Contrabang! #12 Two-For-One Deal

This edition will be the largest one yet, as it encompasses the entire latter half of June because I fell behind while on vacation. As usual, it will be divided up into a section for each Starts With a Bang! article that was deemed to justify some scrutiny.

Ask Ethan: What’s The Real Story Behind This Dark Matter-Free Galaxy? (link)

I read a study that said the mystery of a galaxy with no dark matter has been solved. But I thought that this anomalous galaxy was previously touted as evidence FOR dark matter? What’s really going on here, Ethan?

He begins by explaining how astronomers determine the mass of a galaxy. There are two approaches. One is to analyze all the observable light from the galaxy to approximate the mass. Another is to analyze the relative motions of components within the galaxy.  Presumably, the two approaches should yield similar results.

In most galaxies, the two values for the measured/inferred matter content differ by about a factor of 5-to-6, indicating the presence of substantial amounts of dark matter. But some galaxies are special.

Think of other realms where there are two methods of measuring something. For instance, the police have a couple different ways of determining how fast a vehicle is moving. From the air, they can use markers on the highway, a known distance apart, to determine the speed by measuring the time it takes to travel from one to the next. Or, more commonly, they use a doppler radar from a cruiser. If using the two techniques resulted in wildly different measurements - by a factor of 5-to-6 - we'd assume that at least one of the approaches was faulty. Because the aerial approach is so simple, we look first towards the doppler approach as the likely source of the discrepancy. In astrophysics, no such assumptions are made. It is assumed that their theoretical understanding of the universe is sound, thus they invent enormous dark clouds of theoretical exotic matter to explain away the difference.

He goes on to explain that, in 2008, a team from Yale discovered a small galaxy whose measurements indicated a lack of dark matter - which was taken by some as proof of the existence of dark matter. Later that year, another team found a measurement twice that of the Yale team - contradicting their results. The Yale team them used another approach that confirmed their original findings. Now, a team from Spain has found that the galaxy in not 64 million light years distant, as previously believed, but 42 million light years away, changing the analysis to indicate a dark-matter ratio of around 50%.

All in all, we get a situation of shifting sands, where the conclusion of whether the galaxy has dark matter or not varies almost monthly, and the question of which result would actually support Dark Matter Theory seems to vary depending on who is being asked and what the current result appears to be. The Spanish team thinks a dark-matter-free galaxy refutes Dark Matter Theory; Ethan thinks it proves it.

The one takeaway, if you learn nothing else, is this: this new result resolves nothing. Stay tuned, because more and better data is coming. These galaxies are likely extremely low in dark matter, and possibly entirely free of dark matter. [...] The discovery of a dark matter-free galaxy, if that result holds up, is an extremely strong piece of evidence for a dark matter-rich Universe.

Ethan, perhaps becoming a skeptic himself, suggests that the current results can't really be trusted. He is correct. Unfortunately, his motivation is to hold out for the particular results he desires. But, it's one step closer to realizing that the vast inconsistencies coming out of experimental data arise because their basic assumptions are invalid.

How Did This Black Hole Get So Big So Fast? (link)

It’s not impossible according to physics, but we truly don’t know how this object came to exist.

Other things not impossible according to physics: unicorns, alchemy, and leprechauns. Calling something "not physically impossible" does not make it realistic. In this article, Ethan grapples with a recently discovered galaxy, dated (with redshift theory, of course) to be improbably old in light of the Big Bang Theory model of galactic formation.

It has a mass of 800 million Suns, an exceedingly high figure for such early times. Even if black holes formed from the very first stars, they’d have to accrete matter and grow at the maximum rate possible — the Eddington limit — to reach this size so rapidly.

Finding such a galaxy at the theoretical limit is something like a Major League baseball player batting a thousand for a season. Sure, it's technically possible, but no one actually believes it to be realistic. How does Ethan handle this contradictory evidence?

Is this problematic for cosmology? More data will eventually decide.

This is how so-called scientists with pre-conceived conclusions handle evidence. If it supports their theory, they call it "proof" of the theory. Otherwise, they just wait for different evidence.

