Review of the book “Dark Matter” – Spectrum of Science

The last point thus leads to the highly readable fourth chapter, in which the author discusses the philosophical aspect of occult matter. For example, one might wonder if dark matter is a valid scientific hypothesis: Can’t one always find a distribution of matter that can explain any kind of motion? Is the hypothesis falsifiable? When are we ready to consider dark matter real?

Most astronomers accept dark matter as a valid working hypothesis, which is the best possible at the moment. Even if the search for particle physics candidates has disappointed over the past decade, there is no need to give up. The successes of the hypothesis are very great, and there are always new ideas about what this question might consist of.

Recently, for example, primordial black holes proposed by Jako Zeldowicz (1914-1987) were again considered for the first time in 1966, that is, black holes created with the Big Bang. So this would be a cosmological solution to a cosmological problem, and the interesting idea that dark matter refers to a dark sector in particle physics would be completely wrong.

The only point to criticize about Enderle’s book is the selection of the few illustrations in black and white, and it’s not perfect. In some places, the text would be easier to understand if one could see the diagram that the author describes in words. However, it’s a nice compact compilation of an exciting and up-to-date topic in modern astrophysics that is very readable, and can also be bought really cheap – even if Anderl’s book crosses the chocolate bar in this respect.