Oh boy it sure is a great night to make observations of interstellar gas and protoplanetary disks!
Cosmologist: Aaaactually the stuff you see is only a fifth of all the stuff there is!
What? Why?
Cosmologist: Well you see we have this theory of gravity which works pretty well on small scales. But it says that the stuff you can see isn't enough for the galaxy to keep its current shape for a long time. So there's gotta be something invisible distributed exactly right to pull the galaxy into its current shape!
That... sounds weird. Why isn't it possible that the galaxy's shape is changing? After all the spiral arms are said to just be wavefronts of star formation. Or maybe gravity works differently on galactic scales an-
Cosmologist: THAT'S PREPOSTEROUS! Modified Newtonian Dynamics is like a pseudo religion!
But what is the stuff i can't see made of anyway?
Cosmologist: We have several candidates!
And?
Cosmologist: We can't really test any of them and they all don't really fit the bill.
Oh. Okay. Well assuming you're right at least we will be able to experimentally verify all the things about the universe at some point.
Cosmologist: Actually... Only a fourth of everything is actually "stuff". The rest is some energy that is even theoretically undetectable.
What the fuck. That sounds worse than creationism at least god could theoretically appear in a burning bush on live TV.
Cosmologist: Well it's needed! You see our perfect theory of relativistic gravity coupled with our infallible observations of standard candle supernovas mean that our calculations only work if there is a constant in there that balances things out!
Couldn't.... the equations be wro-
Cosmologist: PREPOSTEROUS! The universe is clearly expanding at an accelerated rate! Although we can't really agree on even a ballpark estimate with any certainty. The further away/the older a supernova the more redshifted it is. And the universe is clearly flat, the CMB proves it.
Cosmologist: Aaaactually the stuff you see is only a fifth of all the stuff there is!
What? Why?
Cosmologist: Well you see we have this theory of gravity which works pretty well on small scales. But it says that the stuff you can see isn't enough for the galaxy to keep its current shape for a long time. So there's gotta be something invisible distributed exactly right to pull the galaxy into its current shape!
That... sounds weird. Why isn't it possible that the galaxy's shape is changing? After all the spiral arms are said to just be wavefronts of star formation. Or maybe gravity works differently on galactic scales an-
Cosmologist: THAT'S PREPOSTEROUS! Modified Newtonian Dynamics is like a pseudo religion!
But what is the stuff i can't see made of anyway?
Cosmologist: We have several candidates!
And?
Cosmologist: We can't really test any of them and they all don't really fit the bill.
Oh. Okay. Well assuming you're right at least we will be able to experimentally verify all the things about the universe at some point.
Cosmologist: Actually... Only a fourth of everything is actually "stuff". The rest is some energy that is even theoretically undetectable.
What the fuck. That sounds worse than creationism at least god could theoretically appear in a burning bush on live TV.
Cosmologist: Well it's needed! You see our perfect theory of relativistic gravity coupled with our infallible observations of standard candle supernovas mean that our calculations only work if there is a constant in there that balances things out!
Couldn't.... the equations be wro-
Cosmologist: PREPOSTEROUS! The universe is clearly expanding at an accelerated rate! Although we can't really agree on even a ballpark estimate with any certainty. The further away/the older a supernova the more redshifted it is. And the universe is clearly flat, the CMB proves it.
