Post #2984279

2026-05-14 11:27 UTC

The thing with dark matter is it's just a placeholder term for "we don't know what the hell it is", and aren't most hypotheses pulled out of the ass before experimentation to prove them? Plus, Dr. Kaku is a string theorist so wacky is pretty much par for the course in that field. Granted, I consider him more of a TV personality these days and grew up watching him as a speaker on [insert any number of Discovery Channel shows here]. Maybe I'm just biased and enjoy the wacky theories because I'm more interested in seeing them proven right or wrong and thinking about the implications if they happen to prove correct.

Replies (4)

@neidu3@sh.itjust.works 2026-05-14 11:57

I'm not smart enough to prove my hypothesis, nor am I smart enough to understand any proof that I am wrong, but I'm not entirely 100% convinced that dark matter exists as an attractive phenomenon inside galaxies the way it is often described. The way I see it, it might as well be a repulsive force between galaxies. This way it could also help explain Dark Energy.

Open ##2984335
@Zink@programming.dev 2026-05-15 00:58

Yeah, I like to think of it this way: Dark matter is not a theory or even a hypothesis. It is a collection of observations. Having "matter" in the name is kind of a presumptive thing, like "our observations act like there's too much gravity, and matter creates gravity, and we can't see any extra shit, so..."

Open ##2984338
@Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works 2026-05-14 16:32

It's not even "we dont know what the hell it is" because we don't even know that there's an it. It's more like "our numbers dont add up but wouldn't it be cool if there was something invisible that explained it?"

Open ##2984340
@megopie@beehaw.org 2026-05-15 02:13

For a theory to be useful, there needs to be a way that it *can* be proven wrong. If there is no way the theory can be proven wrong, then it’s not a theory. Something that can’t potentially be proven false also can’t potentially be proven to be true. The problem with this kind of off the cuff “but what if” stuff is that not enough thought has gone in to it to even know what could be tested.

Open ##2984342