Cosmologists Lurk in the Dark

Creepy cosmologists, who think everything came from nothing, have a fascination with darkness.

Watch out for creatures who love darkness rather than light. Their deeds are evillusion.

Dark Matter: It Sneaks Up on You

Placing another piece in the dark matter puzzle (Phys.org) “Very little is known about the exact nature of dark matter,” this article begins. Actually, nothing is known. The only thing cosmologists can say they “know” is what dark matter is not, because every candidate so far has been a no-show (30 May 2019, 26 July 2019). They keep looking, nevertheless, for mysterious unknown stuff that MUST exist, because their pet theories require it. The latest candidate is the axion, a ghostly particle that eludes detection. But is CASPEr really a friendly ghost?

Photograph of dark matter. White background provided for contrast.

Budker’s group is searching for dark matter through the Cosmic Axion Spin Precession Experiment (CASPEr). The CASPEr group conducts their experiments at the PRISMA+ Cluster of Excellence at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and the Helmholtz Institute Mainz (HIM). CASPEr is an international research program that uses nuclear magnetic resonance techniques to identify and analyze dark matter….

This particular form of sideband analysis enabled the scientists to search for dark matter in a new frequency range. No dark matter signal was detected, as the CASPEr team reports in the latest edition of Science Advances, allowing the authors to rule out ultralight dark matter with couplings above a particular threshold. At the same time, these results provide another piece of the dark matter puzzle and complement previous results from the CASPEr program reported in June, when the scientists explored even lower frequencies using another specialized NMR method called comagnetometry.

They didn’t find it in June, either. Whatever they are looking for, they keep not finding it. To them, it counts as a success.

Daily briefing: Why the search for dark matter depends on ancient shipwrecks (The Atlantic). Lead (the metal) is a good shield for radiation. There’s a lot of it down in sunken ships. It might help in the search for dark matter: that is, if they can get the lead out.

Particle-physics experiments look for the most fundamental building blocks of the cosmos, including dark matter, an as-yet unseen substance that acts like glue within and between galaxies. This ancient lead, then, is helping humanity unlock the secrets of the universe—but obtaining it often presents practical and ethical uncertainties.

Read on to learn about World War II, atomic testing, and historical artifacts. But don’t expect any scientific facts about dark matter. There’s only empty promises about a “discovery [that] will revolutionize our future,” if they ever find the dark stuff.

Axion particle spotted in solid-state crystal (Science Daily). Did they really spot a particle of dark matter? Did the hopeful monsters at Max Planck actually see an axion? Can cosmologists celebrate, now that “Scientists have spotted a famously elusive particle: The axion – first predicted 42 years ago as an elementary particle in extensions of the standard model of particle physics”? Well, it depends on what they mean by “spotted.” If you raise the perhapsimaybecouldness index sufficiently high, you can propose that a particular quantum properties of a charge-density wave of a dark crystal might be consistent with the predicted features of the theoretical particle. It’s like an eager hunter saying he spotted a tiger. Other striped things could also be be consistent with what he thought he saw.

Beware the Dark Energy, My Son

5,000 Mini-Eyes Just Blinked Open to Scan the Skies for Dark Energy (Live Science). It’s downright spooky. “Thousands of tiny eyes just blinked open and will soon scan 35 million galaxies for evidence of dark energy.” The ghost of DESI is prowling about on Kitt Peak.

These 5,000 mini-telescopes make up the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), which was installed on the Mayall Telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. Astronomers recently completed the first test run of the nearly-complete DESI, which, from its high mountain perch, will soon scan the cosmos for dark energy, beginning early next year.

Dark energy is a ghost, they say. “Dark energy is an invisible force that’s thought to be accelerating the expansion of the universe and is thought to make up 68% of it, according to the statement.” Who thought that? Did you? Welcome to the spooky use of Tontologism, employed frequently by true believers in occult physics.

Probing the Universe’s Dark Energy with a super-telescope (BBC News). A video clip with spooky music tries to convince you, like a Twilight Zone episode, that all we know, love and experience is only a small fraction of a dark, ghostly reality out there. But there’s a moment of comic relief when astronomer Ofar Lahav says, “It’s just embarrassing to live in a Universe where we understand only 5% of it.” Speaking of dark energy, Pallab Ghosh admits, “Scientists… haven’t got a clue what it is.” More spooky music, then a woman scares the children with thoughts of parallel universes in a multiverse. Maybe more mysterious unknown stuff is leaking out of those universes and driving ours to rip apart! [Cue sound of scream.]

A crisis in cosmology: New data suggests the universe expanding more rapidly than believed (Phys.org). If Keck Observatory scientists keep looking in the dark, they might find something: darkness.

The team’s results add to growing evidence that there is a problem with the standard model of cosmology, which shows the universe was expanding very fast early in its history, then the expansion slowed down due to the gravitational pull of dark matter, and now the expansion is speeding up again due to dark energy, a mysterious force.

Dark energy: new experiment may solve one of the universe’s greatest mysteries (The Conversation). Like Dad reading a scary story to the kids on Halloween, Bob Nichol tells about DESI and other hunters in the dark, ending with a photo of astronomers in clean-room suits peering through a lens, looking like ghosts.

The ‘Dark’ Legacy of Nobel Prize Winner Jim Peebles (Space.com). Astrophysicist Paul Sutter tells his ghost story about Jim Peebles, one of the culprits behind the dark matter mystery story. “Peebles and his friends led the way to explaining the origins of the cosmic web, finding that structures in our universe grow slowly over time, building up from smaller bits to larger bits with every passing eon.”

Oh, great. Now we have to worry about the Cosmic Spider.

If you’re tired of mystery stories in the dark, come out into the light and learn about Reformation Day, October 31. It’s the day that opened the doors in a world of darkness, tradition, authority and superstition, to bring in the light of God’s Word. “The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple” (Psalm 119:130).

Recommended Resource: Illustra DVD “Call of the Cosmos” talks about real things out there. See sample clip below.

Episode from this DVD: see it also on TheJohn1010Project.com