Is there a logical flaw in believing that power can be hidden such as with dark energy, and dark matter?

Question

Wouldn't it make more logical sense that the most powerful forces in the universe are the most prominent? Galactic superclusters are the most prominent powerhouses in the universe. Shouldn't their influence on space/time be considered more significant than some invisible force?

Answer 1

Your argument is philosophical rather than scientific - not that there is anything necessarily the matter with that, as long as you realise that it is so.



More seriously, it doesn't seem to be right. For example, gravity is an invisible force, and yet it is gravity which holds stars, galaxies, galaxy clusters and all the rest together. That seems a very central, and very invisible force. Of course Einstein taught us (in the Geeral Theory of Relativity) that gravity is just how we perceive the distortion of space-time causde by the presence of mass - and that distortion is certainly not visible, either.



The what about electro-magnetic radiation, which has a very important part to play in the universe, too. In what sense is it 'prominent? We can ourselves detect only a tiny fraction of the total spectrum (visible light), and much the same is true of the instruments we make. To either us or a radio telescope or an x-ray telescope, gamma rays are invisible, although very energetic.



In fact, I can't actually think of a physical force which is visible, other than (and even then only in some cases) mechanical force.



Maybe (judging by your 'additional details') that isn't what you mean. Maybe you mean that the effects of the force, rather than the force itself, should be visible - but then, aren't you just creating a tautology? The forces we deem to be the greatest are the ones with the most visible effects?

Answer 2

I don't think there's a logical flaw, and I don't think you are incorrect regarding galactic superclusters. You are both right. The gravitational lensing that accompanies galactic superclusters is pretty dramatic, indicating that those particular objects have a substantial gravitational potential. But dark matter is found everywhere, not just in giant things like superclusters. It appears to be pretty well spread out, not concentrated in globs around superclusters (although it's there, too). Whatever it is (and I don't think we know what it is), it's "power" is not represented by its amplitude, but rather by the very fact that it's there in the first place. Dark energy is a different story altogether. Dark energy is like a place holder - a two word explanation for the accelerating expansion that fills the square until we understand what we are really seeing. I would not draw any firm conclusions from either term at this point, but dark energy is - I think - less clearly defined than dark matter. In any case, there is no competition between dark matter, dark energy, and standard gravitational potential due to normal rest mass. They are each entirely different things, so trying to draw a comparison is like comparing bushels to hectares. Does not compute.

Answer 3

Power is (technically) defined as energy (used or transformed or transferred) per unit time.

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I don't understand why there should be any surprise that a larger volume of the Universe will have a larger magnitude of power. ????

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You confuse dark matter with dark energy. They are not closely related (as far as we know). Or perhaps you don't confuse them but are making a broad (and incorrect) philosophical point. Either way, the devil is in the details. If you believe that your point of view will lead to valid conclusions about either of these subjects, reduce your hand waving to a paper, get it published in a peer reviewed journal, and then we will know that you're not just talking out your a--.

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You also do not seem to understand that the forces can be ranked strong >>weak>electromagnetic >> gravitational. You seem to have confused range with magnitude. Why not take a course in Modern Physics at the college level, before you opine on the subject? (or if you have taken one, why not learn what you didn't in that course?)

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I am not even claiming you are wrong to suggest that it is the large scale structure of the Universe that causes phenomena such as the distribution of stellar velocities or accelerated expansion of space-time. Why you chose to invoke superclusters rather than the cosmic threads/sheets is not clear to me. Since we understand neither dark matter nor dark energy, we can exclude very little with high (5 sigma) certainty. We actually have quite a lot inferred about dark matter and may already be detecting it (or we might start shortly). Should the already published observations be confirmed, then we have detected it. If the telescopes work as hoped, we might observe it (its consequences) in the next 5 years.

As far as dark energy, that gets into cosmological models and may be a long time before any particular explanation is proved and its competitors disallowed by the data.

Answer 4

you have a logical flaw



"Shouldn't their influence on space/time be considered more significant than some invisible force"



you are assuming it superclusters haven been considered or taken into account



They have (so your argument falls flat on its face)



Taking into account ALL the mass we know of in the universe there aint enough to account for what we see and measure (nowhere NEAR enough)

You know what the mass HAS to be (to account for everything), you know what the mass IS (by observations and calculations,) there is a shortfall - a "missing" mass

The "missing" mass is called dark matter to give it a name. What it is and where it is nobody knows (hence "dark")

THAT is logic

Maybe at some time in the future it may be found that there are flaws in the measurements, flaws in the calculations, flaws in our understading of the universe, whatever, such that it may shown discovered that "dark energy and mass" just do not exists. But until then the our understanding/calculations/observations point to a shortage of mass and energy in the universe



You are not making an argument - you are ignoring.the fact that superclusters HAVE been taken into account. THAT is a logical flaw.

