Customer Reviews

Dark Matters: Unifying Matter, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Universal Grid

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Dark matter & dark energy are discussed only briefly. The majority of the book is just a review of physics and cosmology, and mainly classical instead of modern physics. A person interested in dark energy and dark matter should already be familiar with those topics. He finally "presents" his new theory that explains dark matter and dark energy in ways that don't use concepts from string theory (or M theory). But he presents it in a very confusing manner that's almost too painful to read. The analogies he uses to explain it are almost ridiculous. I look forward to selling this awful book and converting it to cash.

Let me first of all state that I haven't read the entire book, only the first 100 pages. But in those 100 pages I found several outright scientific errors, several ambiguities and several points of confusion. I doubt if I will read the rest.

Page 21: The author is talking about the expansion of the universe, specifically Hubble's distance vs speed relation (the most distance galaxies have the greatest recessional velocity). The author states, "The most distant galaxies would be traveling at the highest speeds because they were given the `biggest push' by the initial explosion."

This is ludicrous. If the author were correct this would imply that the Earth (solar system or local cluster of galaxies) was the center of the universe, which it is not. Science usually uses the concept of an expanding balloon with dots on it (not a perfect analogy, but it works) to explain the Hubble relationship. The dots farthest away (the most distant galaxies) would have the greatest velocity because all the intervening balloon surface (space) is experiencing expansion as you inflate the balloon, hence the greatest velocity of recession. And as you got closer to the Earth (one of the dots), less balloon surface is expanding hence smaller velocities of recession. The Earth being the center of the expansion is just an illusion. Every dot (galaxy) would seem to be the center of expansion.

The big bang was not an explosion like we think of an explosion. It was the creation of matter (energy) and space. The galaxies would move away from each other by the expansion of that space, not for the most part by the initial, in the author's words explosion.

Page 35: Just confusing. The author is talking about a compass and how it interacts with a magnet. The author states, "If a small compass is brought close to one end of the magnet, the compass needle will point directly away from it, whereas if brought close to the other end the needle will point directly toward it".

I understand what he(the author) is implying. The compass needle (with the North end clearly marked) will point either toward or away from the magnet depending on which pole it was brought close to. But my point is, whether or not the North end of the compass points away or toward the magnet is just a random event. His choice of word usage is just ambiguous.

Page 43: The author is talking about Newton's law of Universal Gravitation as a reference to how the negative electron interacts with the positive nucleus of an atom. The author states, "Just as the force of gravitation of the sun on a planet is inversely proportional to the inverse square of the distance between them, so .........."

Newton's law of Universal Gravitation states that the force of gravity is proportional to the inverse square of the distance and directly proportional to the product of the two masses involved. Or it is sometimes written the force of gravity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance and directly proportional to the product of the two masses involved. The author left off the masses which is no problem as he was referring to electrostatic interactions and was referencing only the inverse square law.

If Newton's Law was as the author states, " ...is inversely proportional to the inverse square of the distance between...", that would imply that gravity was directly proportional to the distance (an inverse of an inverse is a direct relationship) . This would mean that as distance between two objects increased, the force of gravity increases also which is totally incorrect. Gravity (and electrostatic interactions) falls off with the distance (specifically with the square of the distance). If you separate two bodies to be twice as far apart as they were in some initial condition, the force of gravity ( electrostatic interactions) would become 1/4 as much as when the bodies were close together.

Page 64: Figure 2.10 which is supposed to represent the Hertz sprung-Russell graph is very confusing and wrong. First of all, the left side of the diagram (graph) is labeled as "Brightness of stars". Brightness in relation to WHAT, a candle, a light bulb, the sun?????? Secondly, the horizontal axis is labeled as "Surface temperature of star (K)". I seriously doubt that stars have a surface temperature colder that space itself. According to the graph, a star of `brightness' of 1 would have a surface temperature of .00005 Kelvin. Space itself has an overall temperature of about 2.73 K, stars can't be colder than that.

Page 96: Figure 3.19, the graph illustrating Hubble's Law. It would be nice if the Hubble data represented such a nice perfect straight line. In fact, Hubble's data was widely scattered and only with a line of best fit could you approximate a straight line. Now I understand the author is just showing the general relationship or trend, that as you get farther away the speed of recession increases. However, if he is going to present Hubble's Graph and put numbers on it, he could at least use numbers to label the graph that actually represent Hubble's data instead of fictitious numbers that mean nothing. It wouldn't take much effort to label the graph with actual information rather than useless drivel. Using the information on his graph, Hubble's Constants would have a value of about 20 kilometers per second per megaparsec. The actual value is right around 80 kilometers per second per megaparsec.

