Hi Michael!

I know about "dark matter" though I don't know the details of the latest theories.... It's an attempt to try to find out where's the missing mass in the universe. We can see the galaxies "spinning around", but with just the mass we can see, they should fly apart. There must be more mass there helping to hold galaxies together (since with more mass, the gravitational attraction would be stronger)....

Some theorize the "missing mass" could simply be lots of non-luminous matter (like lots of burned out stars or something) floating around which we can't see, since it's not emitting light the way "living" stars do.... These are the MACHOS (MAssive Compact Halo Objects)....

Another theory is that there is some new type of particle which doesn't react the way normal particles do, only through gravity.... These are WIMPS (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles)....

Yes, this is no joke! :)

> Quantum Mechanics.

> I heard a guy refer to Quantum Mechanics
> like so...

> If you asked 1000 philosophers to spend 1000
> years to come up with the most wayout thing
> they could think of, they would NOT come up
> with anything as bizar as Quantum Mechanics.

I'd agree.... Quantum mechanics is my specialty. :)

It's a strange world where things can, in a sense, be in multiple places at once....

Where a particle can seem to show "knowledge" about a place it has never been!

Where one part of the world can affect another part of the world faster than light -- but NOT in a way which allows us to send a faster-than-light signal (nature seems to conspire against allowing this)....

Where an observer ALWAYS affects the outcome of what's observed!

Quantum mechanics shows that nature truly is holistic.... One part affects the other parts, no matter how far away they are from each other. It shows that "reductionism" -- that understanding something by reducing it to its parts -- has only limited applicability....

I love it's strangeness.... And the best part is, it's all true....

Quantum mechanics is a case of something where truth is stranger than fiction! :)

> Galaxies and Dark Matter.

> It makes me wonder, if galaxies are
> surrounded by a bubble of dark matter, is
> there actually anything in space between
> galaxies? Is each galaxy really like a glass
> house? Like light can go through the glass
> (and nutrinos and radio waves etc.) but
> nothing else, not matter.

Yes, something like that could be possible.... :)

> And if each galaxy is self-contained, could
> each galaxy have undergone it's own little
> bang within it's dark matter bubble?

> So the Big Bang would really have been
> something that caused a series of little
> bangs in a chain reaction nuclear explosion
> type of way. Know what I mean?

I think I know what you mean....

> Has this been theorised do you know? Of
> course it all falls down if there is plenty
> of large solid matter between galaxies.

I've come across a theory of multiple big bangs.... The name Andrei Linde comes to mind, and his theory of inflationary cosmology....

On his web page, Prof. Andrei Linde writes....

Recent versions of inflationary theory assert that instead of being a single, expanding ball of fire described by the big bang theory, the universe looks like a huge growing fractal. It consists of many inflating balls that produce new balls, which in turn produce more new balls, ad infinitum.

> Then again, according to Douglas Adams, the
> universe was created when the Great Green
> Arkleseizure sneezed it into existence and
> will all end with the coming of the Great
> White Handkerchief.

Well, you never know.... I'm satisfied with Douglas Adams showing me that the "meaning of life" is something I can punch into my calculator! ;) [This is of course, a reference to "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"....]

- Dien