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Scientific American editor George Musser explains dark matter using nothing but stuff lying around his office and his rapier-sharp wit. It's like Macgyver, if Macgyver had to explain abstruse subjects instead of, you know, escaping.
Look for episode 2 to go up later today -- in which the talented host of 60 Second Psych, Christie Nicholson, explains Moore's Law.
Comments
b_physics_guy says:
This is wrong. The linear velocity of the stars is constant, not the angular velocity.
Here is a link to a plot showing the units of Km/s on the y axis.
http://astro.berkeley.edu/~mwhite/darkmatter/rotcurve.html
April 21, 2008 1:26 AM
George Musser says:
Yes, as I've mentioned on other threads, the flat galactic rotation curve does *not* mean the galaxy rotates like a solid disk. This is simply a loose metaphor. The video producer asked me to explain dark matter using objects found on my desk, and the CD was the best I could come up with. Like all analogies, it is technically wrong, but I think it conveys roughly the right idea: namely, that stars in spiral galaxies do not revolve as expected.
April 21, 2008 11:54 AM
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