back to article Engineering student cracks major riddle of the universe

An engineering undergraduate in Australia has made a major step forward in solving one of the greatest riddles of the universe: that is, where most of it is. Boffins know from observing the universe that it must have a certain amount of mass, otherwise it would have failed to hold itself together as well as it has. Argument …

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  1. defiler

    Can we finally close the book on this one, please?

    We've got a Rapture to be getting on with, and we've already had to postpone it twice while they sorted this missing mass out...

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Paris Hilton

      No

      Just no:

      http://www.astrosociety.org/education/publications/tnl/72/images/darkMatterPie-590.jpg

      1. Naughtyhorse

        1 down...

        So just the whole higgs boson thing to sort out and we can all rupture away to our hearts content!

      2. defiler

        Damn.

        Well you've got until October. Get to it, man!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    What's wrong with

    Turtles all the way down(*)?

    (*) not forgetting the four elephants standing on the topmost one.

  3. Camilla Smythe

    The 'Big Bang' is a fallacy

    The 'Big Suck' is the proper 'theory'.

    EOM

  4. Dr. Funk.
    Coat

    perhaps they can turn their attention to...

    What would happen if you tied jam on toast jam side up on the back of a cat and dropped the cat onto the floor

    1. John Miles
      Joke

      re: and dropped the cat onto the floor

      I would guess - one very peeved moggie

    2. Elmer Phud

      free electricity

      Well, it wouldn't reach the floor but the resulting revolving cat could be mounted to a generator.

      Who said there wasn't a perpetual motion machine?

      1. Richard Taylor 2

        actually

        it is not perpetual motion - energy gets lost from the system in a high pitched wail and you have to refuel the cat every 2 hours

        1. TeeCee Gold badge
          Happy

          Re: actually

          Hmm, we appear to be getting into Buttered Cat Array theory here.

          Also hmm. It would seem that search engine results for such are no longer returning the original from the usenet oracle, but someone's later recycling of the concept as a competition entry to Omni magazine.

          Precis (all AFAIR): The toast is immaterial to the effect. The staining properties of the "butter" are important, as are the properties of the surface over which the cat is dropped. Optimum results are achieved by buttering cats directly with Tikka Masala sauce and releasing them over white Axminster shagpile carpet, as this combination causes the cat to remain suspended and rotating in mid-air even while carrying a significant additional load.

          Large Buttered Cat Arrays are used by aliens to provide anti-gravity effect for their flying saucers. Alien spacecraft are often reported as generating a humming noise, which is actually the sound of many thousands of moggies purring in unison.

        2. some vaguely opinionated bloke

          There's also the issue of...

          ... emissions. Imagine catturds at 500rpm.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The cat and jam toast cancel eachother out..

      This is known as Jammy Dodger theory.

    4. Richard Taylor 2
      Thumb Up

      it works

      just as well with butter, but we have yet to develop a full understanding of toast with boat and a burmese as opposed to a moggy response

    5. David Pollard

      Addition of the quantum of jam on toast ...

      ... has been discussed by Mr Schrödinger in some detail. The process is known as quantum superposition.

    6. Havin_it
      Boffin

      RE What would happen if...?

      You would bleed. A lot.

      1. Tom 13

        But only for

        a short while.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Bless Her

    ... for finding that. We knew it was around somewhere.

    1. Robert E A Harvey
      Coat

      where did you last see it?

      it is a uniquely female skill.

      Mine's the one with a Higgs somewhere in one of the pockets

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Joke

        On the other hand...

        It's a unique female skill to lose something in the first place (keys, brush, phone, dark matter etc), before blaming you for losing it, then taking all the credit for finding it after 'you' lost it, then constantly reminding you of that 'fact' for the next 20 years.

        1. Disco-Legend-Zeke
          Pint

          90% Of My Phone...

          *

          ...calls to SO begin with "where is."

          *The other ten percent are beer related.

  6. Mage Silver badge
    Headmaster

    Credit the junior as lead

    If you think the research is very dubious?

    1. Marvin the Martian
      Unhappy

      The correct title would be

      "undergrad misses half the universe" if you read the article, supervisor pointed out the stuff.

      "Whatever the missing mass of the universe is, I hope it's not cockroaches!" - mom

  7. Jon Thompson 1
    Joke

    "extending from galaxies"

    The universe's equivalent of "down the back of the couch"

    1. ArmanX

      I think it's more like:

      "Dropped it on the way up the drive"

  8. Hooch181
    Happy

    She is really...

    in trouble if her partner is looking for his/her keys and she says she doesn't know!

