- Researchers have just found evidence of “dark electrons”—electrons you can’t see using spectroscopy—in solid materials.
- By analyzing the electrons in palladium diselenide, the team was able to find states that functionally cancel each other out, blocking the electrons in those “dark states” from view.
- The scientists believe this behavior is likely to be found across many other substances as well, and could help explain why some superconductors behave in unexpected ways.
Sometimes I wonder how much of our universe is sitting on the surface of a metaphorical lake; and the things we see are just the bits that poke up above the water. That there’s an entirely separate world pressing up against ours, and normally they don’t interact; except sometimes they do, leading to effects which (to my knowledge) seem to have no cause, such as dark matter, dark energy, quantum unpredictablility and so forth.
Although it is very much on the Science Fantasy side of things your thoughts remind me of the “The Final Architecture” book series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Really enjoyed reading the trilogy.
Sometimes I wonder if consciousness is itself a force and the more we probe the larger consciousness grows.
Magic
According to Bell’s Theorem, there can’t be any hidden variables causing quantum unpredictability, so there can be nothing “under the surface” controlling it.
But dark energy and dark matter make up 95% of our universe. So they would be the “normal”.
If anything, the 5% that we do know would be the “abnormal”.
And anyway, it’s only called dark energy and dark matter, not because it doesn’t have a cause, but because it doesn’t interact with light (photons don’t interact with it).
Although I think you are right that they don’t know what causes it. It does interact with gravity, though.
But all this is way beyond my tiny brain.