From Case Western Reserve University
6.17.24
Colin McEwen
colin.mcewen@case.edu.
New, groundbreaking research shows that rotation curves of galaxies stay flat indefinitely, corroborating predictions of modified gravity theory as an alternative to dark matter.
Milky Way. Mirage News
In a breakthrough discovery that challenges the conventional understanding of cosmology, scientists at Case Western Reserve University have unearthed new evidence that could reshape our perception of the cosmos.
Tobias Mistele, a post-doctoral scholar in the Department of Astronomy at Case Western Reserve’s College of Arts and Sciences, pioneered a revolutionary technique using “gravitational lensing” to delve into the enigmatic realm of dark matter. He found that the rotation curves of galaxies remain flat for millions of light years with no end in sight.
Scientists have previously believed that the rotation curves of galaxies must decline the farther out you peer into space.
Traditionally, the behavior of stars within galaxies has puzzled astronomers. According to Newtonian gravity, stars on the outer edges should be slower due to diminished gravitational pull. This was not observed, leading to the inference of dark matter. But even dark matter halos should come to an end, so rotation curves should not remain flat indefinitely.
Mistele’s analysis defies this expectation, providing a startling revelation: the influence of what we call dark matter extends far beyond previous estimates, stretching at least a million light-years from the galactic center.
Such a long range effect may indicate that dark matter—as we understand it—might not exist at all.
“This finding challenges existing models,” he said, “suggesting there exist either vastly extended dark matter halos or that we need to fundamentally reevaluate our understanding of gravitational theory.”
Stacy McGaugh, professor and director of the Department of Astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences, said Mistele’s findings, slated for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, push traditional boundaries.
“The implications of this discovery are profound,” McGaugh said. “It not only could redefine our understanding of dark matter, but also beckons us to explore alternative theories of gravity, challenging the very fabric of modern astrophysics.”
Turning Einstein’s theory on its head
The primary technique Mistele used in his research, gravitational lensing, is a phenomenon predicted by Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity.
Essentially, it occurs when a massive object, like a galaxy cluster or even a single massive star, bends the path of light coming from a distant source. This bending of light happens because the mass of the object warps the fabric of spacetime around it. This bending of light by galaxies persists over much larger scales than expected.
As part of the research, Mistele plotted out what’s called Tully–Fisher relation on a chart to highlight the empirical relationship between the visible mass of a galaxy and its rotation speed.
The primary technique Mistele used in his research, gravitational lensing, is a phenomenon predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. As part of the research, Mistele plotted out what’s called Tully–Fisher relation on a chart to highlight the empirical relationship between the visible mass of a galaxy and its rotation speed.
“We knew this relationship existed,” Mistele said. “But it wasn’t obvious that the relationship would hold the farther you go out. How far does this behavior persist? That’s the question, because it can’t persist forever.”
Mistele said his discovery underscores the necessity for further exploration and collaboration within the scientific community—and the possible analysis of other data.
McGaugh noted the Herculean—yet, so far, unsuccessful—efforts in the international particle physics community to detect and identify dark matter particles.
“Either dark matter halos are much bigger than we expected, or the whole paradigm is wrong,” McGaugh said.
“The theory that predicted this behavior in advance is the modified gravity theory MOND hypothesized by Moti Milgrom as an alternative to dark matter in 1983.
____________________
MOND [Modified Newtonian dynamics]
____________________
So, the obvious and inevitably controversial interpretation of this result is that dark matter is a chimera; perhaps the evidence for it is pointing to some new theory of gravity beyond what Einstein taught us.”
See the full article here.
Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct.
five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings
Please help promote STEM in your local schools.
Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established after Western Reserve University—which was founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reserve—and Case Institute of Technology—which was founded in 1880 through the endowment of Leonard Case Jr.—formally federated in 1967.