    Congrats to her though. :-)

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Heh

    Just goes to show you can't rely on men finding anything that's been misplaced.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    H2G2

    If you read this in the right way it gets remarkably close to the discovery of the infinity improbability drive.

    Scientists had made theories about the universe mut however much they tried to add up the mass of all the stars and galaxies it never added up to a big enough number, so they sighed and decided that the rest was made up of "missing mass". Then one day a Phd student reasoned that if this mass was "missing" then it must be possible to find it so she got the biggest telescope she could find and point out where this mass was ....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      But....

      ...now that the theory has been demonstrated the missing mass will immediately disappear and be replaced with something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

      And the funny thing is, it's already happened....no, wait!

      1. The First Dave
        Unhappy

        @But...

        And shortly afterwards, said extremely smug person got lynched by a bunch of Scientists, or at least that is how _that_ story ended.

    2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Linux

      Like this penguin's fat belly, cropped but nearby

      If that mass is extragalactic, then it can't contribute much to keeping the galactic rotation curves flat. The mass must be nearby here, in the galactic disk.

      1. Steve Brooks

        I know nothing..nothiiiing

        Actually no, if the mass was inside the the currect accepted edges of the galaxy the galaxy would rotate faster, for the edges of the galaxy to rotate at the current speed the mass needs to be outside, slowing the rotation, so that what we think is the edge of the galaxy isn't actually the edge, just the visible edge. Much like a wet cat, it would appear to rotate slower when its wet, but fluffed out you can see the rotation is correct acording to the actual edge of the cat, the fur on the periphery of a fluffed cat would move faster that that of a wet cat, but in actual fact its all the same.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

          1. Colin Brett
            Coat

            "Good news everyone ..."

            @Err

            "Not dark matter. Electrons."

            That's because everyone knows that dark matter is Nibbler-poop shaped like D12s.

            Mine's the one with the Planet Express logo on the back

            Colin

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Coat

              Close

              Dark matter is indeed Nibbler-poop, and is so heavy that one pound of it weighs 10,000 pounds.

              The D12 shaped object is the anti-backwards crystal.

              mines the one with the shiny metal ass.

  11. Scott Broukell

    Are these filaments ...

    made of Blue String per chance ?

    1. Zippy the Pinhead

      @ Scott

      What else could it be... String Cheese!

  12. Steve Farr
    Grenade

    A very dark matter indeed...

    Breaking: Finance undergraduate in Australia discovers £4.4B hole in EU science budget, £500M hole in UK budget. Where did it all go?

  13. dssf

    To HELL with "Rapture", there's more to enjoy unfolding the universe

    It's eye-watering, heart-warming stuff like this that makes me hope like hell that there is no "rapture" for at least 6 million years. Rapture should be a day of reckoning on the individual basis, not planetary or universal scale.

  14. WhoIsThis?
    Unhappy

    What does this mean for CERN?

    Does this mean the hunt for the Higgs Boson is never going to find it?

    Can we rename the filaments to be the Higgs Boson filaments?

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. Version 1.0 Silver badge
        Happy

        Hopefully a better fit

        I've never liked "Dark Matter is the Answer" as a solution to the problem. It's too much like magic.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          I always though that too.

          "There is no God. The Universe is 3/4 made up of stuff that we're pretty sure is there- it's all here in these books- but you can't see it and aren't aware of feeling it's presence. Now THAT is Science!" never quite sat right with me.

          Sorted. Next problem!

  15. Dexter
    Happy

    re: and dropped the cat on the floor

    Everyone knows the answer to this paradox; the toast falls off the cat and lands jam side down. The cat lands feet up, flees the scene, and won't come near you for days.

  16. Paul RND*1000
    Joke

    If you want a problem solved...

    ...find an engineer! :)

    Seriously though, quite the achievement and pleasing to see that credit was given where due.

    1. Sly
      Coat

      pics are out there

      http://www.monash.edu.au/news/show/monash-student-finds-universes-missing-mass?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=main&utm_campaign=newsfeed

      /coat

      mine's the one with the camera in the pocket.

  17. Jim 59
    Go

    True boffinry

    Listen up scientists: call an engineer when you really want to now how something works.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      But...

      ...don't forget to check the engineer's spelling!

