My theory is that the missing mass and energy are the mass and energy of the Shekinah.

Whenever I hear about "dark matter/energy", I think of phlogiston.

This article really misrepresents things in that these groups are not proposing any sort of radical change to our theoretical understanding of how the universe works. They are merely taking exception to the accepted values of parameters within the current model, not trying to overturn that model.

Dark matter and dark energy can be accomodated within the standard model, but that doesn't mean they are real, of course. Massive neutrinos, however, cannot, and so may be the impetus for work that either props up the current theories (until the next problem comes along) or causes them to be replaced by something better.

I suspect a lot of the missing dark matter has congealed underneath my refirgerator.

I suspect a lot of the missing dark matter has congealed beneath my refrigerator.

Brian -

They are merely taking exception to the accepted values of parameters within the current model ...

They are taking exception to the postulation of entities which have no other physical basis than to reconcile the theory with observation - these can not be considered simply "parameters".

Dark matter and dark energy can be accomodated within the standard model, but that doesn't mean they are real, of course. Massive neutrinos, however, cannot ...

Dark matter is accomodated only by its gravitational effect, and dark energy by its (unexplained) anti-gravitational effect. Massive neutrinos, on the third hand, can be perfectly accounted for in the (cosmological) model by their gravitational influence. The problem is with the standard model of quantum mechanics, not the standard cosmological model.

Long astrophysics diversion follows:

JD:

The overall cosmological model that the authors of these two studies favor is completely the same as that which is currently accepted, and that which has been accepted for several decades now. In the equations (which go back to Einstein) there is a term which accounts for the "Dark Energy." This is the famous term which Einstein created to force the universe to be static, rather than expanding as seemed natural from the equations. After Hubble discovered the universe is in fact expanding, Einstein called this his "greatest blunder" and removed it from the equation, i.e. set that term to 0.

For several decades the consensus was that this term was indeed zero, mostly because of its dubious history. Gradually it became acceptable to theorize about what the effects of a non-zero value would be, and in ~1998 the supernova results convinced most people that this term actually has a value of 0.7 or so. But this is still using the equations that have been used for decades--Einstein stuck in a negative value to counteract the expansion, then we thought it was 0, now we think it is 0.7, to accelerate the expantion.

As for dark matter, through various experiments we estimate that the amount of matter in the universe is equal to 0.3, in certain units. However, when we add up all the stuff we can see (gas/dust/etc.) we only get 0.04 or so. So simple subtraction tells us that there is a whole bunch of matter that we can't see, i.e. "dark matter." What is is no one knows. Various ideas have been ruled out, but there is no consensus about what sort of stuff it might be (if indeed it even exists).

As for neutrinos, you are correct that cosmology doesn't care if they have mass or not, in fact with mass they are obviously one of the types of dark matter. I was perhaps too sloppy with my use of "standard model" in both the sense of the "stantard cosmological model" which decribes what we think the universe is made of [so in a certain limited sense, using "model" to mean the actual details rather than the overall mathematical structure, these scientists are creating a new "model"], and the "Standard Model (of physics)" which uses quantum field theory to explain quarks/neutrinos/elections/other particles. Our current model does not account for neutrinos having mass, and needs to be corrected.

Here's an analogy near and dear to the hearts of many contributors to this site--within biologists, there seems to be much debate concerning the mechanics of evolution, genetic mutations, etc. If some scientists propose changes to the current understanding of how these processes work, they are almost certainly still operating within a Darwinian framework, rather than rejecting it altogether. For example, some might think that speciation happens very slowly, through innumerable gradual mutations, while others might think that rapid, profound changes are more the rule. But they're still the same basic "model." As near as I can tell even Intelligent Design sits within this same framework, though whether the inclusion of God in the process rather than purely random mutations fundamentally alters the thing I'll leave as an exercise to the reader. (Perhaps I shouldn't have used this particular example, as I'm quite ignorant of the details involved...)

It's turtles--all the way down....

Brian:

Wow. Fascinating. Please continue to engage in astrophysics diversions.

Have you written any books? If not, you should.