This Is What Will Happen To Our Sun After It Dies (link)

In this one, he catalogs all the ways different ways that our sun might meet its inevitable fate. This is all based on a theory of stellar evolution of which there is no direct evidence. Many different star types are observed; it is assumed that a star transitions though different states and then dies. This is all based on the assumption that stars are fueled by internal fusion processes, which is not a confirmed theory. In fact, nearly all the observable features of our own sun would seem to refute the theory.

What we see here are the psychological maladies that plague these people. That existence is futile. That there is only a material existence. That they must cling on to the least-worst theory, rather than admit that most things are still a mystery to we humble humans. This is not the first time Ethan has delved into the stellar demise subject since Contrabang! began running about three months ago. Why does he revisit the subject? Is this hyper morbidity? I don't think so. I'd suspect he realizes that there is something awry in his worldview that life is random and meaningless, which is why he finds himself re-examining the most despairing conclusions.

No, The Universe Cannot Be A Billion Years Younger Than We Think (link)

One of the most surprising and interesting discoveries of the 21st century is the fact that different methods of measuring the expansion rate of the Universe yield different, inconsistent answers.

We've already ridiculed Ethan before for insisting that both techniques, which give different estimates for the age of the universe, can be correct. Here, he goes into more detail. The gist of it is that, if we scale the ratio of dark matter to dark energy in the universe just right, then we'll find that both approaches actually yield a similar number, around 13.8 billion years. This is just the kind of answer we'd suspect. As usual, dark matter and dark energy are the magical fudge factors that make all apparent discrepancies go away. Just stick generous amounts of the undetectable, hypothetical forms of matter in the right places. Here, Ethan has actually managed to combine the both, in a sort of two-for-one deal for galactic fudge factors.

He continued on with the subject a few days later in Ask Ethan: What Could Solve The Cosmic Controversy Over The Expanding Universe? where he reviewed some other exotic solutions that scientists are proposed for the problem of the universal age discrepancy. In that article he concludes with,

It’s time to seriously consider the fantastic: maybe this really is an omen that there’s more to the Universe than we presently realize.

Typically, the word omen holds a religious connotation, which makes it especially fitting. Also, "there's more to the Universe than we presently realize" is another way of saying "we don't actually understand the Universe all that well." Which is true.

No, Black Holes Don’t Suck Everything Into Them (link)

[The extreme mass of black holes] has led to a picture that most of us have in our heads about black holes that’s prevalent but incorrect: one where black holes suck all the matter from outside their event horizons into them. We think of black holes as cosmic vacuum cleaners, consuming everything that dares to approach their vicinity. Even though NASA itself has released videos illustrating this effect, it’s a complete falsehood. Black holes don’t suck, after all.

This is true, and it's good for him to set his readers straight on the subject. The way to think of a black hole is not like a drain in a bathtub, sucking everything nearby into the abyss. There's no reason for a black hole to act any differently than any other massive object. The sun, which is supermassive in regards to our solar system, does not suck our planet towards a fiery death. We orbit the sun, and it orbits the galactic center.

If you’ve ever seen Cookie Monster get his hands on cookies, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Sure, every cookie in the nearby vicinity will find its way into the area near Cookie Monster’s mouth. The cookies get funneled inside towards it. But the overwhelming majority of the cookie matter that approaches the mouth of Cookie Monster won’t wind up getting devoured; instead, it gets spit out in all directions, having been accelerated by a variety of chaotic forces. If you’ve had a child (or been one) since the 1970s, you’ve probably seen it in action for yourself.

This has to be one of the stupidest analogies I have ever read, and is not worthy of any further consideration.

He then goes on to give an explanation for the vast jets of x-ray emitting particles that are often expelled by galaxies and were never predicted by general relativity. Gas particles are accelerated by the gravitational field to such high temperatures that they disassociate into ions and electrons. The rotating charges set up an enormous magnetic field, which tends to propel particles in a perpendicular direction. This is similar to the Electric Universe theory for galactic dynamics, only the magnetic field is established from internal dynamics rather than external forces. However, the are problems with this formulation.

