Black holes, dark energy and dark matter have been in the news – not least in Stephen Hawking’s recent Reith Lectures. And I’ve found it mildly troubling. Apparently physicists are racing to find subatomic particles that could be the missing ‘dark matter’ that, according to the Planck Mission Team, constitutes 84.5% of the total mass of the universe. I’m not a mathematician, but that’s most of it.
You probably know this already and chances are you’re okay with it. I’m pleased for you, but I’m not comfortable. It’s not the proportions that bother me, it’s the name: ‘dark matter’. It’s almost ...
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