Alexander B Fry writes a nice overview of where we're at with regards to understanding dark matter.
Either dark matter exists or it doesn’t. If it exists, then either we can detect it or we can’t. If it doesn’t exist, either we can show that it doesn’t exist or we can’t. The observations that led astronomers to posit dark matter in the first place seem too robust to dismiss, so the most common argument for non-existence is to say there must be something wrong with our understanding of gravity – that it must not behave as Einstein predicted. That would be a drastic change in our understanding of physics, so not many people want to go there. On the other hand, if dark matter exists and we can’t detect it, that would put us in a very inconvenient position indeed.
Alexander B Fry – On dark matter
Dark matter is the commonest, most elusive stuff there is. Can we grasp this great unsolved problem in physics?
Originally posted on Google+ · May 6, 2013
