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The last
major shortcoming of the Standard Model that I would
like to consider is the existence of dark matter and
energy; namely, the total failure of the Standard
Model to predict or consider this strange
phenomenon. It is accepted that the universe
is increasing in the rate of expansion. This
is sort of counter intuitive since gravity should be
pulling things back together. The culprit of
this growing expansion has been appropriately
labeled dark energy.
Also, gravitational effects are much higher than
expected from observations of the known universe,
but we can't see this mysterious matter which we
have labeled dark matter, which
we believe is not made of protons, neutrons, and
electrons. This is very exciting given the
graph to the right representing the tiny fraction
corresponding to matter and energy that we can
account for and see around us, matter for which we
have developed ingenious theories and laws, and
studied extensively. Dark matter and dark
energy are possibly something entirely new yet very
real. We have much more to learn and hopefully
someday, an old model to discard for a much better
one. |