The Origins of Dark Matter in Galaxies and Clusters

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The gravitational field necessary to account for the motions that you see in galaxies and clusters is substantially larger than the amount of ordinary matter. So where is this extra gravity coming from? The obvious simple answer is maybe there's more matter than you see. But it's not ordinary matter, maybe it's extraordinary matter, which we call dark matter. That has to be a different kind of particle, not in the standard model.

Physics is in crisis, what else is new? That's what we hear in certain corners, anyway, usually pointed at "fundamental" physics of particles and fields. (Condensed matter and biophysics etc. are just fine.) In this solo podcast I ruminate on the unusual situation fundamental physics finds itself in, where we have a theoretical understanding that fits almost all the data, but which nobody believes to be the final answer. I talk about how we got here, and argue that it's not really a "crisis" in any real sense. But there are ways I think the academic community could handle the problem better, especially by making more space for respectable but minority approaches to deep puzzles.

Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2023/07/31/245-solo-the-crisis-in-physics/

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