Case Western Reserve University comprises eight schools that offer more than 100 undergraduate programs and about 160 graduate and professional options across fields in STEM, medicine, arts, and the humanities. The university enrolls over 13,000 students (7,000 undergraduate plus 6,000 graduate and professional) from all 50 states and 102 countries and employed more than 1,110 full-time faculty members. The university’s athletic teams, Case Western Reserve Spartans, play in NCAA Division III as a founding member of the University Athletic Association.
Case Western Reserve University is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity”. According to the National Science Foundation, the university has annual research and development (R&D) expenditures of over $500 million, ranking it very high among private institutions and in the nation.
Surgeons General of the United States, Justices of the United States Supreme Court, Olympic medallists, NASA astronauts, billionaires, appointees to the National Academies, and Nobel laureates are numbered among Case Western Reserve University faculty or alumni, or one of its predecessors prior to federation. The Michelson–Morley experiment disproved the existence of the “luminiferous aether” and confirmed that light did not need a medium of travel. It was conducted in the basement of a Western Reserve University dormitory in 1887, and Albert A. Michelson became the first American to win the Nobel Prize in science.
Western Reserve College, the college of the Connecticut Western Reserve, was founded in 1826 in Hudson, Ohio, as the Western Reserve College and Preparatory School. Western Reserve College, or “Reserve” as it was popularly called, was the first college in northern Ohio. The school was called “Yale of the West”; its campus, now that of the Western Reserve Academy, imitated that of Yale. It had the same motto, “Lux et Veritas” (Light and Truth), the same entrance standards, and nearly the same curriculum. It was different from Yale in that it was a manual labor college, in which students were required to perform manual labor, seen as psychologically beneficial.
Western Reserve College’s founders sought to instill in students an “evangelical ethos” and train ministers for Ohio, where there was an acute shortage of them. The college was located in Hudson because the town made the largest financial offer to help in its construction. That town, about 30 miles southeast of Cleveland, had been an antislavery center from the beginning: its founder, David Hudson, was against slavery, and founding trustee Owen Brown was a noted abolitionist who secured the location for the college. The abolitionist John Brown, who would lead the 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry, grew up in Hudson and was the son of co-founder Owen Brown. Hudson was a major stop on the Underground Railroad.
Along with Presbyterian influences of its founding, the school’s origins were strongly though briefly associated with the pre-Civil War abolitionist movement; the abolition of slavery was the dominant topic on campus in 1831. The trustees were unhappy with the situation. The college’s chaplain and Bible professor, Beriah Green, gave four sermons on the topic and then resigned, expecting that he would be fired. President Charles Backus Storrs took a leave of absence for health, and soon died. One of the two remaining professors, Elizur Wright, soon left to head the American Anti-Slavery Society.
Western Reserve was the first college west of the Appalachian Mountains to enroll (1832) and graduate (1836) an African-American student, John Sykes Fayette. Frederick Douglass gave the commencement speech in 1854.
In 1838, the Loomis Observatory was built by astronomer Elias Loomis, and today remains the second oldest observatory in the United States, and the oldest still in its original location.
In 1852, the Medical School became the second medical school in the United States to graduate a woman, Nancy Talbot Clark. Five more women graduated over the next four years, including Emily Blackwell and Marie Zakrzewska, giving Western Reserve the distinction of graduating six of the first eight female physicians in the United States.
By 1875, Cleveland had emerged as the dominant population and business center of the area, and the city wanted a prominent higher education institution. In 1882, with funding from Amasa Stone, Western Reserve College moved to Cleveland and changed its name to Adelbert College of Western Reserve University. Adelbert was the name of Stone’s son.
In 1877, Leonard Case Jr. began laying the groundwork for the Case School of Applied Science by secretly donating valuable pieces of Cleveland real estate to a trust. He asked his confidential advisor, Henry Gilbert Abbey, to administer the trust and to keep it secret until after his death in 1880.
On March 29, 1880, articles of incorporation were filed for the founding of the Case School of Applied Science. Classes began on September 15, 1881. The school received its charter by the state of Ohio in 1882.
