Dr. Kenneth Hicks
Dr. Kenneth Hicks, Professor of Physics & Astronomy, wrote an article headlined “Astronomy: Scientists still have a lot to learn about nature” in the May 6 Columbus Dispatch.
If I were a new college student, I might be tempted to say that all of physics is understood. This is often how it comes across in first-year classes, where the only topics covered are the known laws of physics. Even in second-year physics classes, where one first encounters more modern topics such as quantum mechanics, only the known laws of physics are typically presented.
The truth is that there still is much we don’t understand about nature. This becomes very evident in courses on astronomy, in which one learns about the observational evidence for the existence of dark matter, even though there is no current explanation for it in terms of subatomic particles.
… Even though many types of subatomic particles are known, none of them has the properties needed to describe dark matter. If a dark matter particle exists, it must interact very weakly with regular matter. Neutrinos almost fit the bill, because these ghostly particles go right through thousands of miles of matter without scattering, but the neutrinos have very small mass, whereas dark matter must be a heavy particle to fit known observational data….
Comments