannot be negated, such as black holes or cosmological expansion, the problem lies with their assumptions.

That little fundamental conjecture.

Assumptions are the most critical part of any system of knowledge. Despite the importance of fundamental assumptions, modern people never question their most important assumption. No branch of philosophy or science analyzes the fundamental assumption. In fact, the most important assumption, the one Aristotle invented twenty-three hundred and fifty years ago, is protected at all costs. In the Western system, the most important idea is a very static and old assumption. This ancient idea has the force of canonized dogma. No person before Aristotle ever seems to have thought of matter the way he did. In fact, the history, astronomy and way of thinking of ancient people assumed that everything everywhere is always changing. Modern people assume that time, mass and energy somehow have separate unchanging existence, even though no experiment has ever isolated them from a relation with each other.  A scientist will invent any amount of "dark matter" in order to never question this critical assumption. Why"

If this ancient elementary assumption were false, science would have an irreparable flaw. In a universe where atoms change as a relationship, mathematics and experiments could never understand the workings of atoms or distant evidence. In such a universe, scientific stories about the distant universe would amount to nothing more than complex mathematical myths. This assumption is extremely critical to all the sciences. It is so critically important, it even affects experiments and logic.

What if the assumption were false? There would be no need to invent dark matter. The universe would remain a very complex place. Yet ordinary people could understand why science cannot decode the universe. If the assumption were false, science could not use its mathematics to understand the distant past. Of course scientists are not allowed to talk that way.

The pagan priests who worshiped the planet-gods, invented myths, omens, and oracles to account for what was going on around them. The Babylonian priests had very accurate records. They had complex mathematical techniques for determining the position of the planets. They could not, however, question the existence of the planet-gods. To do so would be to question the entire structure of their great system of knowledge. Their position of honor in the system would have been jeopardized. Their pride in the ancient records, the golden temples, their costly raiment and importance - prevented them from looking at the evidence with an unbiased mind. A modern scientist who questions the fundamental assumption would question the whole system all at once. People are impressed with their academic robes and tasseled hats. They are like ancient priests in an great system of knowledge that common people do not understand.  Why jeopardize their status by asking stupid questions?

I challenge the reader to do the very thing that the system protects you from - question the elementary assumption about the nature of matter. The fundamental assumption has a most amazing characteristic. If you accept it as self evident, you can conveniently ignore it. The Western world does not talk about the assumption directly, although it is inferred continuously. Remember an assumption is something accepted without evidence or proof. The principle assumption is so elementary that it affects every part of our system of knowledge. Without it scientific knowledge of the distant past is useless. Do you have the courage to question it? What is the advantage of questioning such an elementary assumption? If the assumption were false no one would have to imagine dark matter. There would be a simple answer to the problem of why gravity doesn't work the way we expect in the distant galaxies. One would not need dark energy or undetectable space-time expansion. The answer does not have to do with gravity at all but the simplest assumption about the nature of material stuff.

I challenge the reader to examine the assumption invented by Aristotle and adopted by the Europeans seven hundred years ago. The Western way of thinking has a long history that begins with the Greeks. It has one little idea that is so critical to science that it is never analyzed, tested or discussed. To talk about the assumption directly is an affront to educated people. It is like telling a doctor that he never learned the alphabet correctly. That is why this page challenges the reader to think about this all important assumption. The answer is so simple!

Copyright September 2001 by Victor McAllister
Last edited June 12, 2008

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