At Forbes: The “miracle” hope for finding the dark matter of the universe is dead

3-D impression of dark matter via Hubble

The WIMP (Weakly Interacting Massive particles) model has just not worked out:

We understand how the Standard Model particles behave. We have solid predictions for how they should interact through all of the fundamental forces, and experimental confirmation of those theories. We also have extraordinary constraints on how they’re permitted to interact in a beyond-the-Standard-Model fashion. Because of our constraints from accelerators, cosmic rays, decay experiments, nuclear reactors and more, we’ve been able to rule out many possible ideas that have been theorized.

When it comes to what might make up the dark matter, however, all we have are the astrophysical observations and our theoretical work, in tandem, to guide us. The possible theories that we’ve come up with include a huge number of dark matter candidates, but none that have garnered any experimental support. Ethan Siegel, “The ‘WIMP Miracle’ Hope For Dark Matter Is Dead” at Forbes

The greatthingxs is that the physicists acknowledge it. They’re not trying to pretend it’s there when it isn’t.

See also: Discover: Even the best dark matter theories are crumbling

Researcher: The search for dark matter has become a “quagmire of confirmation bias” So many research areas in science today are hitting hard barriers that it is reasonable to think that we are missing something.

Physicists devise test to find out if dark matter really exists

Largest particle detector draws a blank on dark matter

What if dark matter just doesn’t stick to the rules?

A proposed dark matter solution makes gravity an illusion

and

Proposed dark matter solution: “Gravity is not a fundamental governance of our universe, but a reaction to the makeup of a given environment.”

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