Dark Matter is just a placeholder AFAIK until something more proven comes along. It explains why galaxies hold together, but it's just a stand-in for the time being.

I feel a lot of science has bogged it’s self down with theory and maybes for decades and decades

I mean, scientifically there's a huge difference between the two. For example, the theory of gravity is so well-tested and supported that it's about as close to proven as can be. A "maybe" isn't even a hypothesis yet, but it's perhaps an intermediate step. Maybes are good, because they represent relevant scientists coming up with ideas to help explain reality, which can then fade away or solidify as things unwind. Without maybes you don't get well-supported theories... which is like science not able to get anywhere.

More like it needs to exist for THE RESULTS OF YOUR EXPERIMENT to make sense. Not the universe.

Dark matter is what you call whatever is left over when your instruments are telling you there is more something there, but it's impossible to measure any of the something using the methods we have now.

Nobody is saying to you "dark matter must exist for the universe as I understand it to exist"

They are saying to you "if the universe exists as we understand it, there is something more here that we do not understand"

That is exactly what the "dark" in "dark matter" and "dark energy" means: that our theories require it to exist to explain our observations, but we have no way to detect it, ergo it is "dark".

It's like the infamous cosmological constant that Einstein initially added to the theory of relativity. Just like the "dark" things it had no physical analogue, and was there so that his equations held for a universe of constant size. When Hubble demonstrated that (contrary to the belief at the time) the universe was expanding the cosmological constant was no longer needed.

It is entirely possible that a new theory will explain what the dark stuff is and we will be able to remove those terms from the equations that need them in order to explain our observations. It is possible that we will find some kind of actual matter that interacts with the gravitational force but not the strong, weak, or electromagnetic forces, which I think is what would be needed for a "dark matter particle".

In my personal opinion, the best explanation I've heard is that the error terms are best explained by the expansion of space itself. Specifically, we have some very recent evidence that the expansion of space isn't uniform, and that might explain a significant amount of the dark energy. PBS Space Time does a good job with relevant videos and keeping up with the science.

No physicist will tell you that we know what "dark matter" or "dark energy" is, because we don't. I think most would agree with you that ultimately we will find multiple explanations that add up to "dark matter + dark energy".

I think the one thing that I disagree with you on is that science is "bogged down" with theories and maybes. The theories and maybes are where the most exciting research is happening!

Science isn't the body of knowledge that results from experimentation; it's the cycle of theory and experimentation that generates new knowledge. We don't remember the hundreds and hundreds of false theories that had to be argued about and discarded to get to relativity or quantum theory. Today we only read the papers that were proven right in hindsight. If you look at "dark matter/energy" science of today we're in that churn, so it looks different. In time, all these disproved theories will be forgotten, too.

"Dark matter" and "dark energy" are the "errors in the prediction of Mercury's orbit" (relativity) or "errors in the predictions of black-body radiation" (quantum) of our time.

The galaxies in the universe don't match the speeds we get from the proven set of physics.

So either something is physically there contributing mass, or the proven set of physics behaves differently at those scales.

Don't worry, people are looking into alternative equations that match what we see without dark matter, but the search for those equations have been just as elusive as dark matter.

So for decades the sky has looked wrong and we simply haven't been able to find or prove the answer why. That's why it feels like everyone's grasping for straws.

Observed galaxy rotation doesn't fit the centripetal force equation (classical Newtonian mechanics). You are 100% free to make any new equation that fits observations, as well as the rest of useful physics equations. Dark matter is simply the best explanation so far, but not a barrier in any way to better ideas.

There are some particles that don’t interact via the electromagnetic force. There are some particles that don’t interact via the strong force. And there are some particles that don’t interact via the weak force. All the particles we know, we’ve detected because they interact via at least one of those forces—but there’s no rule that says a particle must interact with any of them.

Why should we assume that every particle in existence must be conveniently detectable? It’s like a blind person assuming nothing can exist unless it makes a noise.

Tons of fundamental particles were merely hypothesized until people actually built particle accelerators large enough to detect them. Theories are how scientists puzzle out what's worth exploring next. (See the eightfold way )

The reason particle physics might seem to be moving slower than it used to is just because we've found all the "easy" stuff. The more elusive particles are going to be a lot trickier to wrangle.

