Monday, June 23, 2014

The Mysterious Matter: Dark Matter


According to the renowned astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, there appears to be an unknown substance in the universe that affects gravity--dark matter. Tyson claims that physicists have known about the mysterious matter since the 1930s, and they cannot decipher what this thing is. The word itself--dark matter--can be a misnomer because the thing might not even be matter. Tyson says that it should be named "Fred or some other word that has no meaning" (I paraphrase loosely and I'm sorry if your name is Fred) because scientists truly do not what that mysterious thing that alters gravity is. 

I don't know the specific equations that astrophysicists use; however, they do calculations--probably calculating galaxies and planets' movements in space--and they need an added substance to correctly map the universe's gravity. 

Clearly, scientists do not know what dark matter is, but that's the beauty of science; scientists can hypothesize what this substance is or where it comes from. The most intriguing theory--I think-- is the one that relates to String Theory. In String Theory, there is a possibility that there is something bigger than the universe which is known as the multiverse. The multiverse is pretty self-explanatory; it's a place where multiple universes exist and possibly collide. Tyson also argues that this is a valid possibility due to human history. In history, humans have made the false assumption that earth is the largest existing body; however, humans have begun realizing that there are other planets that are sporadically placed in the sky. Humans expanded the universe from earth to its counterparts, planets. It doesn't end there; humans discovered they lived in a galaxy--for sure that's the largest thing in universe, right?. Nope. They, then, discovered there are accompanying galaxies which humans now know this is the known universe. Therefore, there is a possibility that the universe is the limited view that humans see and that there is a larger place than the universe--the mulitverse. Now imagine all these multiple universes as individual bubbles. If these bubbles collide, they create an odd shape such as mickey mouse's head. This leads astrophysicists to hypothesize that the universe is colliding with another universe which causes there to be extra gravity. In String Theory, there is a chance that gravity--or gravitons--leaves from one universe and enters the other. This explains the dark matter issue, but that is not the most interesting part of the theory. If this theory is true, that means there exists another universe and makes humans ponder on how big is this place that humans live in. It truly will make any individual feel small--literally. 

Another question can be answered from this theory is "why is the universe accelerating?" According to Tyson, the universe is accelerating due to dark matter (the universe should be slowing down, but I'll talk about that in another blog post). The scary thing is that the neighboring, unknown universe can affect our universe, and we have no control over it.

The problem with this post is that there is no way that I can make you imagine how big our universe is or even how big our solar system is. It's truly unimaginable. My similes or imagery cannot possibly explain the idea of the multiverse's size. I wouldn't even know what I would be saying if I were able to apply a simile to effectively explain the size of this place. So next time when you look up at the moonlit sky, keep in mind you're seeing an infinitesimally small fraction of the universe, and even a smaller fraction of the multiverse--if it exists--however big those things are because I don't know.  

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