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Published online 26 November 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.1258

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Cosmic-ray hot spots puzzle researchers

Proton discovery may cast doubt on dark-matter theories.

Hot on the heels of speculation that cosmic rays may have revealed the signature of elusive dark matter in space, new observations could challenge that idea and reinforce an alternative explanation.

A seven-year-long experiment at the Milagro cosmic-ray detector near Los Alamos, New Mexico, has revealed 'bright patches' of high-energy cosmic rays in the sky1 – something incompatible with a dark-matter source.

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  • The Gemini emission is asymmetric and very broad. This strongly argues against a localized emitter. The Orion-Taurus disk of emission deserves attempted localization with an orbital gamma ray telescope. If it is important, grab the right tool and start doing.

    • 26 Nov, 2008
    • Posted by: "Uncle Al" Schwartz
  • I believe I solved the mystery of hidden weight as a simple mechanistic dynamic phenomena in June of 2007, scientists were not able to understand my theory unfortunately. However rays associated to positrons are possible. Dark matter is energy charged positively. www.NewDirectionEurope.com/dark_matter

    • 26 Nov, 2008
    • Posted by: George Bajszar
  • Hi George, I have looked at you're webpage. I am glad to see you have good interests in physics. I also like to do some homemade experiments for the kids. In you're case, I think you should take a look at some Classical Physics books. what you are observing with your spining wheels experiments is Moment of Inertia, a well defined quantity that behaves like mass for rotating systems (discovered by Euler in 1730). It is a little more complex then mass, as it depends also on the distribution of mass away from the rotation axis. You should also look at Conservation of Angular Momentum (look them up in wikipedia if you want a qick answer, but physics books are better). There is no real creation of energy in these types of experiments (or any I have seen, but that is another topic). It is exciting to look at those things for the first time. I remember looking at experimental evidence of conservation of angular momentum for the first time. I was completly baffled.

    • 27 Nov, 2008
    • Posted by: Paul Boulanger
  • Paul, Behaves like mass. Right, that is what I am talking about. A vertically rotating wheel cannot be set up for perpetual motion anyhow we shift weights within this wheel as it rotates. But arrange weights on the outer side of the wheel on a down hill, and on the inner side of the wheel when going up hill. The wheel can rotate down hill on an axle, the axle doesn't need to be small but can be half the wheel's size. We find different momentum, produces different momentum. It helps if the weights are flexibly attached to give even more momentum to a 'sizing wheel'. The faster it rotates the larger it gets, in studies it behaves like mass, a wheel can appear to slow and gain momentum (energy grows at the axle non-proportionally). I simply related that if it builds momentum this way and acts like mass, it must relate to dark matter (hidden weight mechanism). Dark matter defined in the 1930's: things move in a galaxy as if there was more mass present, but it was known already back then that particles cannot account for the missing mass. Dark matter does not give birth to particles, it is a very weak field, I hoped to point out the underlieing simplicity where mass can be virtually added, but dark matter is gravitational, as that it attracts particles.

    • 27 Nov, 2008
    • Posted by: George Bajszar
  • Paul,

    Also: We can't get energy from changing angular momentum in a wheel as you pointed out, or no known ways. I wrote of a vertically rotating wheel that cannot change angular momentum and weights and arrive to a perpetual motion.

    So we need to look at my proposal here: Wheels changing sizes once downhill and once uphill. I went to study this phenomena deeply over momentum changes in 'sizing wheels'. The point is that a wheel that is larger on a downhill is able to acquire more energy at the axle, running on the axle. The weights placed to the the outer parts of the wheel (not the inner) give it a boost of energy down-hill, such a wheel can acquire more robust speed and energy down hill, not direct speed (it is actually slower than a wheel with the weights brought inward). We turn a wheel into a robust mechanism (sizing wheel, the faster it rotates it may size). We arrive to hidden mass or as you said: 'behaves like mass'. I am the only one relating this phenomena to dark matter.

    • 27 Nov, 2008
    • Posted by: George Bajszar
  • Hi George, We are completly off-topic, so we should continue this discussion in private, as I think you are confusing a few concepts. You can email me if you like: fearofphysics@hotmail.com

    • 28 Nov, 2008
    • Posted by: Paul Boulanger
  • I explained what dark matter is. Ok, I know, I am going to be taken away now in a straight jacket. No, this is actually the place to discuss dark matter, but I don't expect others to be clear about dark matter. I don't expect anybody in the world to be clear about it. Happy if others discover my theory, it is already worked out, even tested experimentally.

    • 28 Nov, 2008
    • Posted by: George Bajszar
  • If our universe were created by the collision or near-collision of two ultra-massive (masses on the order of the total estimated mass of our universe) black holes, could these two cosmic-ray hot-spots represent the exit-vectors of the two primary bodies of that encounter?

    • 29 Nov, 2008
    • Posted by: Michael Barlow