What do you personally think dark matter is? Random guesses

Alwin:

Just finished reading the the book 4% universe by Richard Panek, and would recommend to anyone interested in a casual history about Dark Matter.

To anyone who is knowledgable the reasoning, behind why dark matter is not just (matter between the seat cushions ie. dust and gas between stars etc), would love to hear more about this.

Personal thoughts on possible causes:

• Macro topology of the universe that is affected by another force, such as large scale warping affected possibly by leaking dimensions say which imbue our spacetime with a greater amount of gravity. Action-at-a-distance seems to connect the universe on some level that is not fully understood currently, which hints at a more complexity than our 3 spatial dimensions. I personally believe both in more microdimensions (like what string theory proposes) and also in a multiverse, that the big bang is only our local reality/universe. Just seems that the probability ours is the only universe is not inline with what we consistently learn from Copernicus – that our position is not unique.
• Unseen rotation forces (perhaps not detectable given our current location) which account for the spin of the galaxy, say above and below the disk but undetectable currently. Not to bring back the ether, but perhaps the universe has more rotational momentum that we simply are not considering / unknown.
• Wrong calculations: calculating the density of space and the effect of baryonic matter at a distance incorrectly. There is evidence that is coming from Voyager II that the density of the universe is much greater once out of the solar system. Voyager missions find sharp increase in density of space beyond our solar system- Technology News, Firstpost.
• Wrong understanding of bodies at a distance: applying inferential/classical models to something which is more complex.
• And of course, dark matter and simply a new thing. Exactly like we say it is :)