It is really interesting that some people think the ‘dark matter’ is the modern equivalence to ether of the early 1900’s and could be proved non-existent. While I do not agree with that view, the only thing certain about modern Physics is ‘Uncertainty’ and that is what makes it so exciting. This is the reason why people find games and sports so tempting and irresistible. It is that element of uncertainty that keeps us interested and keeps those dice always rolling. He does indeed play dice with us, does he not? A team of astronomers in Antarctica is doing the hard work of trying to find out whether Dark Energy does indeed exist and drive the universe or if it is just another thing that we got wrong. The South Pole Telescope (SPT) uses 1,000 advanced optical sensors to peer at distant galaxy clusters looking for subtle variations in the cosmic background radiation. Those variations will give scientists a better idea of the structure of the universe, and whether or not dark energy is part of it.
The universe is constantly expanding and of course now people attribute it to the existence of dark matter and its effect and presence that determines the extent of ‘Red Shift’. It would be interesting to find out if we can get conclusive evidence in this regard, but that would be highly unlikely as I do not see it all that simple. If dark matter indeed exists, then it would be back to trying to quantifying it so that we can predict the extent of expansion and the rate of it. It will also give the universe whole new starting and ending structure and that would be awesome to know.
While we are building LHC in Switzerland and the collider will give us much more insight in to the elementary particles of nature and the controversial string theory, the most interesting aspect for me remains if we ever get close to that anti-matter that is believed to be abundant at the edges of a Black Hole trying to convert matter in to pure energy. The SPT surely has plenty of work on its hand and hopefully it will answer some of the questions.
