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Comment by AlbertCory | Hacker News Reader

Some day, "what is dark matter?" arguments will be recalled with the same amusement with which we view "what kind of substance is the ether?"

And then, people will say, "It was so obvious!" So let DM be a lesson the next time anyone claims that some breakthrough 50 years ago was obvious.

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Sure, although I do think scientists are asking better questions than that. In the public perception, it seems like we're trying to find information about something that's basically matter, but we can't detect or measure it. In reality, 'dark matter' is just a placeholder for "Well, it looks like there should be a lot of matter here, but we measure a lot less than expected. There must be some kind of phenomenon we don't understand, one of the effects of which is that it makes galaxies that seem not to have enough matter to sustain their structure"

What’s always crazy to me is that so many people know the words “dark matter” and don’t realize it’s basically a placeholder phrase.

I think it's been fairly obvious for a long time that dark matter and dark energy are fairy tales invented to make our flawed theories fit the data.

I'd just quibble with the phrase "fairy tales."

"Some kind of particle" is a placeholder. They are trying to figure it out, and questioning "our flawed theories" seems to be acceptable, AFAICT.

(I think "dark energy" IS more of a fairy tale, but maybe that's just me)

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