fp.

I wonder if Zwicky had named it Gravimagic or Love (as later hypothesized by Captain and Tennille) if we would still be where we are in the understanding of the cosmos

jfengel•3h ago

Depends on what you mean by "we".

Scientists have a good understanding of what the data actually is. The name isn't important. It doesn't throw them off any more than the up and down quarks do.

Non scientists... yeah, maybe. There's a good chance we might never even have heard about it by a duller name. People fixate on charismatic ideas, disproportionately to their relevance or to their understanding.

It is possible that it helps indirectly. Students sometimes get bitten by the bug of charismatic science, and go into the field. And funders may well be influenced as well. That extra attention could put us ahead of where we would be otherwise.

jfengel•3h ago

When the dark matter sails through, is there still enough mass to keep it together, or do they evaporate? Are there "dark galaxies" to match the dark-matter-less ones?

I can't imagine how we'd ever find them. We'd have to get extremely lucky and find one that happened to lens another one behind it. That happens rarely enough with regular galaxies, and I imagine that those "dark galaxies" would be even rarer.

(And you'd still have to consider other explanations, like black holes.)

gostsamo•2h ago

As far as I get, dark matter is much more than normal one. However, we don't know what are the exact interactions between dm particles and hence cannot predict the shapes they will take.

jsbisviewtiful•2h ago

Personal theory: Possibly the Great Attractor has something to do with a very large collection of dark matter - potentially dark matter galaxies. Hard to say though until we figure out how to see that section of space.