For the first four years of the school’s existence, it was located in the Case family’s home on Rockwell Street in downtown Cleveland. Classes were held in the family house, while the chemistry and physics laboratories were on the second floor of the barn. Amasa Stone’s gift to relocate Western Reserve College to Cleveland also included a provision for the purchase of land in the University Circle area, adjacent to Western Reserve University, for the Case School of Applied Science. The school relocated to University Circle in 1885.
In 1921 Albert Einstein came to the Case campus during his first visit to the United States, out of respect for the physics work performed there. Besides noting the research done in the Michelson–Morley experiment, Einstein also met with physics professor Dayton Miller to discuss his own research.
During World War II, Case School of Applied Science was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
Over time, the Case School of Applied Science expanded to encompass broader subjects, adopting the name Case Institute of Technology in 1947 to reflect the institution’s growth.
Led by polymer expert Eric Baer in 1963, the nation’s first stand-alone Polymer Science and Engineering program was founded, to eventually become the Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering.
Although the trustees of Case Institute of Technology and Western Reserve University did not formally federate their institutions until 1967, the institutions already shared buildings and staff when necessary and worked together often. One such example was seen in 1887, when Case physicist Albert Michelson and Reserve chemist Edward Morley collaborated on the famous Michelson–Morley experiment.
There had been some discussion of a merger of the two institutions as early as 1890, but those talks dissolved quickly. In the 1920s, the Survey Commission on Higher Education in Cleveland took a strong stand in favor of federation and the community was behind the idea as well, but in the end all that came of the study was a decision by the two institutions to cooperate in founding Cleveland College, a special unit for part-time and adult students in downtown Cleveland.
By the 1960s, Reserve President John Schoff Millis and Case President T. Keith Glennan shared the idea that federation would create a complete university, one better able to attain national distinction. Financed by the Carnegie Corporation, Cleveland Foundation, Greater Cleveland Associated Foundation, and several local donors, a study commission of national leaders in higher education and public policy was charged with exploring the idea of federation. The Heald Commission, so known for its chair, former Ford Foundation President Henry T. Heald, predicted in its final report that a federation could create one of the largest private universities in the nation.
In 1967, Case Institute of Technology, a school with its emphasis on engineering and science, and Western Reserve University, a school with professional programs and liberal arts, came together to form Case Western Reserve University.
In 1968, the Department of Biomedical Engineering launched as a newly unified collaboration between the School of Engineering and School of Medicine as the first in the nation and as one of the first Biomedical Engineering programs in the world. The following year in 1969, the first Biomedical Engineering MD/PhD program in the world began at Case Western Reserve.
The first computer engineering degree program in the United States was established in 1971 at Case Western Reserve.
In 2003, the university unveiled a new logo and branding campaign that emphasized the “Case” portion of its name. In 2006, interim university president Gregory Eastwood convened a task group to study reactions to the campaign. The panel’s report indicated that it had gone so poorly that, “There appear to be serious concerns now about the university’s ability to recruit and maintain high-quality faculty, fund-raising and leadership.” Also, the logo was derided among the university’s community and alumni and throughout northeastern Ohio; critics said it looked like “…a fat man with a surfboard.”
In 2007, the university’s board of trustees approved a shift back to giving equal weight to “Case” and “Western Reserve”. A new logo was chosen and implementation began July 1. In an open letter to the university community, interim president Eastwood admitted that “the university had misplaced its own history and traditions.” The “Forward Thinking” campaign was launched in 2011 by President Barbara Snyder and raised $1 billion in 30 months. The board of trustees unanimously agreed to expand the campaign to $1.5 billion, which reached its mark in 2017. The campaign ultimately raised $1.82 billion.
A 2020 United States presidential debate, the first of two, was held at the Samson Pavilion of the Health Education Campus (HEC), shared by the Cleveland Clinic.
In February 2020, president Barbara Snyder was appointed the president of Association of American Universities (AAU). Later that year, former Tulane University president Scott Cowen was appointed interim president. On October 29, 2020, Eric W. Kaler, former University of Minnesota president, was appointed as the new Case Western Reserve University president, effective July 1, 2021.
