To date, at least 19 galaxies have been discovered that appear to be missing dark matter altogether. What this means, in practice, is that these galaxies are rotating so slowly that no additional matter, beyond their complement of visible baryons, is required to explain their gravitational coherence. Only fast-spinning galaxies need the gravitational attraction of extra matter to hold them together; our traditional understanding of gravity is enough to keep the slow-spinning ones from flying apart.
substantivalism
A Substantivalist Explanation of Dark Matter
Abstract: In this article I recommend that substantivalism change its focus from what it has been traditionally—a thinly veiled effort to explain the current standard models of physics—and instead embrace the proper focus of philosophy—explaining reality itself. Exploiting that new perspective, I define a rigorous and testable model of spacetime as a substance, and propose […]
Reframing the Substantivalism Debate
Abstract: This paper highlights and examines a critical assumption embedded within the framework of the substantivalism/relationalism debate. This assumption is the unacknowledged priority given to the traditional properties of spacetime-as-coordinate-system that have been handed down over the course of the twentieth century. In this paper, I attempt to substantiate my claim that such an unreflective […]
Toward a Definition of the First Principle
Our Abyss Customarily, we think of a crisis as a period of limited duration, an obstacle heroically overcome, “bad times” endured with poise and tenacity and then recalled with pride. Man is a hopeful creature, constitutionally bound to imagine, even in the face of imminent death, that salvation is always near at hand. The oxymoronic […]
The Substance of Spacetime, New book by Andrew M. Ryan
The Substance of Spacetime: Infinity, Nothingness, and the Nature of Matter by Andrew M. Ryan is the second edition of Ryan’s work of theoretical physics and is now available where books are sold. This iteration of the book has been fully revised with a completely new final chapter that considers several of the current puzzles […]