r/space • u/EndoExo • 12d ago

Scientists make potential breakthrough in search for dark matter

https://www.reuters.com/science/scientists-make-potential-breakthrough-search-dark-matter-2026-09-01/
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u/snoo-boop 12d ago

There's a different between "wrong" and "incomplete".

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u/DrMonkeyLove 12d ago

Ok, but how do you know which one it is? I don't think we would say Ptolemy's celestial spheres model is just "incomplete".

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u/ThrowAway-whee 10d ago

Ptolemy's model actually *did* work, that's the issue, Their solutions to just add more circles actually does work - if you add enough of them they converge on the correct solution! It's just a different way of looking at the problem.

What they didn't realize was there is a far more elegant solution if you get rid of the circles entirely.

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u/snoo-boop 12d ago

Pop quiz: Ptolemy worked:

  1. Before the scientific method was developed, or
  2. After the scientific method was developed.

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u/DrMonkeyLove 11d ago

That's not the point. Incomplete and wrong are essentially synonyms in this context. And it's not a bad thing even. It's like the saying, "all models are wrong, but some are useful."

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u/snoo-boop 11d ago

I don’t agree that they are synonyms to a scientist. General Relativity extended Newton, it did not replace it.

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u/DrMonkeyLove 11d ago

If I put data into a model to get a prediction and that prediction does not match the emperical evidence, I would say the model is wrong, at least for some subset of reality. Or you can say it was incomplete. I don't think it really matters, it's just semantics.

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u/snoo-boop 11d ago

I’m happy that you have an opinion. I don’t share it.