Comment An alternative to dark matter (Score 2) 23
Astrophysicists are looking for dark matter because there does not appear to be enough normal matter to generate the gravity needed to spin galaxies the way they are spinning, or to hold the universe together.
What if we didn't need dark matter. Maybe there's an alternate solution. One so simple it will make people do face-palms.
Think of the typical diagram of warped space time around a planet. Like a bowling ball stretching a rubber sheet. A bug travelling on the rubber sheet will travel towards the bowling ball even though it thinks it is going straight because the sheet is curved in the time dimension. This has been confirmed because if we synchronize two clocks on earth , then put one in orbit, the one on earth records time more slowly. Think about that. The "gravity" well shows displacement in time. But a clock placed in that well shows time flowing more slowly... So the net time displacent should be growing. The well should be getting deeper. Ergo gravity increases over time. Since most of the stars in the galaxy are billions of years old than the sun, they could have 2 or 3 times the gravity. No dark matter needed.