[teravore]

hey everybody
I was just wondering what the most up to date theories were concerning "dark matter" - what it is (eg. non-baryonic matter or whatever) and how it interacts with the normal matter of the universe. Also of interest is how dark matter could be harnessed or cause problems.

Cheers for your input

[Jay-qu]

give this site a quick search there have been a few threads about it in the past

[UncleAl]

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/krau...6.2_index.html

Uncle Al votes for "dark matter" being the difference between Newtonian gravitation and an exact solution to General Relativity being applied to galactic rotation. Dark matter is composed of laziness.

[Coronus]

The two predominent candidates for dark matter are MACHOs and WIMPs I'm up for WIMPs cuz well they sound cooler.....

[Jay-qu]

I think they will both contribute some mass but more likely more mass comes from MACHO's just because in the galactic halo there are a lot of old dead stars that are not easily visible.

[Coronus]

Yer but the raw idea of a WIMP seems some what mystical in a sense...I mean just fact that we know next to nothing about them openes them up to massive speculation..But yer it's proberbly a mux of the two...

[Jim Colyer]

I am baffled by dark matter.

[Coronus]

Originally Posted by Jim Colyer

I am baffled by dark matter.

I suppose you'd have to be even more baffeled were you faced with alternative.I mean this supposed dark matter does explain a lot of how the galaxies and clusters formed.