Clicking on banner ads keeps JWR alive
Jewish World Review June 18, 2003 / 18 Sivan 5763

Bill Tammeus

Bill Tammeus
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Sam Schulman
Amity Shlaes
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports

Through a looking glass darkly

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | While you've been worrying about Iraq, Jayson (and Tony) Blair, Sammy Sosa, Martha Stewart and such, scientists - well, a few of them, anyway - have been studying "dark matter."

In my columnistic role as setter of the public agenda, I deem that it's way past time to turn our attention from the nincompooposities of the regular news so that we may feast our eyes on dark matter, which, uh, can't be seen.

Perhaps you wonder how our eyes might feast on invisible stuff. Why, the same way they feast on plotless sitcoms. The same way our minds feast on weightless political speeches. The same way our hearts feast on commitmentless relationships.

When astronomers gaze out into the cosmos, they don't see a lot of stuff they're sure is out there. (It's like looking at a Sammy Sosa bat and not being able to see cork.)

In fact, they have estimated that only about 3 percent of the universe can be seen with the naked (oh, dear) eye. Another 27 percent of the universe's total mass is made up of dark matter, which may or may not be sterile neutrinos. (See? You thought science was boring, but right here in one paragraph about science you've already encountered nudity and sterility. Hoo-wee.)

By my math, that leaves 70 percent of the universe unaccounted for, and scientists think that part is made up of dark energy and radiation. If dark matter is mass you can't see, I suppose dark energy is energy you can't see, either, except that I don't know exactly what it means to see regular energy - beyond light waves. Maybe if you turn on a dark-energy lamp in the middle of the day the room goes dark. But that's just a guess.

Anyway, scientists scattered around the globe have been pondering dark matter for years. Among them is Francisco Prada of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany and some of his colleagues at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.

Not long ago, they reported on the results of their research at a meeting of other sky-watchers in the Canary Islands of Spain. You'd think the Canary Islands would be reserved for bird-watchers, not sky-watchers, but apparently the canaries there will let in almost any kind of watcher.

Prada and his friends used the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (www.sdss.org) telescopes to observe 250,000 galaxies, they said. They were looking for the way dark matter produces a gravitational effect on about 3,000 satellites (natural, not man-made) that orbit these galaxies.

"Our results imply the presence of dark matter," Prada announced.

Notice, please, the tentativeness of the conclusion. The verb "imply" is soft, gentle, not assertive. It allows room for error, for reinterpretation. It doesn't smack folks upside the head. That's the way good science should proceed. It's also the way radio talk show hosts should proceed, though apparently no one has ever taught them that, so they barge right ahead with noisy declarative sentences that draw unwarranted conclusions the way picnics draw ants.

By the way, the Prada team's conclusions about dark matter support widely accepted theories about the stuff but seem to contradict an alternative theory known as MOND, which stands for Modified Newtonian Dynamics. The MOND theory, about which I understand nothing, apparently eliminates the need for dark matter to explain the unseeable mass in the universe.

I'm not sure why eliminating something you can't see anyway is any great shakes, but that's apparently what MOND does.

I will try to anticipate your other obvious question here by telling you that the Sloan Digital Sky Survey telescopes are at the Apache Point Observatory and that the Apache Point Observatory is - where else? - in Sunspot, N.M., which eventually may have to be renamed Skin Cancer, N.M., but we can wait.

The Sloan telescopes there are busy mapping one-fourth of the whole sky, figuring out the positions and brightness of about 100 million objects in space. Hey, speaking of Iraq, maybe those telescopes will find that space is where Saddam Hussein hid his weapons of mass destruction. Do you think?

Enjoy this writer's work? Why not sign-up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


JWR contributor Bill Tammeus' latest book is "A Gift of Meaning." To order it, please click on title. To comment on his column, please click here.


