Archive for August 2006
MOND Theories Come Up Short
My brother Ryan pointed out yesterday’s NASA press release about recent observations made by the Chandra X-ray observatory which rule out MONDian theories as possible explanations for the galactic rotation curve problem. Beginning in 1933, astronomers have observed that galaxy clusters rotate around each other too quickly to be explained by Newtonian physics or even Einstein’s general relativity. Some scientists posited a halo of dark matter surrounding galaxies which could explain the rotation speeds. Other scientists attempted to modify newtonian dynamics hence the acronym MOND.
This discovery rules out MONDian theories as a possible explanation. Of course we still don’t have direct evidence for dark matter, but at least we can eliminate one path of exploration.
Nature has a more illuminating article on the subject, and they also link to the Astrophysical Journal preprint at arxiv.org.
Courses I’m Taking This Fall
This fall I’m taking the following courses:
- Math 5310 Abstract Algebra
- Math 5410 Introductory Differential Equations
- Physics 5450 Introduction to Quantum Mechanics
I’m especially excited to take the Quantum Mechanics class.
