What Do I
Know?
There
is a popular Topic around today that seems to be relatively NEW (?).
It
is called Dark Matter.
(A major
component of this discussion is that there is also a “dark energy”,
another substance that is invisible to current science. I will use
the Term “Dark Matter” to include both the dark mass and the dark
energy. Since all current 'measurements' are just estimates, this
will help simplify the discussion.)
The
existence of Dark Matter was confirmed by several obscure scientists
in the1980's. I first read about this topic in 1978, in a book
published in 1958 as a "theoretical study". But the
concept was originally named as "dark matter" by a
physicist in 1906. Even hundreds of years before that, there was a
similar concept: an invisible substance which some thought supported
the stars and planets. It was referred to as the "ether".
Long, long before NASA, a few people proposed that we could attach a
flock of swans to a cart and have them pull us to the moon on waves
of, or clouds of, or through space which was filled with “ether”.
But
the oldest reference of this concept that I have read is from about
2100 BC. It is in a translation of a text attributed to Abraham
(yes, that Abraham). He references something that happened
thousands, and arguably, millions (or perhaps billions) of years
before Abraham actually wrote it down.
That
reference, found in Abraham 3:24 reads like this
24
And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said
unto those who were with him: We will go down, for there
is space there,
and we will take
of these materials,
and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell;....
The
“these” refers to us, the human race.
Here
I need to explain something: I live with a mild curse. When I read
something, especially when I rather quickly scan the writing of
others, any misspelled words or grammar errors seem to jump off the
page at me. This happens for about 50% of the errors on the page.
If it happened 100% of the time I could have a great career as an
editor.
My
Curse
Luckily,
when I have been a member of writers groups, there has often been
someone else in the group who had a more intense version of the curse
than I have. Such writers are labeled openly, but fondly, by these
groups, as Grammer Nazis. They see all of the errors in spelling and
grammar, and eagerly point them out. They are leaned upon often to
review and correct everyone else's writing, and they sometimes
complain that have no time left for their own writing.
My
curse isn't bad (or good) enough to earn the Grammar Nazi title.
Also my own curse does not seem to work when I am reviewing my own
work. My internal writing-editing-hypocrisy sadly forgives me for
many of my own writing errors.
However, this curse kicked in
the first time that I read the Abraham 3:24 verse (in 1964). This
occurred years before I had heard of the Dark Matter concept. It/I
said to me, "Hold on here. That sentence, that verse is
grammatically incorrect. It has two subjects, and it is almost an
oxymoron. What 'materials' is he talking about? Nothing is named, no
source is mentioned for any materials, is it? "Space" and
"materials" are diametrically opposite things. Where you
have one of them, the other does not exist. What a terribly written
sentence!" I said, to myself.
I
did not purposely go back to read that verse very often. However,
for 14 years it jumped of the page to annoy me every time I found
myself looking at that particular page. "A sentence written
that poorly does not belong in the scriptures,” the
curse said. “Who translated this ridiculous verse,
whether from ancient languages, into English? Why didn't someone fix
it?!..... Oh, it was Joseph Smith, the prophet. He translated it!
Huph ! OK, I guess I can tolerate one mistranslated sentence. I
guess I wont tear it out of my book, just yet" This is
really an annoying curse to have.
GeoMetroDynamics
Then.
in 1978 a friend of mine gave me a photo-copied book entitled
"GeoMetroDynamics" (1958).
It was a photo-copy of a privately owned hard bound original copy.
And I was told that the original publications had been removed from
all libraries, apparently by government agents (MIB?). The
reports/papers were about measuring the geometry of space and using
the correct super-math to calculate the various properties of space
(I think). I had to skip over the math. These technical papers had
been written by several young physicists who were students of
Einstein, Fermi, Dirac, Lorentz, and other famous (nuclear)
physicists.
However,
the conclusion of each paper could be summarized into one central
theme. The math-physics techniques they used indicated that it
should be possible to "make" matter or "take"
matter out of apparently empty space. This was what the science told
them, this was what the math told them; even though, at that time,
they had no experimental proof.
I
ran to my scriptures, and turned immediately to "Abraham 3:24'.
I did not have to spend time searching for the scripture verse. This
"terribly written sentence" had emblazoned the Book,
Chapter and Verse into my brain. I found it almost immediately.
There it still was; someone "like unto God" had
built this planet from the "materials" found in
empty(?) "space".
An
Epiphany
There
was NOTHING wrong with the verse or sentence in the book of Abraham.
However, my own (and almost every other human's) assumptions about
space were wrong... space is NOT empty! We are just blind. We can
only see a small fraction of what is there.
The
concept of Dark Matter became TV News in the 1980s when space based
telescopes became available. Images from far galaxies verified that
gravitational lensing (the bending of star light as it moves through
a galaxy cluster) was taking place. A similar effect takes place on
a hot pavement in the summer: the hot air over the road is a
different density than the air around it. It forms a “lens” and
we can see things that are much farther away. And when we move the
distant image appears to move. We call them mirages. But we can't
see the air itself, the “lens” that is distorting the image..
