ODE to Dark Matter

Dark Matter may account for the large-scale structures being mapped by HubbleMy dream job: working at The Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario. The latest from this "autonomous" center for theoretical physics is a Teaching tool for Dark Matter - a DVD, Teaching guide, and downloadable activities. The 30-minute video is embedded in this post and is definitely worth watching.

Even though there is now some agreement that Dark Matter has been observed (see my earlier post on this topic), there is still much debate about its reality. For an interesting take on matters dark, consider the position of artist/author Anton Sevcik, who, in a private e-mail to me some time ago suggested that

On a really simplistic level, I'm wondering if we've over theorized the subatomic realm, creating too many particles to explain too few things. Just because something is tiny, we seem to presuppose it can only have one property, so we've created a particle for every property. The reason I'm thinking about this is the dark matter myth. I say myth, because dark is a particularly uncomfortable word to anglo saxons, suggesting evil (say, film noir), and anything inexplicable seems by its nature unsettling to our minds.

Sevcik has since expanded on this theme, and I highly recommend The Fallibility of Perception on his View From the Studio blog.

While we're getting all literary here, a web search for Dark Matter poetry yields way too many hits to be a coincidence, and indeed suggests something dark, impenetrable, and slightly creepy, (if not necessarily "evil") at play in the universe. For example, look no further than Musicman's free verse:

 
           I have not come to the 
           solution of an 
           illusion or any 
           delusion to a 
           solution to the 
           problem of the cosmic 
           question which to answer would
           create a chasm in the 
           chaos of the 
           universe.
           The problem with the 
           problem is the 
           solution before those who
           jump to conclusions not taking 
           time becomes a 
           problem with their own 
           solutions to 
           conclusions of their own.

(Read the rest of this poem, and rank it here.)

The Perimeter Institute producers don't have these existential qualms: "The module provides teachers with tools to show how dark matter was discovered, to explain why it remains a mystery, and to share the passion of scientists who are trying to discover what it’s made of.”

View the video, and wonder about a universe that can accommodate such weirdness, if dark matter is indeed really out there.

Comments

[marianne]

I like this quote from Rebecca Elson, an astronomer and poet, who did research on "dark matter" - "As if, from fireflies, one could infer the field".

This poem of hers highlights the mysteries in science for me.

Carnal Knowledge

Having picked the final datum
From the universe
And fixed it in its column,
Named the causes of infinity,
Performed the calculus
Of the imaginary i, it seems

The body aches
To come too,
To the light,
Transmit the grace of gravity,
Express in its own algebra
The symmetries of awe and fear,
The shudder up the spine,
The knowing passing like a cool wind
That leaves the nape hairs leaping.

[CaseMonica19]

It's perfect that we can get the <a href="http://lowest-rate-loans.com/topics/credit-loans">credit loans</a> and it opens up completely new opportunities.