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| Re: [Future] MSNBC debates if the Earth is actually flat (658980) | |||
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Re: [Future] MSNBC debates if the Earth is actually flat |
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Posted by WillD on Fri Sep 3 00:18:14 2010, in response to Re: [Future] MSNBC debates if the Earth is actually flat, posted by Chris R16/R2730 on Thu Sep 2 17:34:36 2010. Except that gravity may not be the incontrovertible fact we take it to be. Certainly Newton's law of universal gravity appears to break down on the scales of galaxies, superclusters, and so on. The currently accepted theory to explain this problem at the largest scales is to introduce Dark Matter, an as-yet unobserved particle with mass, yet little interaction with the matter we can observe. But we can also modify Newton's laws of universal gravitation to make it less universal and instead to vary its effect based on scale. Modified Newtonian Dynamics would result in no visible effect on the scale we deal with, but would result in proper galactic formation without requiring another subatomic particle. MOND doesn't work for simulating superclusters, but it does hold up for galactic formation and rotation speed. Chances are the truth lies somewhere between a rigidly constant universal gravitation with dark matter, and the flexibility of MOND with just the known particles. |
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