06/10/03: Learn how to anticipate while remembering to savor today
05/23/03: Still lost for words at Ground Zero
05/08/03: Mustering robust   — if apathetic   — cheers
04/16/03: Worries of Iraq, illiteracy and the Cubs --- frazzled lives sabotage us
04/09/03: The genome triumph: Though it's laudable, DNA project won't tell life's secrets
03/25/03: In a wounded world, celebrate life's hope
03/20/03: Peace lover ponders the need for war
03/13/03: Science asks us to imagine a world in 11 dimensions
02/27/03: War has long come naturally to humankind
02/22/03: Trying to decipher the vexing French
02/11/03: A worthy crusade for individual worth
01/30/03: Indelible ache of Sept. 11
01/24/03: An issue of great gravity moves forward
01/17/03: Peculiar about being eccentric
01/10/03: Gambling infects with false hope
12/31/02: Quotable and notable in 2002
12/24/02: The faltering war on terrorism
12/11/02: Sky's the limit --- sort of
11/05/02: Thoughtful about uploading
10/29/02: We naively ignore the inevitability of death
10/24/02: Patriotism exceeds nationalism
09/18/02: Misuse of religion is timeless
08/21/02: Where church and state are one How long can Saudi Arabia's puritanical version of Islam survive?
08/13/02: LETTER FROM CAIRO: Meet the Egyptian writer who provided foundation for radical form of Islam
08/08/02: Letter from Riyadh: Moderate Muslims must reassert control over Islam
07/31/02: Journey of discovery starts at Ground Zero
06/07/02: Life rebukes death's power
05/31/02: Reasonable doubts about executions
05/10/02: Business savvy for graduates
05/02/02: Exporting our exclusivity
04/25/02: Life's stories carry messages about values
04/19/02: Our life force's search for fellow life forces
03/27/02: Can corporations behave ethically?
03/19/02: Space Family Robinsons
02/21/02: Lock, stocks and bonds
02/14/02: In space, the dark matters
02/07/02: Train doctors to have caring hands and hearts
01/31/02: A different feel to my life and to my country?
01/24/02: How green is my universe?
01/17/02: The end is near, eventually
01/08/02: Important lessons arrive out of the past
12/19/01: Lost in the cloning debate
12/10/01: It's all in the name: Unraveling the mystery of Osama's whereabouts
11/19/01: Flying with damaged trust
11/02/01: Recent, recognized research is a hard nut to crack
10/31/01: Many paradoxes in life
10/25/01: Newly found planets show the cosmos is still strange
10/19/01: Just getting caught up
10/17/01: It was a time for tea and sympathy
10/08/01: What makes an authentic patriot?
10/04/01: It's OK to twist and shout
09/17/01: One precious life among many
09/13/01: Remember who we are
09/11/01: Sometimes all children need is shelter from the storm
09/05/01: Couldn't run or throw, but a hero just the same
08/28/01: Lesson for the scientific faithful: Some theories come with strings attached
08/27/01: When waste in space is a waste of space
08/21/01: In complex world, we lack tools to carve out understanding
08/09/01: Visited while asleep by gang of magical mischief makers
08/03/01: Recognizing the limits of one's capacity
07/27/01: We are more than the sum of our work days
07/12/01: Some stars, like some people, never shine
07/11/01: Our deeply embedded need for order
07/03/01: Not-so-famous tour explores not-so-rich neighborhoods
06/28/01: Driven to tell the truth about golf and government
06/25/01: When poetry becomes destructive
06/21/01: We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a word from deep space
06/14/01: Theory of revolution explains why some things get lost
06/11/01: Shamanic gewgaws
06/06/01: Charity begins at homes with lemonade stands
05/30/01: When are wars worth dying in?
05/23/01: Cruising along that bumpy highway
05/09/01: If you're in the write mood, wish the U.S. happy birthday
05/07/01: Killing McVeigh will wound us all
05/01/01: Dubya reinforcing negative GOP stereotypes?

Up

Reprinted by permission, The Kansas City Star, Copyright 2002. All rights reserved