Answer 5

The dominant force is the quantum vacuum energy. The energy state of the universe itself. There is more energy in the nothingness of space than in all the mass in the universe. The Galactic superclusters are just small concentrations of energy, ice crystals in the metastate slush of the universe. If we collected just one dollar from everyone on the planet, what would be larger, the sum collected or what's in your bank account now. Don't underestimate small things if there is a lot of it.



Dark matter isn't completely invisible, we can detect the effects of their gravity, we never said they were invisible just undetected before. Also, dark matter could easily be normal matter that's poorly lit such as dust or rogue planets. The suggestion that it may be something exotic is only because there seem to be more of it than we would expect there to be unlit matter.



Negative or dark energy is about the expansion of space, it's the opposite of gravity. It's proposed because the observed behavior that we see can not be explained by gravity.

Answer 6

Scientists don't know what dark matter is. All they know of its gravitational affect in accelerating the expansion of the universe. Some 10 years ago there was a mystery of the missing matter, that someone calculated the mass of the universe and they discovered that there wasn't enough mass to keep the expansion going! The universe should stop expanding and begin to contract. Yet all evidence points to that the expansion is actually increasing. Something unkown must be there between galaxies that is causing it. Hense someone called it dark matter and dark energy.



Yes even dark matter is expanding galactic superclusters.

Answer 7

I think sometimes the most powerful things aren't necessarily the most prominent, but the most pervasive. If dark energy is a force that arises from empty space, then it would make sense that it is overcoming gravity as, per unit volume, there is much more empty space than matter. Of course, since our calculations of the energy density of empty space via the Casimir effect suggests that matter is much more energy dense (E=mc^2), observations of an accelerating rate of expansion of our universe suggests that we're missing something.

Answer 8

No, there is no logical flaw.



The universe was discovered to be expanding by Edwin Hubble about 80 years ago. Given what we know from Einstein's theory of relativity, gravity should be slowing this expansion at rate relative to the mass of the universe.



However, it was discovered in 1998 that the expansion is accelerating not slowing down. This is logically explained by dark energy, regardless of the fact that it is "hidden" and we know very little about it.

Answer 9

NO, there is NOT a logical flaw. It's BECAUSE of logic that dark matter and dark energy are the explanation for things we (scientists) do not understand YET. Very likely a LOT of dark matter IS ordinary matter. I suspect the "missing " dark matter is in PLANETS and brown dwarf stars, which are BOTH stars AND future planets that just have not differentiated, YET.



There is NO "...logical fallacy..."/ flaw in the logic. The flaw is in YOUR logic. You are just trying to pick ANOTHER online argument, and the rest of us (YA community members) will NOT hesitate to call you out on it while answering your question DIRECTLY.



The NON-answer has already been reported.

Answer 10

Dark matter and dark energy are theoretical non-entities that were invented to keep alive the deficient gravity-only cosmological models. If electromagnetic forces are taken into account, i.e. the forces that result from the separation of electric charge in plasma, then there's no need for such fudge factors.

Answer 11

darkish remember is only mass that's not doing something that motives it to glow. I surely have not any project believing in such issues as chilly airborne dirt and dirt. I see no explanation why the all the mass interior the universe must be interior the form of issues that glow that permits you to see them on our telescopes. I extremely have a extra good project with darkish potential, and that i'm extremely hoping that somebody extremely effectively revises usual relativity to guard it. i think of it would be extremely thrilling to stay with the aid of any such important revolution in physics. shop in mind that GR is an extremely helpful theory, so the subsequent theory might nonetheless make all the comparable predictions that GR does in places the place that is been helpful (as GR does with Newtonian mechanics). the hot theory, on each occasion apparently will come across limits on the area of applicability of GR.

Answer 12

No, there's no logical flaw. Gravitation and electromagnetism are two different forces, and there is no logical reason why there should be any correlation between a system's gravitational influence and the electromagnetic power it puts out.

Answer 13

Not really.



That's applying some subjective criterion - your intuition (not logic) about how the universe should be - that the universe is not obliged to follow.

Answer 14

"most powerful forces in the universe"



???????



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