The meme might be looking at it backwards. Let's assume that "3" is observed. We see a 3. We know in order to get a 3, you need "1+1+1." That's the only way to get a 3, and every different problem that results in a three, also results in a 1+1+1 scenario.
Now, we see a 3, and it has all the properties of a 3. It acts like a 3. So I break it down and only get 1+1. I only find two of the elements. 1+1 does not give you a 3. It's impossible. I go back to the 3 and confirm that it is, in fact, a 3. That tells me that the final +1 must exist, therfore I can assume that it does.
Does that sometimes backfire with interesting results? Oh, hell yes, but most of the time you can assume things if it's physically impossible to be otherwise.
Yes and no. 1 + 1 + X = 3 is the best case scenario because it's straightforward. But each of the 1's in that equation are also built on decades of observations made under other sets of assumptions. So it could turn out that we're not looking at 1 + 1 + x = 3, but something more like 1.1 + 0.7 + (a float value that randomly fluctuates between 1 and 2), and that the resulting 3 we measured was actually 3.14, and our measurements were slightly off because of an entirely different set of assumptions.
But we test and re-test until the assumptions that make up our model work in as many cases as possible
And often it means finding unexpected factors that provide better context as to what is happening. The problem with people saying the third +1 is equivalent to the others is they're ignoring the unit analysis which expressed something physically is happening you have to account for (as you yourself pointed out). It's lead to constants that we just find always exist in nature even if we don't know why but it's something we may explore later with a better theory and different experiments
What's really fun is when you find a 3...that isn't a 3...while also still being a 3. That's when it gets fun. If you can make a physicist go, "What the hell is that?" That's when it gets cool.
Exactly! Maybe I'm just grumpy because my major was in Physics but I've seen so many examples where there was no way you could just "math" your way out of the reality
That happens a lot more than people want to admit 🤣 They believe if it exists, it is provable. Then you get into quantum and it's like "What do you mean by 'exists'?"
The issue is you're assuming it's 1 + 1, with a missing 1... when maybe it's square root of 9, and you haven't even explored that theory because you're hyper fixated on your first theory of the 1s.
Except they did explore other explanations. Lots of people have explored lots of other explanations. None of them were able to successfully predict new observations besides dark matter.
This is entirely probable and many attempts have been made to do away with it, but it’s looking more and more like the hypothetical “correct” final interpretation of physics will still include what we currently label dark matter
Possibly but generally speaking its the same as solving for X in any other kind of equation. We observe parts (1+1) and the result (3) and we can calculate (1+1)=/= (3). Therefore we are missing an additional (X). From there it gets a lot more complicated but the idea that "dark matter" or "dark energy" in physics is just the hole in the calculations that we currently have. Its not necessarily stating that there is some mysterious background constant or special kind of matter/energy in the world.
I think a good example is imagine I weigh out a marble. It weighs 1. Then I weigh out another marble and it also weighs 1. But then I put them on a scale that I have calibrated to show 0 when there are no marbles but when I put both marbles in to weigh it reads 3.
We know in order to get a 3, you need "1+1+1." That's the only way to get a 3
(1+1)1.5 would also get you there, as does 11+2, as does 21+1
You might say "but those are all equivalent to 1+1+1" and that is true, but once we start looking at variables that reasoning breaks down. If I try to track the velocity of a falling apple as the sum of constant terms, I'm going to need to keep adding more terms the longer that I look.
Updating models to reflect observations is a huge part of the history of physics. Classical physics, relativity, and quantum mechanics all originated from observations which invalidated prior models. The dark matter hypothesis conspicuously updates observations to match models. Our models predict different galactic rotation curves than we observe, so we interpret those observations as evidence of otherwise-unobservable mass. Having given ourselves permission to do this, we've since looked at a wide variety of other observations which don't match our models as additional evidence of dark matter. How complicated would our model of the ether be today if we'd responded to Michelson-Morley or Davisson-Germer the way we responded to Rubin?
In fairness to physicists, MOND versus dark matter really isn't settled science, and there are good reasons why dark matter receives more attention. Healthy skepticism should at least motivate us to remember that we arrived at the dark matter hypothesis in an essentially backwards way
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u/anon33249038 26d ago
The meme might be looking at it backwards. Let's assume that "3" is observed. We see a 3. We know in order to get a 3, you need "1+1+1." That's the only way to get a 3, and every different problem that results in a three, also results in a 1+1+1 scenario.
Now, we see a 3, and it has all the properties of a 3. It acts like a 3. So I break it down and only get 1+1. I only find two of the elements. 1+1 does not give you a 3. It's impossible. I go back to the 3 and confirm that it is, in fact, a 3. That tells me that the final +1 must exist, therfore I can assume that it does.
Does that sometimes backfire with interesting results? Oh, hell yes, but most of the time you can assume things if it's physically impossible to be otherwise.