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    female undergraduate makes great discovery

    but is she a babe?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      She has a FB page

      quick google image search finds a facebook page - based on that I'd say yes. Plus she has a somewhat good choice in beverages.

      1. noodle heimer

        re: the single most important question

        the better-looking one is the one who did the math.

        I think the author of this rather curiously spurty essay didn't realize who was whom on the team when composing it in hopes of obtaining a face to face interview.

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Judge for yourself

      http://tinyurl.com/3w7w6t9

    3. Aaron Em

      And this, of course

      is why female engineers are rare as hen's teeth and about as dangerous as WWII-vintage UXO to approach when found.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    IT Angle

    This world has enough problems...

    ...which need our best minds to work on and fix, not waste millions of man hours / days on pie in the sky. Yes we would like to know these things, but we can do begger all about them, so let's concentrate for a while on some other pressing issues!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      It doesn't work like that...

      ...because we don't know what it is we need to know to fix whatever it is we need to fix.

      Therefore, we need to find out everything in case it comes in useful.

      You're not used to this science thingy are you?

    2. Kibble
      Joke

      @AC 17:17

      Agree whole-heartedly. For instance, what is the true date and time of the Rapture. :-)

    3. Richard 12 Silver badge

      The thing about Science

      Is that you don't know what Engineering will come of it.

      And that Engineering might be really, really useful and solve all kinds of serious problems.

      The LASER is the example of this that gets trotted out all the time - Science came up with this weird monochromatic in-phase light source, and then all kinds of surprising uses for it turned up, like improving your access to pornography.

      Off-hand I can't think of any direct uses for recent cosmology results, but that's probably because I'm not at the bleeding edge of high-energy physics or cosmology.

    4. Captain DaFt

      OK, you first!

      Which problem do you want to solve? World Hunger? Overpopulation? Cancer? Climate change?

      What's that? Not your field of expertise? Then carry on with what you do best, and let everybody else do the same.

    5. Someone Else Silver badge
      Coat

      Like, for example...

      ...how the Tea Party can find enough mass to hold it together?

      Oh...perhaps we should look for filaments coming from AM right-wing talk radio station transmitters!

      You see, AC? This has already produced tangible, real-world results!

      1. Rattus Rattus

        @ Someone Else

        "how the Tea Party can find enough mass to hold it together?

        Oh, that's an easy one. It's a simple matter of density.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Of course...

      ...because no problem was ever solver by having a better understanding of another.

    7. ravenviz Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Reg forums FAQ?

      I think the Reg forums need a FAQ that people read before posting so they know which responses get massively downvoted, to at best save embarrassment, at worst to avoid the feelings of paranoia and despair that no-one likes them. If they still want to post then a FAQ reference number without a voting button and automatic troll icon would suffice.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Clearly....

    The previous hunters must have been male and using the principle of a 'Man look'.

    Man - Were are my slippers, please, dear?

    Partner - In the bedroom, were bedroom slipper should be.

    Man - I've looked for my slippers in the bedroom - they aren't there.

    Partner - I didn't hear the door open, open the door this time.

    Man - They're not there, I've looked.

    Partner - Go in the bedroom this time and look.

    Man - I went in and looked around and they aren't there.... were have you put them this time...

    Partner - Did you go to the bottom of the bed and look in the Wardrobe...?

    Man - errr no, but I have now and they're not there. What have you done with them... I liked those slippers...

    Partner - Have you looked under your side of the bed?

    Man - Ooooo, Ahhhh, Why are they there.....? and do you know were you've put my dressing gown...

    Partner - sighs - .......

    Is your god a Partner???

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Ahahaha

      Have you been in my house listening to me and my wife? Seriously!

  21. veskebjorn

    If you believe this, you probably thought the world would end last Saturday

    As seems inevitable in articles penned by Mr. Page about subjects of which he is ill-informed, it is not true that "[b]offins know from observing the universe that it must have a certain amount of mass...." Some boffins conjecture (quite different from "know") that a hitherto unknown kind of mass exists and is distributed such that seeming anomalies in galactic rotatations can be explained. Because this conjectured mass is undetectable, it is described as "dark." Some of these same boffins conjecture that "dark matter" is made up of WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles), particles which have never been detected, let alone described, in any experiment to date. (To physicists, "massive" means a particle has some mass, unlike photons, which are thought to have no mass.)

