The WIMP (Weakly Interacting Massive particles) model has just not worked out:
We understand how the Standard Model particles behave. We have solid predictions for how they should interact through all of the fundamental forces, and experimental confirmation of those theories. We also have extraordinary constraints on how they’re permitted to interact in a beyond-the-Standard-Model fashion. Because of our constraints from accelerators, cosmic rays, decay experiments, nuclear reactors and more, we’ve been able to rule out many possible ideas that have been theorized.
When it comes to what might make up the dark matter, however, all we have are the astrophysical observations and our theoretical work, in tandem, to guide us. The possible theories that we’ve come up with include a huge number of dark matter candidates, but none that have garnered any experimental support. Ethan Siegel, “The ‘WIMP Miracle’ Hope For Dark Matter Is Dead” at Forbes
The greatthingxs is that the physicists acknowledge it. They’re not trying to pretend it’s there when it isn’t.
See also: Discover: Even the best dark matter theories are crumbling
Researcher: The search for dark matter has become a “quagmire of confirmation bias” So many research areas in science today are hitting hard barriers that it is reasonable to think that we are missing something.
Physicists devise test to find out if dark matter really exists
Largest particle detector draws a blank on dark matter
What if dark matter just doesn’t stick to the rules?
A proposed dark matter solution makes gravity an illusion
and
Proposed dark matter solution: “Gravity is not a fundamental governance of our universe, but a reaction to the makeup of a given environment.”
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Well, of course there is the chance that what’s happening in the way of stuff in Outer Space not obeying all the gravity rules is because of some-One and not some-thing. And of course the Someone makes his own laws.
Here are a few more deficiencies in the standard model:
Moreover, as Ethan Siegel pointed out, “The models of supersymmetry or extra dimensions that give the right dark matter abundances through the weak interactions are ruled out by these experiments.” Siegel further quips that the “search is now reminiscent of the drunk looking for his lost keys beneath the lamppost. He knows they’re not there, but it’s the only place where the light enabling him to look shines.”
Perhaps we can help the drunk find his keys by looking where the keys might actually be, rather than looking only where the drunk prefers them to be?
Another glaring deficiency in the standard model that was not mentioned in the wikipedia article is that conscious observation and/or consciousness itself was left on the cutting room floor in the quest to find a mathematical ‘theory of everything’ via the standard model.
The standard model grew out of the success of Quantum electrodynamics (QED). And QED unifies special relativity with quantum mechanics.
https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/theoretical-physicist-takes-on-panpsychism-bam-pow/#comment-670698
Richard Feynman (and others) were only able to unify special relativity and quantum mechanics into Quantum Electrodynamics by quote unquote “brushing infinity under the rug” with a technique called Renormalization. One of the interesting facets of “brushing infinity under the rug” in Quantum-Electrodynamics is that, interestingly, “Although quantum field theory is fully compatible with the special theory of relativity, a relativistic treatment of quantum measurement has yet to be formulated.”
That is to say, although they unified special relativity and quantum mechanics together in QED by “brushing infinity under the rug”, this unification between special relativity and quantum mechanics into Quantum Electrodynamics came at the price of leaving the entire enigma of Quantum Measurement on the cutting room floor.
Yet quantum measurement is precisely where conscious observation makes its presence fully known in quantum mechanics. As the following researcher stated, “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it.”
Thus since QED, and by extension the standard model itself, has left quantum measurement, i.e. conscious observation, on the cutting room floor by “brushing infinity under the rug”, then it necessarily follows that our best theory of the interactions of the fundamental particles of the universe, i.e. our best ‘theory of everything’, will never include an adequate account of consciousness.
Needless to say, since we would never know anything about the universe in the first place without us first being conscious of the universe, then that is a fairly large deficiency to have in any purported ‘theory of everything’:
Moreover, allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics, as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned, and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands, provides a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead provides an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between quantum mechanics and general relativity into that quote unquote ‘Theory of Everything”
https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/neurosurgeon-asks-do-we-have-free-will-or-not/#comment-673312
i.e. The correct ‘Theory of Everything’ finds its resolution in the Agent Causality of Christianity. Specifically, in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead:
Supplemental notes:
What is actually ruled out is not dark matter, but WIMPs. The term means “weakly interacting massive particles”. Most things in our day to day life, interact with the coulomb force. The electrons in your skin molecules repel the electrons in the table, and so your arm rests comfortably on its surface. Atoms are held together by the coulomb force, but the strong force holds the nuclei in the atom together (who otherwise would repel each other by the coulomb force.) What is the weak force? It is a bit of mystery, responsible for allowing neutrons to turn into protons and electrons. At high enough energies or temperatures, it combines with the coulomb force, leading theorists to call it the “electro-weak” force. The key point is that at normal temperatures (which includes the interior of the Sun!), the weak force produces neutrinos which don’t interact with much at all. About a hundred million neutrinos, produced in the center of the Sun, are going through your body every second, yet not one interacts with your body even as it continues to go through the entire Earth and outwards toward Jupiter.
So the question came up–if the mysterious gravity that holds our galaxy together and outnumbers the stars and planets by 7:1, is all in neutrinos, would that account for dark matter? Well, it would, but if dark matter were neutrinos, we’d have seen them by now. So the “WIMP miracle”, was the idea that a “fat neutrino” could solve two problems at once—it would account for gravity without being seen, and it would explain why the Higgs mass was so heavy (125GeV). Historically, particle physicists have been getting quite anxious since the last discovered particle in the “standard model” was the J/psi back in the 70’s, an no new particles have appeared. So this WIMP miracle not only would be a new particle needing more theorists (what the field calls “new physics”), but it crossed over into cosmology and solved a problem for astronomy, thereby opening up astronomy grants for particle physicists.
Alas, 30 years of searching for this fat neutrino have come up with a fat zero. This does not mean that dark matter doesn’t exist, but simply that it is not a fat neutrino. Some particle physicists have gone after “axions”, others have gone after “sterile neutrinos”. Still others want to modify the laws of gravity. I’m arguing that we need better mesoscale physics–namely comets can explain both galaxy gravity and big bang cosmology. Why has this not been discussed before?
Maybe because there were too many green pastures for particle physicists. Perhaps when the food supply dwindles this little weed patch will get some attention.
Doesn’t the Standard Model of Cosmology depend on the existence of Dark Matter?
What if we are looking for something that just doesn’t exist? How would we ever know? How long do we keep on looking?
Is there a reasonable time frame we should allow here before we give up? Will we ever give up?
Is it possible that Dark Matter is a rescue device for the Big Bang?
What would that do to the Big Bang Theory?