In U.S. News & World Report’s rankings, Case Western Reserve was ranked very highly among national universities and among global universities. The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education (WSJ/THE) ranks Case Western Reserve very highly among US colleges and universities.
Case Western Reserve was ranked very highly in the category American “national universities” and in the category “global universities” by U.S. News & World Report. Case Western Reserve was also ranked very highly among U.S. universities—and among private institutions by The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education (WSJ/THE) rankings.
Case Western Reserve University’s biochemistry program is jointly administered with the CWRU School of Medicine, and was ranked very highly nationally in the latest rankings by Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research.
Case Western Reserve is noted (among other fields) for research in electrochemistry and electrochemical engineering. The Michelson–Morley interferometer experiment was conducted in 1887 in the basement of a campus dormitory by Albert A. Michelson of Case School of Applied Science and Edward W. Morley of Western Reserve University. Michelson became the first American to win a Nobel Prize in science.
The Hollywood Reporter has ranked CWRU’s Department of Theater Master of Fine Arts program with the Cleveland Play House very highly in the English-speaking world.
Washington Monthly has ranked Case Western Reserve University very highly.
Washington Monthly has ranked Case Western Reserve very highly for contributing to the public good. The publication’s ranking was based upon a combination of factors including social mobility, research, and service. Although Washington Monthly no longer ranks contributions to the public good as such, Case Western Reserve was ranked very high in Social mobility and in Service.
Case Western Reserve was among the Top 25 LGBT-Friendly Colleges and Universities, according to Campus Pride. The recognition follows Case Western Reserve’s first five-star ranking on the Campus Pride Index, a detailed survey of universities’ policies, services and institutional support for LGBT individuals.
Case Western Reserve ranks very highly among private institutions in federal expenditures for science and engineering research and development, per the National Science Foundation.
The university in its present form consists of eight schools that offer more than 100 undergraduate programs and about 160 graduate and professional options.
College of Arts and Sciences (1826)
Case School of Dental Medicine (1892)
Case School of Engineering (1880)
School of Law (1892)
Weatherhead School of Management (1952)
School of Medicine
‘University Program’ (1843)
Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine (‘College Program’) (2002)
Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing (1898)
Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences (1915)
CWRU also supports over a hundred ‘Centers’ in various fields.
Case Western Reserve University is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity”.
Today, the university operates several facilities off campus for scientific research. One example of this is the Warner and Swasey Observatory at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona.
WRUW-FM (91.1 FM) is the campus radio station of Case Western Reserve University. WRUW broadcasts at a power of 15,000 watts and covers most of Northeast Ohio.
Case Western Reserve was one of the earliest universities connected to the ARPANET, predecessor to the Internet.
ARPANET went online in 1969; Case Western Reserve was connected in January, 1971. Case Western Reserve graduate Ken Biba published the Biba Integrity Model in 1977 and served on the ARPA Working Group that developed the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) used on the Internet.
Case Western Reserve pioneered the early Free-net computer systems, creating the first Free-net, The Cleveland Free-Net, as well as writing the software that drove a majority of those systems, known as FreePort. The Cleveland Free-Net was shut down in late 1999, as it had become obsolete.
It was the first university to have an all-fiber-optic network, in 1989.
At the inaugural meeting in October, 1996, Case Western Reserve was one of the 34 charter university members of Internet2.
The university has been ranked very highly in Yahoo Internet Life’s Most Wired College list. There was a perception that this award was obtained through partially false or inaccurate information submitted for the survey, and the university has not appeared at all in recent reports.
In August 2003, Case Western Reserve joined the Internet Streaming Media Alliance, then one of only two university members.
In September 2003, Case Western Reserve opened 1,230 public wireless access points on the Case Western Reserve campus and University Circle.
Case Western Reserve was one of the founding members of OneCleveland, formed in October 2003. OneCleveland is an “ultra broadband” (gigabit speed) fiber optic network. This network is for the use of organizations in education, research, government, healthcare, arts, culture, and the nonprofit sector in Greater Cleveland.
The university is associated with many Nobel laureates.
sciencesprings 