    Mr. Page fails to note that other, well-respected boffins have conjectured that the seemingly anomalous observations can be explained theoretically, without having to concoct new forms of undetectable matter. The two most popular theoretical conjectures at the moment are MOND (modified newtonian dynamics) and (TeVeS) tensor-vector-scalar gravity.A number of other theoretical conjectures have also been advanced, most of which don't require an assumption that the universe must contain more mass than is observable.

    Mr. Page further fails to note that the vast majority of the allegedly missing mass is called "dark energy," currently conjectured to represent approximately 75% of the total mass of the Universe. (Physicists regard mass and energy as interchangeable, so much so that the mass of particles in accelerators is measured in "electron-volts.") The most popular current speculation is that 5% of the Universe's mass is observable matter, 20% is "dark matter," and 75% is "dark energy."

    Finally, Mr. Page seems unaware of the WiggleZ project, which just last week announced results whose implications are strikingly different than those reported in this article. The project is a group of researchers at NASA and the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, which spent five years using a U.S. satellite and a large Australian telescope to track the movements of 200,000 galaxies. The group's study asserts (conclusively, in their minds) that "dark energy" controls the movement of celestial bodies.

  22. Andus McCoatover

    Why has everyone of note...

    ..got a double-barrel name? If you haven't - or aren't called 'Quentin', Crispin, Rudyard, Damien or anything similarly 'different', you simply won't get anywhere*.

    Two double-barrels in the same team. I ask you!

    * Onslow is the exception that proves the rule.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Heart

      My wife has a triple-barrelled name

      I'm hoping to hang on to her coat tails as she rapidly ascends the heights.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      Balderdash

      I've spoken to my driver, and neither he nor the butler have seen any such link between names and success or economic standing.

      Signed,

      Quentin Crispins-Damienson III, esq.

  23. Miek

    Not Bad

    "She has managed to get a refereed publication accepted by one of the highest ranking astronomy journals in the world as a result of her endeavours. I cannot underscore enough what a terrific achievement this is,"

    Not bad for an Engineering Student.

  24. Rovindi
    Coffee/keyboard

    Practically gobbed a mouthfull...

    ...of wine over the little ún, when I read line about "Neutrinos, Wimps, Wino´s..."

    As ever, titteringly good writing about complex subjects, albeit with a certain gonzo-Vulture Central twist.

    we like

    R

  25. Stevie
    Thumb Up

    Good Show That Woman!

    *politely claps while muttering terms of general approval*

  26. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Thumb Up

    Impressive for an undergraduate.

    Great things will be expected from her.

    I hope she delivers

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Self flagellation?

    My reading of the article is: boffins gather data, analyse it and fail to find what they were looking for. They then invite in Dr Jasmina Lazendic-Galloway for a second opinion and she proceeds to embarrass them by showing that their data does in fact show what they were looking for. The junior is then credited as lead author on the paper because the rest should have done better first time around.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      and even in the uni's own press relase

      Amelia only ever gets to be "excited", not refer to what she actually did as part of the research. Not even a feeble "all those tedious hours of data analysis now seem worthwhile".

    2. Mike Green
      WTF?

      That's how I read it too.

      What exactly did the student do apart from gather huge amounts of data and then bring it to a doctor who actually figured it out?

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It is 2011....

    Where is my flying car?

  29. Louis 3
    Thumb Up

    There you go!

    Good for her!

  30. Mips
    Jobs Halo

    Like I said

    What is dark matter but the stuff that was too thin to condense out of the proto-universe after the big bang to form stars and dust clouds etc: what we can see.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Badgers

    Thurston-Howell

    What's with all the hypenated names?

  32. Brian Miller 1
    Boffin

    Ummm, having read the paper

    They have not given any sort of analyses about how much mass the filaments constitute as a total of how much mass we expect there to be in the universe.

    It also appears that these filaments were already "known" to exist. So its not even like they discovered them.

    So please can you show me the calculations that indicate that all the "missing mass" is accounted for by these findings?

    Don't get me wrong, the paper is well written and obviously significant to be published in this prestigious journal, but this story is WAY to sensational for what the paper actually states. Is she a friend of yours perhaps?

  33. Cliff

    The most exceptional part of all this

    is that she was given full credit on the paper. Sad but true. So pleased to see that credit was volunteered where it was deserved.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's always in the last place you look

    that is all.

    1. Jimbo 6

      @ the last place

      Unless you're the sort of idiot that carries on looking after you've found the item

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Not always

      Sometimes you don't find it before you give up

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