• How are the gases so heated? The whole point of this article is that black holes don't suck in material, yet he then refers back to the standard depiction of black holes "feeding" off accretion disks. The reason people mistakenly believe that black holes "suck" in material is because that's exactly what the accretion disc theory he believes in says they do.
• If the particles disassociate into complementary ions and electrons, how is a magnetic field generated? Since there will be a positive charge for each negative, they should all cancel each other out.
• Why do particles ejected remain at x-ray emission levels for hundreds of thousands of light years?

Ethan has run into a paradox. No, black holes don't suck in matter like a vacuum. But scientists must act like they do for their models of accretion disks - credited for everything from black hole x-ray emissions to Type I-A supernovae - to function.

This Is Why Every Galaxy Doesn’t Have The Same Amount Of Dark Matter (link)

The actual reason that every galaxy doesn't have the same amount of dark matter is that dark matter is a fudge factor for an incorrect model of galactic dynamics. If all galaxies required the same ratio of dark matter to normal matter, it would imply that the models were basically correct, save for perhaps some constant or scaling factor. Because the models are wrong, each galaxy requires its own unique fix. The same would be true for any hare-brained scheme. Perhaps you believed that the speed of a car is determined by the amount of fuel in the tank. You might test your theory by observing cars on various roadways using a police radar and a camera with a telephoto lens to view the gas gauge. You'd find that the observations don't appear to match expectations, but if you assign "dark fuel" as needed, you can make the formula work. The amount of dark fuel for a given car would depend on its circumstances. A car traveling very fast while running on E would require a tremendous amount of dark fuel to fit into the the model; a car with a full tank crawling along in a traffic jam would require none. Then, for any observed car, you simply add the required amount of dark fuel, and proclaim that its velocity was, in fact, predicted by your Fuel-Velocity Theory.

Before we get into the article, it is probably worthwhile to re-examine why dark matter was invented. In our solar system, the orbits of the planets comply with Newtonian physics. The inner planets move very fast compared to the outer planets, as seen here. [Best played at 2X speed, and keep in mind it looks funny because the distances aren't proportional. Saturn is actually twice the distance from the Sun as Jupiter is, for example.] In galaxies, however, all bodies rotate at roughly the same speed. This has lead scientists to propose that there must be great amounts of unseen matter - five times the visible matter, and much further out. These are the vast clouds of dark matter that surround galaxies.

Ethan begins,

There are two assumptions that everyone makes about the Universe for extremely good reasons, but they might not necessarily be true. The first is that the laws of physics that govern the Universe are the same everywhere and at all times. The second is that the Universe was born with roughly the same properties everywhere. The full suite of observations that we’ve taken — of stars, galaxies, gas, plasma, dust, and all forms of light — are consistent with these two assumptions being true, but we cannot know for sure.

Actually, that's not true. They dismiss the first assumption as necessary. They say that singularities - such as black holes and the entire pre-Big Bang universe - are places where normal physics breaks down. And they permit dark energy, which allows for violations of the speed of light, the laws of thermodynamics, and the laws of motion.

He then spends a number of paragraphs building the case that dark matter is not subject to many of the same forces that normal matter is - such as electromagnetism. Thus, it should be expected that normal matter might be ejected from a parent galaxy, while all the great clouds of dark matter more or less stay put. Thus, there should be small galaxies out there, formed from the ejected material, with little or no dark matter.

If you’re clever, [...] you should be able to form galaxies that are either low in dark matter, or contain no dark matter at all.

Well, of course. If you're clever you can also concoct a working model that maps vehicle fuel levels to velocities.

The big question, of course, is where are these galaxies without dark matter? Because they only form in environments that also contain much larger, more massive galaxies, they may not live for very long. The majority of galactic interactions and mergers have already occurred long ago in the Universe’s past, billions of years prior to the present day. As soon as a large galaxy pulls these dark matter-free galaxies back into them, they’ll cease to exist.

Typical. If the galaxies are found, it proves dark matter theory. If not, that's okay, it does not count as evidence against. The article continues by describing how there is surely evidence out there that will be found of galaxies without dark matter. That will be taken as proof that dark matter is real! And if they're not found? Well, then all the galaxies contain dark matter, which is proof that dark matter is real! In all scenarios, the evidence supports dark matter. The real question to ask Ethan is: how could dark matter be disproven?