8/8: Dark Matter is an explanation that remains unsolved, unfound, even unbelievable: 8/8: The Elephant in the Universe: Our Hundred-Year Search for Dark Matter by Govert Schilling (Author), Avi Loeb (Foreword)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 26 March 2023
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
@BATCHELORSHOW
8/8: Dark Matter is an explanation that remains unsolved, unfound, even unbelievable: 8/8: The Elephant in the Universe: Our Hundred-Year Search for Dark Matter by Govert Schilling (Author), Avi Loeb (Foreword)
https://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Universe-Hundred-Year-Search-Matter/dp/0674248996
Physicists have devised huge, sensitive instruments to search for dark matter, which may be unlike anything else in the cosmos―some unknown elementary particle. Yet so far dark matter has escaped every experiment. Indeed, dark matter is so elusive that some scientists are beginning to suspect there might be something wrong with our theories about gravity or with the current paradigms of cosmology. Schilling interviews both believers and heretics and paints a colorful picture of the history and current status of dark matter research, with astronomers and physicists alike trying to make sense of theory and observation.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I'm John Nacho with Gov. |
| 0:06.2 | Shillig. |
| 0:07.2 | His wonderful new book, The Elephant in the Universe, is the frontier of thinking about dark |
| 0:12.1 | matter, dark energy, and our universe. |
| 0:14.8 | 100-year search. |
| 0:16.4 | Right now, however, the searching heavens, the searching particle physics, they're in |
| 0:20.7 | minds waiting for collisions, and we come to a-o an exception. |
| 0:26.4 | They found a galaxy without cold dark matter. |
| 0:30.1 | They found several of them, in fact, and that worries everybody. |
| 0:34.6 | Or the quote, DF-44, that's the name of the galaxy. |
| 0:38.6 | They call it the Dragonfly galaxy, is a problem for everybody. |
| 0:42.0 | Is it a problem for Mondt too? |
| 0:44.4 | It is a problem for Mondt too, because Mondt is this alternative theory that tries to explain |
| 0:50.4 | dark matter not by introducing a new particle, but by assuming that our theory of gravity is |
| 0:55.9 | wrong. |
| 0:56.9 | Now, if Mondt is correct, then we should see the effects of Mondt in each and every galaxy, |
| 1:03.4 | because they don't assume that there is dark matter, they just assume there are stars |
| 1:07.4 | and gas clouds with a different gravity than we are used to think of. |
| 1:12.0 | So according to Mondt, each and every galaxy should show these effects of their alternative |
| 1:21.0 | gravitational theory. |
| 1:22.8 | And if you see a galaxy without the gravitational effects that we attribute to dark matter, then |
| 1:30.6 | it cannot be explained by Mondt too. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.