Right then, so here's how things actually work.
Dark matter: Dark matter is likely simply another type of massive (it has mass; not necessarily that it has a lot of it), undiscovered particle; undiscovered simply because it interacts extremely weakly. An example of a similar particle is the neutrino; the experimental verification of which required tanks containing hundreds of tons of a liquid, and then sifting through all that liquid to look for about 10 atoms a week which spontaneously changed into another element as predicted (turns out they actually only found 3 a week, leading to the discovery of different types of neutrinos). So yeah, dark matter is pretty mundane in all likelyhood.
Antimatter: Antimatter is similar to matter; identical is basically every aspect. Not only has it been discovered, but we use it on a routine basis in things like PET scans (Positron Emission Tomography), which make use of antimatter emitted by a radioactive tracer to create their images. Antimatter is essentially identical to their matter pairs; and only differ in a very few known reactions. They have the opposite charge of their matter counterparts. When antimatter and matter meet, they annihilate, releasing energy in the form of photons or other force carrying particles. Their mass, however, is positive.
Dark Energy: Dark Energy is a big mystery. It is of entirely unknown origin, and is a strong, negative energy. It is responsible for the acceleration of the universe's expansion, in contrast to the expectation of a deceleration that was predicted by Einstein's theories of gravity. When this one is discovered, it will likely revolutionize physics, and generally turn everything we know on its head. We're talking potential for perpetual motion machine level of revolution here. So that's the one discovery to look forward to.
Virtual particles: Virtual particles exist as pairs, consisting of both matter and antimatter. They effectively live on 'borrowed energy' and spontaneously arise from nothing. Turns out, nature really abhors a vacuum. As a result, on the small scale, there is what is referred to as the 'quantum foam,' which consists of a soup of such virtual particle pairs, zipping in and out of existence. Part of quantum theory dictates that space, time, and energy are all quantized, and as such have a minimum size; a particle must have above certain thresholds of these values. Virtual pairs, to my understanding, live in the margins of these values; having small enough existences as to avoid some of the normal rules. To my understanding, these play a massive part in quantum field theory, and are effectively the things responsible for carrying things like magnetic forces. They zip into existence at the same point, fly apart, then back into one another and annihilate almost immediately.
Hawking radiation: Hawking radiation ties in very closely with virtual pairs, as they are the cause of the negative energy. In Hawking radiation, the virtual pair zips into existence right on the edge of the black hole's event horizon. The two fly apart momentarily, when suddenly one falls into the event horizon, and is unable to return. The other becomes a particle, and flies away. This basically creates an energy deficit, since the virtual pairs existed on borrowed energy; this is then basically taken from the black hole itself. Thus, to an observer, the black hole spawns a particle, the black hole losing energy equal to the particle's mass, right next to the event horizon, which then escapes as Hawking radiation. You can actually do something similar with lasers; which likewise turn virtual pairs into particles at the expense of energy.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727744.200-lasers-could-make-virtual-particles-real.htmlWhich also means there is an upper limit to the power you can make a laser.
tldr; version, use wikipedia, it works.
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Topic: dark matter? (Read 5123 times)