Re: ASTRO: Dark Matter problem gets worse!

From: Stirling Westrup (sti@cam.org)
Date: Sun Jan 30 2000 - 04:18:47 MST


EvMick@aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 1/29/00 9:55:48 PM Central Standard Time,
> ramezn@Exchange.Microsoft.com writes:
>
> >
> > There are at least two pieces of evidence for the notion that galaxies are
> > more massive than we can account for by the visible stars and dust in those
> > galaxies. (There are probably others that I'm not aware of.)
> >
>
> <snipped.....very excellent summation>
>
> One thing that's got me curious though is the "many worlds theory"of Everitt.
>
> According to my (very limited) understanding of Quantum Mechanics ....as
> suggested by the dual slit photon interference studies.....Everett suggested
> that it might all be explained by multiple <infinite?> parallel universes...
>
> Might not the parallel universe concept explain the missing mass?

I've seen at least two attempts to explain things this way. One is in John
Cramer's Science-Fiction book 'Twistor'. John is a scientist (an
astrophysicist, if I'm not mistaken. I noticed just the other day that he's
recently received a grant from NASA to look into reactionless propulsion for
spacecraft). He naturally skewed the details to get his story to work. He
assumed that all parallel universes were (very weakly) gravitationally
interacting, and that there was a finite (and small) number of them. This
doesn't really square with Everett since it requires a finite number of
universes.

The other reference is a recent paper that claimed our universe was folded many
times in a fourth dimension, and that gravity propagates through the folds,
while light has to travel along the folds. The result would be gravitational
interactions with matter that appears to be millions or billions of light years
distant. This theory works just as well if you assume that parallel universes
are 'stacked' in the fourth dimension. If there is any real interest in the
paper, I can try to dig it up, but I'm not sure I kept a copy since I was
strongly unconvinced by the arguments presented in it.

-- 
 Stirling Westrup  |  Use of the Internet by this poster
 sti@cam.org       |  is not to be construed as a tacit
                   |  endorsement of Western Technological
                   |  Civilization or its appurtenances.



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