Let's clear up some terminology from the get go. Ready?
Dark Matter is defined as: Scientists believe dark matter exists throughout the universe because based on our best calculations using Einstein’s equations of gravity, the universe should be much more massive than what all the observable stars and other bright objects would weigh; therefore, scientists believe that there must be more matter out there, we just can’t see it. Thus the name dark matter, and its mysterious nature, since our only tool for observing distant matter is light, so if matter does not emit light, we can only make indirect observations and inferences about its properties.
Dark Energy is defined as: the unexplained force that is drawing galaxies away from each other, against the pull of gravity, at an accelerated pace.Dark energy is a bit like anti-gravity. Where gravity pulls things together at the more local level, dark energy tugs them apart on the grander scale. Its existence isn't proven, but dark energy is many scientists' best guess to explain the confusing observation that the universe's expansion is speeding up. Experts still don't know why this occurs, but the quest to learn more about dark energy is one of cosmologists' top priorities.
Not to be confused with Anti-Matter, which is: another strange concept in physics - but unlike dark matter, it’s one which we’ve actually observed in labs. In a nutshell, antimatter is matter that has the opposite charge of matter. For example, an electron is a matter particle which has a negative charge, while a positron (also called an antielectron) is an anti-matter particle which has a positive charge. The cool part about this is that when these two things come into contact with each other, they annihilate each other and release massive amounts of energy.
Particle X is: a supermassive particle that was half of what was created in the Big Bang. (There was also anti-X.) Equal amounts of X and anti-X were created in the Big Bang, and then decayed to lighter particles. Each X decayed into either a neutron or two dark-matter particles, called Y and Φ. Every anti-X converted to an anti-neutron or some anti-dark matter.
The most popular candidate for dark matter is a theoretical weakly interacting massive particle, or WIMP, that connects only with the weak nuclear force and gravity, making it undetectable by eyes, radios and telescopes at all wavelengths. Based on current theories, WIMPs are expected to be about 100 times as massive as a proton, and to be their own antiparticle — whenever two WIMPs meet up in space, they annihilate each other.
I think this is interesting, because even as we ponder on what the first moments of the universe might have been like, we still try to give it some sort of order. Scientists predict that if the universe was originally created from matter and anti-matter, then there must be some sort of asymmetry there (likely on the matter side I would predict, but even that can't be proven) or else they would have annihilated each other, and nothingness would still reign.It makes me feel better to know that some of the smartest people in the world still try to impose their control on things outside of their logical control. Even in quantum physics, one of those gray sciences that continually plays in the gray between strict, quantifiable science and theory, it's easy to see the "human-ness" reflected in the science.
Looking at the image above, its strange to see what lengths we go to in an attempt to find scraps of information on what happened before-before (before time began for their to be a "before"). To detect neutrinos and decaying protons (signatures of Particle X), physicists paddle around the Super Kamiokande detector in a rubber raft as it fills with water how low/high tech.
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