Talk-Polywell.org

It seems more logical than the black hole starship, but the problem is that currently we have not been able to even find dark energy. So using it is a little far off, isnt it?

Skipjack wrote:It seems more logical than the black hole starship, but the problem is that currently we have not been able to even find dark energy. So using it is a little far off, isnt it?

LOl, right. Dark Matter is obviously a large fundamental force in the Universe, and so would be just perfect to power a starship. Well at least powerful enough to power a blog.......

This reminds me of futurama.

Hah, I beat 'em to the punch. The July-August 2009 Analog contains my story "Payback", which speculates on the possiblity of a dark-matter Bussard Ramjet.

Far off? You betcha! We have no idea what the stuff really is. However, one possibility says that two particles of dark matter colliding should annihilate in a manner comparable to antimatter, and detectable. There is actually an effort underway to detect the resulting radiation, with some "results." The detection of this radiation measured so far makes the WB6 results look absolutely concrete by comparison. But they continue to hone sensitivity and look for more.

I predict that "dark matter" will be the "aether" of the 21st Century.

"I will wait a moment while everyone thinks "who cares"."

IIRC, at present, the only data is the apparent deviation in orbital velocities of visible material across clusters & galaxies. Snag is the missing 'dark matter' proportion is slowly shrinking, as cold clouds, dark sub-stars, free planets etc etc come out of the woodwork.

Okay, there's a lonnng way to go before the true mix of even local space-stuff is settled...

D'uh, last thing I heard was proposal that supernovae blow ordinary matter away, but don't affect dark matter so much...

One thing I cannot get straight is what allowance is made for the light-speed of gravity across a galaxy's kilo-parsecs. Surely the effects of the density waves that are spiral arms should display a lag with distance ? Literally, we should see edge-ons and their dopplers as they were, and face-ons as they are...

D'uh...

Dark matter is a fudge factor, an excuse to explain a hole in our knowledge. But it is fun to speculate about.

After all, neutrinos were originally just a magic excuse for why energy was not adding up in beta decay. Now we're not only convinced of their reality (I stop short of saying they are totally proven), but we detect them, can name their three flavors, determined that they change types, and determined that they have rest mass.

Dark matter is a good excuse to take measurements to try to determine what it is. If the theories are wrong, maybe the measurements will be worthwhile.