Theory breaks down when it comes to black holes NASA/CXC/M.Weiss
General relativity and quantum theory are the two pillars of modern physics, peerlessly accurate in their respective realms of the very large and the very small. But where they meet, they produce contradictory answers 鈥 and other problems they create mean they provide a far from complete picture.
For more on the basics of the theories, take a look at Reality guide: The essential laws of cosmology and Reality guide: The essential laws of quantum physics.
PROBLEM 1: Dark matter
Galaxies rotate too quickly for their visible matter
Earth whirls around the sun at a speed determined by its distance, the sun鈥檚 mass and gravity鈥檚 strength, which is a universal constant of nature. You don鈥檛 need general relativity to work that out: Newton鈥檚 old-school gravitation will do. The same law should apply to distant galaxies swirling around their common centre of mass.
In the 1930s, however, the astronomer Fritz Zwicky discovered that the outer parts of the Coma galactic cluster were rotating far faster than the cluster鈥檚 estimated mass allowed. In the 1970s, Vera Rubin confirmed the huge mismatch in a clutch of spiral galaxies similar to the Milky Way. She estimated they must contain about six parts of invisible matter for every one part of visible matter.
This 鈥dark matter鈥 must interact gravitationally to produce the motion, but hardly at all through the other forces of nature. The standard model of particle physics provides no particle that fits the bill, and efforts to detect dark matter particles beyond the standard model, or manufacture them…
