New View of Matter and Energy Needed

In your Jan. 1 editorial about “Science in a Humbler State,” you seem to slight the discovery that the bulk of the matter and energy in the universe (dark matter and dark energy), which “we cannot see and do not understand,” is unknown. You strongly underestimate the significance of this key knowledge about the cosmos. There is no reason why humans should be able to “see” the matter in the universe. The stars and planets make up less than one-half of 1% of all matter and energy in the universe. Nicolaus Copernicus followed one ancient Greek idea that the Earth was not the center of the cosmos and proposed that the Earth orbits the sun. We are in a similar situation today with the matter in the universe.

It is incredible that humans living on a small planet near an average star in an average galaxy should be able to deduce the nature of our vast universe. The first evidence for the dark matter was actually obtained in Southern California in 1933, shortly after the discovery of the expansion of the universe. In fact, modern cosmology is deeply rooted in California-led discoveries. There is an intense worldwide search going on now for the origin of the dark matter. I hope The Times will also show interest in this key effort to “see” the invisible.

David B. Cline

Professor, Physics and

Astronomy, UCLA