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Syd-1-772453 OP t1_ja8k1md wrote

Reply to comment by Cryptizard in Hypothesis on dark matter and dark energy using a water as a reference. by Syd-1-772453

Nice reference, thank you. I've spent years absorbing as much information as I can. This is an initial thought. Far from a theory, a hypothesis.

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ThrowawayPhysicist1 t1_ja8nz62 wrote

If you’ve spent years absorbing this information and this is the limit of what you know, you haven’t been very efficient. This is neither a theory nor a hypothesis (at least, not in the modern scientific sense). It’s “not even wrong”.

I know it’s frustrating to not understand something you wish to understand, even after putting in some cursory effort (usually, watching some YouTube videos or pop science documentary) but you have to remember that people spend years of their life intensely studying this stuff and learn actual material in that time-not just vague analogies. But if you want to have interesting ideas, you have to actually understand the underlying material. For example, can you derive why a specific rotation curve implies a specific density distribution? That’s basic undergraduate physics (and obviously important for dark matter studies).

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Syd-1-772453 OP t1_ja8q9xd wrote

I disagree with the hypothesis definition, when I look it up it says: "Something taken to be true for the purpose of argument or investigation; an assumption."

"A tentative explanation for an observation, phenomenon, or scientific problem that can be tested by further investigation."

You have an excellent point otherwise. Thank you.

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ThrowawayPhysicist1 t1_ja8r20e wrote

The second is closer to the modern scientific definition. And the part that’s problematic is “tested by further observation”. You’ve given a pretty vague analogy that can’t be (reasonably) tested because it isn’t really a full fledged idea. I can ask something like “what if dark matter is made of the souls of the damned” but unless I present a clear idea of what that means (clear enough to obtain potential effects) it’s not really science in the modern sense.

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