this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2025
1426 points (98.6% liked)
Science Memes
14857 readers
2552 users here now
Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
- Infographics welcome, get schooled.
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Research Committee
Other Mander Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
- !abiogenesis@mander.xyz
- !animal-behavior@mander.xyz
- !anthropology@mander.xyz
- !arachnology@mander.xyz
- !balconygardening@slrpnk.net
- !biodiversity@mander.xyz
- !biology@mander.xyz
- !biophysics@mander.xyz
- !botany@mander.xyz
- !ecology@mander.xyz
- !entomology@mander.xyz
- !fermentation@mander.xyz
- !herpetology@mander.xyz
- !houseplants@mander.xyz
- !medicine@mander.xyz
- !microscopy@mander.xyz
- !mycology@mander.xyz
- !nudibranchs@mander.xyz
- !nutrition@mander.xyz
- !palaeoecology@mander.xyz
- !palaeontology@mander.xyz
- !photosynthesis@mander.xyz
- !plantid@mander.xyz
- !plants@mander.xyz
- !reptiles and amphibians@mander.xyz
Physical Sciences
- !astronomy@mander.xyz
- !chemistry@mander.xyz
- !earthscience@mander.xyz
- !geography@mander.xyz
- !geospatial@mander.xyz
- !nuclear@mander.xyz
- !physics@mander.xyz
- !quantum-computing@mander.xyz
- !spectroscopy@mander.xyz
Humanities and Social Sciences
Practical and Applied Sciences
- !exercise-and sports-science@mander.xyz
- !gardening@mander.xyz
- !self sufficiency@mander.xyz
- !soilscience@slrpnk.net
- !terrariums@mander.xyz
- !timelapse@mander.xyz
Memes
Miscellaneous
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Watch her dark matter video. And the follow up. But for the love of God, dodge the comments. SO MANY people read the title of the video and then went to make comments calling her wrong, even though she spent like an hour specifically addressing the arguments they make.
Dark matter is not a theory. It's a problem. Fuck!
The only thing you should post in those comments is:
Dark Matter
Where is it?
How much?
Where is it?
How much?
Do we need it?
Like I said, watch her video. She goes into lots of detail and gives a much better explanation than I could ever hope to. But here I go anyway:
The gist of it is that "dark matter" isn't really an attempt to explain anything. Like, theory of gravity, we have some good rules, things accelerate depending on mass and proximity to other things. Theory of dark matter? Not so much.
Dark matter is a problem in the sense that it's an observable phenomenon we can't really explain. When we observe really far away stars and galaxies, they interact in ways that imply far larger amount of matter than what we are actually observing. So where's that matter? We don't know! Dark matter! But unfortunately that nomenclature and the many ideas surrounding what does cause the dark matter phenomenon have deeply clouded the conversation.
Dark matter is not a theory of how things work. It's a problem to be solved.
Uhh I guess it's kinda like that, minus you knowing you farted. Imagine the dog barked and ran but you genuinely had no idea why that happened. As a joke you go "dang that was like I farted so bad even the dog couldn't stand it!" But now everyone heard you say you farted, so any time a dog barks and runs away they call it "Rowbot's fart."
Dark matter may not literally be matter of any kind at all. All we know for sure is that objects with a certain amount of observable matter are, for some reason, behaving like they have much, much more. But also not with any consistency; some of them act like they have 30% more, others like they're twice their size. We just call it dark matter because "dang it's like there's a bunch of matter we can't see." But we don't really know what's causing the discrepancy.
To be fair, it's not like we're totally clueless about it, but as of yet no single hypothesis has any concrete proof.