Dark
matter is found by looking for gravitational mirages, and
gravitational lenses. Scientists have now determined that up to 90%
of the mass in our universe is invisible and (almost) undetectable.
But we know it is there, because we can see the distortion... but,
like the hot lens of air on the hot pavement..... we cannot see the
“lens” that is causing the distortion.
The
Big Question
Question:
So, what is out there? Answer: We don't know!
In
2016 astronomers discovered an invisible "galaxy" about the
size, and the mass, of our own Milky Way. This new galaxy has
virtually NO stars in it, and nothing else that we can "see".
It can only be detected by its gravitational field and the way it
bends the light from more distant stars: the light from stars and
galaxies, much farther away, comes right through it, bent, but
otherwise unimpaired
Even
though this invisible galaxy(?) weighs 5-10 times the combined weight
of all the stars in our Milky Way, we can see nothing in it. But
that is kind of OK, because our Milky Way weighs the same; it is 5-10
times “heavier” than all the stars we can see. And while we can
see our night time stars, we can't see any of that extra 'matter'
around them either. And this extra matter is not just millions of
miles away from us, it is also right here, right now... just in front
of us... or even inside of us. (Hmm, no wonder my diets never
work.)
We
presently have only one way to detect this invisible matter, and only
when we find a galaxy or galaxy clusters full of it and with enough
mass that it can bend a light wave. Stars in a galaxy seem to be
optional. So, we ask, how can we know what this invisible matter is?
The answer, at least for now, is that we don't know, we can't know.
We only know that it is there. We only know that it is also HERE,
in
our galaxy, in our solar system.
This artist concept shows how dark matter was found. The double objects image in the upper left are typical of what has now been seen by several astronomers. One object produces two images as it passes through a gravitational lens. The separation of the double image indicates that the lens is several times 'bigger' (has many times more mass) than the total mass of the stars within the lens. The difference is due to “dark matter.”
Joseph
Smith also added another verse in another book that helps us to cope with this
finding by astronomers. In Doctrine and Covenants 131 he clarified
part of this mystery by saying:
7
There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All
spirit is matter,
but it is more fine or pure,
and can only be discerned by purer eyes;
8
We
cannot see it;
but when
our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter.
Based
on those insights, I would conclude that a portion of the hidden mass
which the astronomers have found is related to the mass from our
spirit bodies on this earth. Exactly what portion that adds,
numerically, I hesitate to guess. But if you also add in the spirits
that were cast down to the earth and other named but invisible
entities in scriptures, the amount could be significant.
What
Do we Know (for sure)?
Which
leads me to an odd conclusion, one which, because of language
limitations, you may find hard to read. If you do have trouble,
re-read the following a few times and you should/may begin to
understand it:
We
cannot know what we know that we don't know. Additionally, we cannot
know what we don't know that we don't know. And, it now appears that
we only know a small fraction of what we DO know or what we
previously thought that we Did know.
I
love Science. But, I have a severe bias against those non-scientists
that think today's scientists know virtually everything, or that they
will know everything by tomorrow morning, or maybe the day after.
These people expose themselves when they say things like; “All Scientists believe that ______ (fill in the blank)”. To them
this discovery of Dark Matter should be very embarrassing
information. Almost overnight their available and admittedly only
partial knowledge of the world/solar system/galaxy/universe has
dropped by a factor of 90%... simply because “many” scientists
now believe that we can only “see” 10% of everything (some are looking to develop other theories). That discovery provides virtually guaranteed employment for the real scientists of
the world... for perhaps hundreds of years or much longer.
However,
when I mention this to the faith filled advocates, they don't even
seem to understand either my elation or my point of view, which, to
me is very sad.
Most
of these individuals express a 'blind faith' in current science (aka; human knowledge), especially “theoretical”(aka: an informed guess) science, while they also
vehemently decry any 'faith', blind or not, from a religious person or about a religious concept. (For full disclosure, the concept of "Dark Matter" is still a theory, but there is growing evidence from top scientists that it is actually both there, and all around us. And certain statements from the science of religion and scripture also indicates that it is.)
To
me, a comparable moment in history may be when Columbus failed to
experience the widely expected results of venturing out on the
Atlantic: “You mean he didn't fall off the edge of the earth?....
You mean the earth isn't flat? ......Or is it flat and just much
larger? .... It rains here, does it rain there?.... Then
where does all that water go?...... Indians? what are Indians?....Are
they Human?.... They cant be Human; they don't speak English,
Spanish, Italian or Portuguese..... Rain keeps falling on us, and
running down the streams to the ocean. So if it continues to do
that, the ocean will rise and we will all drown.... And where does
the rain come from in the first place? ….. We're confused.
It
is very likely that a whole new perspective of the earth, the
universe, and our place in them is coming soon, very soon. I can
hardly wait. And, I believe that much of our guidance to
understanding these changes will come from a source similar to the
quotes above; instructions and how-to manuals that have been here for
millennia, waiting for us to read them, and study them, and hopefully
catch up.
----------©
Dann Flesher 2/9/2017
