Posted by cougar on Nov 14, 2002 at 21:20
(63.228.205.209)
Re: Mirror matter mystery (Alfred)
Sorry, Alf. The more I look into this, the more shaky it sounds to me. Now, granted, I'm no professional asrophysicist, and there's much in contemporary astrophysics which is beyond me, but my personal opinion about "mirror matter" is leaning toward such adjectives as "baseless", "wild speculation", "evidence fitting", "internally inconsistent", and, well, you get the idea.
My reasons:
- Robert Foot, author of the article (who, by the way, has a book out about "mirror matter") says, "ordinary and mirror particles do not interact with each other by any of the known
fundamental forces except via gravity." But shortly after that he states, "Remnant mirror matter particles striking spacecraft would lead to a drag force slowing them down." Which is it? - Later Foot says, "On the microscopic level two types of forces or interactions can connect ordinary and mirror matter. That is, by small transition forces connecting photons with mirror photons and by small mass mixing terms between neutrinos and mirror neutrinos." For what must be new interactions, there is no explanation about what he's talking about or how these interactions can occur.
- "The photon-mirror photon transition force implies a shorter effective lifetime for orthopositronium (a type of atom made from an electron and a positron) in vacuum experiments." No explanation how this implication is made.
- The list of claimed evidence for "mirror matter" is like an extensive collection of astrophysical "names in the news": dark matter, extrasolar planets, machos, asteroid impacts, neutrino oscillations, Pioneer spacecraft deceleration anomalies, the Tunguska event.... Yes, these are all claimed as evidence for mirror matter. I hope my skepticism is therefore understandable....
Re: Mirror matter mystery Alfred 15/11 19:39
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