Do you believe in the "Phantom Mass"?

Question

For over 15 years, science has been chasing down a particle that there is, "no" evidence to its existance. Based on this lack of evidence, why would science believe in something they have never seen, never had one shred of evidence to its existance? Why are we spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to find something that is at best, a theory without foundation. math cannot even explain this "Phantom Quark, Mass, Energy". Is this physics "paranormal ghost hunt"?

Answer 1

hi nuff,

well im not a science person, but last night i was watching an interesting show on science and people believing in mumbo jumbo.....the scientist said in his own words

"The problem with science is it DOES NOT think its untrue...but rather it just cannt be proven YET "

Answer 2

No, because there actually is evidence for it - mathematical evidence.  And that's always lead us in the right direction in the past.

EDIT:  You do NOT have to throw our classical mechanics to accept quantum mechanics.  Quantum mechanics works, period, even if we're not exactly sure why yet.  And although it does seem to contradict relativity on some levels (say, when improperly applied to macroscopic objects), that just means we're still missing something, since quantum mechanics and relativity both work very well on their own scales.  Otherwise, you wouldn't have a working computer or GPS system.

Answer 3

Eri's answer is right on the money. If quantum mechanics predicts the existence of a particle, these quantum physicists will set out to find it by experimentation. This is the essence of the scientific method -- a theory makes a prediction, the prediction is tested, and if it passes then the theory is further strengthened and expanded. Science marches on.

I don't know if you have access to or read the scientific journals that current QM research is published in, but QM physicists don't waste their time going on wild goose chases. Theory needs to predict the existence of a particle before they set out to find it by experimentation, else they don't know what to look for. If you don't read the QM journals and don't have the background to understand them (I assume you don't have a PhD in QM), why would you expect to be aware of the theoretical basis for their experimentation?

Also, one could NOT theoretically sit down and come up with a mathematical equation to support the existence of an afterlife, precisely because such a concept has no scientifically theoretical basis upon which to build such a model, nor is the concept compatible with the ontological underpinnings of the scientific method. Put simply, it's not falsifiable or testable, hence science cannot build a theory around it.

Do I believe in the "phantom mass"?  Depends on the evidence for it, just like anything else.

Answer 4

im not familiar with that term.  are you also referring to dark matter?  There isnt necessarily evidence to prove that it does exist, but its seems as if there is evidence and aberrations in nature that make it seem as if there is something else out there to explain this "unnaturalness"  To me this just a step researchers make in order to find out more and more.

Originally atoms were thought to be indivisible until other questions arose to lead scientists to look for electrons, protons and neutrons to quarks to strings and even other particles that dont even necessarily belong within the atom.

as much as Ive always like science, Ive always had a particular fascination with physics because unlike all the other branches of  science, it does almost seem like a "paranormal ghost hunt"  

even though quantum mechanics is accepted nowadays  through mathematics (albeit things only on extremely small scales and mostly probability) it requires a certain mind to except things that are typically contrary to logic (like more than 10 dimensions of space and things passing through eachother).

sometimes it seems to me that it is almost a question of how much faith you have in your theories which doesnt seem to differ too much from the faith  people put into the religions they follow.

I like how you quoted Einstein in one of your questions, but it was his thinking outside of the box that lead to the overturning of Newtonian physics.

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Answer 5

because we know there is something else out there, we can see it in how the arms of distant Galaxy's rotate that there must be more matter than what we can see in the stars

in fact we can mathematical prove that we can only account for far less than 1/2 of the matter in the universe

it is a matter of fact that there is something else out there making up the majority of the universe, it is by definition the goal of science to understand the world around us including the stuff we have yet to be able to detect

that is why we spend so much on it

Answer 6

Good Grief nuff....I thought you were talking about church !!! lol