Matters of Disbelief
An Introduction To Dark Matter
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…nothing is true that cannot be proven — and therefore, it’s not true — Halldór Kiljan Laxness, Iceland’s Bell
Truth is indeed stranger than fiction because fiction arises from our collective imagination. An imagination spurred by our contact with the outside world. What is true though is that our knowledge of the universe is quite limited and therefore the inputs that fuel our imagination are confined by what we know. However, if we really discovered new secrets every day, we might realize that the truth is beyond our wildest imaginations. In a physicist’s world, one such discovery is the presence of “dark matter” which envelops us all but we cannot see the oceans of dark matter around us. This article provides an introduction to sub-atomic particles, our understanding of dark matter and concludes with the biggest take away to approaching our lives.
When people say “seeing is believing”, they are in for a massive surprise because the universe is composed of matter we cannot see i.e. Dark Matter. Is what we see the complete picture? definitively not. Therefore, the biggest stumbling block in our lives today is our own blindness both actual and metaphorical.
Many physicists over the years, such as Albert Michelson in 1894, wrongly proclaimed in not so many words that everything fundamental has already been discovered. He was not alone. Many breakthrough discoveries were followed by a similar proclamation that anything major worth discovering is already known to us now.
Pause there for a while and think of the times you thought that yourself — everyday I presume. I am equally guilty of thinking that I know a lot. Turns out, an introduction to particle physics can quickly change our beliefs.
Life At The Subatomic Level
We have always fantasized about parallel universes. Perhaps, they do exist even though we can’t confirm their existence…
