String theory and black holes plus dark matter and anti matter which is the most extreme ?

Question

String theory and black holes plus dark matter and anti matter which is the most extreme ?

oyubir · Accepted Answer

Define "extreme".

Antimatter is not a theory. It is a thing. We can touch it (although we shouln't). We build some. We even use some.
Even, somehow in "everyday" life. A few days ago someone used the PET-scan as an example for a similar question. Sure, positrons are not really antimatter, no more than electrons are matter. But they are antibaryons, the components of antimatter

Black holes are barely a speculation anymore. We have seen one this year. Sure, the image alone prove nothing. But the fact that the image was exactly as theory said it would be, exactly where theory said it will be, is a strong enough indication that it is no longer a speculative theory, but a real thing also (put aside any Kantian consideration on the fact that we cannot know anything about "real thing", only on their sensible manifestations, called phenomenons)

"Dark matter' is a theory. But more a question than a theoric answer. It is just the cold, factual, acknowledgement that evaluated motions of galaxies are not compatible with evaluation of mass of galaxies. So either we are wrong when measuring motion of galaxies; either we are wrong when calculating what it should be from its mass; or we are wrong when evaluating the mass of a galaxy.
Dark matter is just the theory that the third proposal is the correct one: we do know how a galaxy should move when we know its mass (and distribution of mass); we do see correctly how it moves; since it does not move how it should do if the mass were what we believed it is, we conclude that it is because its mass is not what we believe it is.

So dark matter is just the name given to that mass unaccounted for. That mass we failed to see, but we surmise exist because of galaxy motion.

But, besides the "dark" adjective that sound very "marvelish" (or DCish, as you wish), there is nothing mysterious in that.
If you sum the mass of all stars and planet in the galaxy, you obtain a mass way lighter that the mass that motion of galaxy indicated it should weight.

Dark matter is not a new kind of matter we know nothing about. It is matter whose we don't know the nature, because we haven't seen it. It is no more mysterious than the dog of my coworker. I surmise he has a dog, since he told me and has no reason to lie. But I haven't seen it, so I don't know what king of dog it is. So the dog race is mysterious to me. But not "mysterious" in the sense "strange, magical, mystical". Just, I don't know, that all. I have no reason to believe it is a new kind of dog, with strange, yet unseen, dog features. It is probably just a dog. Whose I happen to ignore the race. It is the same for dark matter (I let you translate the analogy)

Some think that dark matter is just gas we can't see in some aeras of the galaxy

Some think it is a soup non baryonic particles (you have to understand that density of our galaxy is of the order of magnitude of 10⁻¹⁹ kg/m³. If there were just a few particles every inches (which is really nothing. that we don't know about, it would be enough to double the mass of galaxy. If density of interstellar void in the galaxy, for example was just the same as the density of inteplanetary void in the solar system, that would be enough to explain "dark matter".

Some think that dark matter are rogues planets, brown dwarf, black holes that we don't know about (how would we? It they are invisible and have no visible neighbour whose trajectory is influenced... Keep in mind that we see stars because they are bright. And a few exoplanets, because they hide their star light. And a few black holes because they have a gravitationnal pull on things we can see. But we are not even sure that there isn't a brown dwarf, that is an object 13 times bigger than Jupiter, orbiting Sun!)

Some think it is all of that.

We just don't know. But have no reason to suppose it is something strange.

So everything you cited are things that make cool subjects for Marvel's stories, because of cool names, and because "unknown" is a license for sci-fi to fill the unknown with strange.
But in reality, there is nothing I would qualify of "extreme" in that, whatever that means.

I let aside string theory, since it is a theory, and I must confess I don't know much about it (except that even Lee Smolin have doubt about it, and in particular about that fact that it is too loose and allows any speculation)

MysteryGuy · Answer

String theory you can't test for. It points to other dimensions. Blackholes are probably the coolest. Dark energy we rarely know about. And anti matter could vaporise blackholes...

RAGHAVENDRAN · Answer

Your thoughts are more extreme than these😁

ReductioAdAstronomicus · Answer

Nothing extreme about anti-matter. It is just matter like any other but it has a few quantum numbers flipped over. It can be easily produced in a lab (a few particles at a time), and has been well researched over many decades.

Can't say much for the other stuff you mentioned. All speculative to some degree or another.

CarolOklaNola · Answer

String theory and dark matter are the most controversial. How extreme something is is subjective. There is no agreed upon standard of measurement for how extreme or perfect anything is.

Ronald 7 · Answer

I have never really grasped the idea of String Theory
Now Black Holes are a real thing and they could be the demise of our Universe, if not others
Dark Matter is yet to be proven, but if it has a force, could it not be Gravity
I mean how could we see Super Massive Black Holes so far out in the Cosmos
Antimatter is just a name for the Opposite of Matter
In The Negative if you like
The two are supposed to repel each other
Just like two unlike poles in Magnets
If Antimatter was Magnetism then how could Superman get about ??
He was the Man of steel after all !! ha ha
And how come he wore his underwear outside his trousers ????
You can make your own mind up, but I say Black Holes rule
The rest my friend, is Blowing in the Wind

Jon · Answer

Certainly not antimatter, since the existence of antiparticles was proved 87 years ago, and few people doubt the evidence in favor of black holes either. Dark matter is hardly more extreme than the revisions to theory that its non-existence would imply. So I suppose that leaves string theory.

Lapiz Dominoes · Answer

Anti -matter does sound to be gruesome,but I think, no, I realize that - -

Jim Moor · Answer

My money is on Black Holes.
The rest we can work with and use, study and enjoy.
But Black Holes help form whole Galaxies!

String theory and black holes plus dark matter and anti matter which is the most extreme ?

9 Answers