Saying "just dark matter" might be missing what could be a whole category of types of objects and particles. The wiki for dark matter is rather long and detailed. There isn't one type, that's part of the problem of seeing unexplained influences that need certain properties but by principle is hard to detect normally.

In short, something is going on in the observed evidence of what is termed as dark matter. Normal matter we're familiar with doesn't work. So we make models of things it might be and try to verify them.

Checkout Angela Collier’s video on the topic. Dark Matter is not a theory!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbmJkMhmrVI

Our current mathematical models are pretty damn close to how stuff works in reality. But like you said, for it to work out, you need to fudge the numbers a little. That's dark energy.

Dark matter is, as far as we can tell, a real thing, just really hard to detect. It's not a placeholder in the same way dark energy is. Something out there is exerting actual gravity.

Millions of man-hours have been spent on this. No one is going to prove or disprove it for you in some Lemmy comments. I would seek out talks from actual astrophysicists, not YouTube junk pop science.

Dark matter is not a theory, it is an observation.

Dark matter is not a theory. Stop treating it like one.

Wanna see a opinion or someone disproving me.

How about just sitting down and recognizing when you have no idea what you're talking about instead of trying to backseat a field whose understanding you have is "I watched some YouTube videos lol".

You sound like a shitty regurgitation of grifter Sabine Hossenfelder.

dark matter could be a lot of things. its a known x factor and it does not necessarily mean its definately some kind of esoteric matter. That is why they work to detect it to narrow down what it could be. I mean I have not looked at the most up to date stuff and honestly don't care to atm. its a complicated topic. would likely look for a pbs space time if anything. there are lots of things like that when you get to the edges.

Might it just be possible that because we built everything around this one theory that we can’t get physical proof that we are missing multiple different reasons and even fields.

Sort of. Physical proof says our current theory about the universe is incomplete and everyone is trying to find out what we are missing. You could say we're in the dark about the missing parts, be it matter and/or energy.

Dark matter has not been observed directly so can not be said to conclusively exist but given our current understanding it is by far the best model for describing how the universe works. There are other theories but they do not describe reality as we observe it.

Dark matter does describe reality as we observe it we just haven't observed dark matter itself.

Dark matter isn't proven or disproven. Dark matter is an unknown force or substance that is required to exist, based on mathematical models of the universe

I look at it as a placeholder theory. There’s something there that is either dark matter, or has the properties of what we believe dark matter to be. Either way- eventually, it’ll be discovered.

Link to videos?

I think it sits in a place similar to where "the ether" used to sit. Similar because lots of ppl take that it is an actual known thing. Dissimilar b/c those who do work around it understand it's more like, as you've found, stuff implied from all we've learned regarding physics to date. Without it the math kinda falls apart.

Then you might ask "well, could the math we use now actually be wrong?" I think the answer to that comes back around to "but the math we do have actually works really well; throwing that out is very hard to do".

Personally I think it needs new naming; calling it anything other than a question adds bias that may end up wasting time.

we're running out of theories of where dark matter could be

we better find it soon

How is the linked graphic relevant to this discussion?

I think our fundamental understanding of gravity is wrong. Thats why quantum gravity can't by combined with our gravity. And why it can't be messed with what im going to call macro gravity at a universal scale. And thats why 95% of the matter in the universe has to be fabricated.

There is no matter at all. There is only energy. Some of energy is in stable state but most of it is not. We are just unable to expand e=mc^2^ equation. I think the equation is not complete just like velocity equation was not complete because it was missing time dilation. There must be something like energy dilation. There is exponential decay that in theory is mass dilation but my mind stopped there.

Keep an eye out for results from the Roman space telescope, with any luck we're about to have a buttload of new data about dark matter.

And, predictably, Americans will literally use anything before they use the metric system.

I feel a lot of science has bogged it’s self down with theory and maybes for decades and decades now with no proof.

Absolutely. DAE remember the "theory of everything? Where did that go? String theory? Super symmetry? All bullshit without scientific evidence.

It's a similar thing with "artificial intelligence" which does not exist at all. It's just computer programs.

There's is no "science" under capitalism. It's a grift to build weapons for the enforcement of capitalism. That's why all research in USA is funded by DOD.