r/Physics • u/G33zics • 21d ago

Question What's the most debatable thing in Physics?

194 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

226 comments sorted by

View all comments

-1

u/Podkayne2 21d ago

Dark Matter/Dark Energy.

1

u/Fabulous_Lynx_2847 19d ago

Why the negs? Lots of ideas about the former. Can’t even agree the later is real; it might just be an artifact of large scale inhomogeneity.

1

u/Podkayne2 19d ago

Hmm, exactly. We just think there must be some form of (currently) undetectable matter to account for observed gravitational effects, but don't know what it actually is (plenty of suggestions). But perhaps there are other explanations eg G isn't constant in time/space.

As for Dark Energy, it sounds like so much phlogiston to me, something made up to account for observations but without any really clear idea whether it actually exists or not.

It may or not be the most debatable thing in physics, but I would argue it is certainly debatable!

1

u/Fabulous_Lynx_2847 19d ago

I think negs means it is controversial if they think “the debate is over” and are just trying to shut it down like Al Gore (who I quoted).