Every time I talk about #DarkMatter or #DarkEnergy several people jump in to say “ehhh sounds like a fudge factor/epicycles/aether!” And I get why — we’re talking about stuff we can’t directly see, it’s weird! — but, very sincerely, we did consider that. xkcd.com/1758/
There is a very small, very vocal group of astrophysicists who constantly work on alternative models in an attempt to do away with dark matter and/or dark energy. They write a lot of papers & get a LOT of press. But, they have yet to produce a model that compels the rest of us.
It’s not that we wouldn’t LOVE to have some explanation of these phenomena that does not include a component of the universe that refuses to interact with our detectors. We like catching stuff in detectors! We like being able to see stuff! But sometimes the cosmos doesn’t care.
Personally, I’d love to be able to see the wind. Or infectious disease particles. Or radio waves! But in all these cases, I must grudgingly accept that there are ample indirect ways I know those things exist and affect the world that don’t involve them being visible to my eyes.
Seeing something in a telescope, or detecting a particle, might sound like the strongest forms of evidence. But they’re really not. Telescope images can be hard to interpret. Detector data is SUPER indirect when you dig into it. More reliable: lots of effects in lots of contexts.
Right now, we have evidence for something that acts like invisible matter across a HUGE range of scales & cosmic environments. An abundance of data. And we have many ways to know cosmic expansion is accelerating. Dark matter & dark energy fit the data. Nothing else does so far.
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