The title of the book is a bit misleading as it suggests that it is about dark matter and dark energy. While they are certainly considered and explained in ways that are different from those of other scientists, the book is essentially a compact summary of the historical developments in physics and astrophysics which have led to the present situation and its problems in those fields. Like Lee Smolin (The Trouble with Physics) Percy Seymour doesn't see much hope for string theory nor, for that matter, with the relentless search for a theory of everything. He is a practical thinker and more concerned with how things actually work, and he is especially interested in the electro-magnetic force. In a short section of the book he presents his own plasma space theory which is based on the existence of electric lines of force that permeate space - but the explanation is too brief. This theory is claimed to resolve discrepancies between relativity and quantum mechanics, and also explain dark energy and dark matter. For the most part, the book is an excellent summary of all the major events in Newtonian, Maxwellian, Einsteinian and Quantum physics with a lot of attention given to cosmic magnetism, a topic also covered in a book by this author.

This book would be good for someone needing an introduction to, and overview of, physics, astrophysics, and cosmology. The bulk of the text covers those three disciplines. I don't know why the book has this particular title, because the author barely addresses the subject of dark matter. I'll address the positives and shortcomings of this book, briefly.

Positives

*Dr. Seymour does a great job of providing perspective on the general field of physics. I especially like his insight into the difference between those who think things out (as Einstein did to come up with his early breakthroughs) and those who try to explore physics purely through mathematical exercises.

*String theory, while interesting, strikes me as patently absurd. I've wondered how thinking people can come up with such a thing. From Dr. Seymour's explanation of this theory, we see it's predicted purely by mathematics. Ah, so that explains it!

*The historical information is a good refresher for us physics buffs, but it's critical for students who wish to truly grasp the subject. Simply memorizing current theories without understanding the development of same is an intellectually futile exercise.

Shortcomings

*The author's writing style isn't as clear as it should be. Some of the passages didn't make sense to me. Possibly, that's due to being separated by a common language (I'm in the USA, he's from South Africa and the UK).

*The author gets some facts wrong. I know this, not because I'm an original researcher in the field, but because I've digested several dozen books (audio and paper) on astrophysics and cosmology.

*Some of his explanations don't make sense. It appears he's digressed into topics he doesn't understand very well, so has botched the explanations.
I think this book would make a good adjunct text for a high school physics class or a college 101 physics class. I say that because it provides a good overview without delving so deeply into the subjects that it loses the reader. Yes, it does have errors. But there's a correlation between the errors and the quality of the explanations. A student who comes across an error is unlikely to understand the stumbling explanation, thus rendering the error largely moot.

This book consists of an introduction and eight chapters in 206 pages, a bibliography, and an index. The chapters are organized into two Parts. Part One consists of four chapters, each dealing with a separate aspect of magnetism. In Part Two, the chapter titles are Evidence for the Unseen, Relativity and Quantum Theory, Theories on the Nature of Matter, and Modeling Reality.

I had originally picked up this book while browsing in a book store. At the time I was doing a research project on dark matter & dark energy. I never heard of the book, but decided to pick it up as I thought it would help out with my paper. Sadly, the topics of dark matter & dark energy are only briefly mentioned here & there. Overall the book really lulled me into a slumber, as someone majoring in physics the majority of the book is just a review of what one would learn in an introductory to physics class, specifically focusing on the topic of electromagnetism, and it's relation to cosmology. You'll even get a good lecture on Kepler's Laws. By the end, I wasn't really sure what the book was suppose to be & that's really why I didn't care much for the book.

Dark Matters offers a very informative, fast-paced book covering many areas of astronomy and the interconnectedness of our universe. Understanding how astronomers discovered the properties and characteristics of our universal bodies was truly amazing considering the amount of work put into observing things so far away. Since having changed my religious beliefs over many years, I have come to believe that everything is truly connected. This book explains scientifically, how that can be possible!

Dr. Seymour's Dark Matter is a fascinating and accessible read. I believe that we are all connected and Dr. Percy confirmed my belief system. My book club read the book and we haven't been able to stop discussing his theories about the magnetic lines that connect us to the planets, stars and galaxies. I highly recommend this book, it is a real eye opener.