No one doubts the mathematics underlying subjects such as engineering or particle physics, but the assumptions on which they are based sometimes turn out to be flawed, and thereby wreck the consensus of the standard theory. The historic belief in the existence of phlogiston - a mysterious substance or property of elements that enabled combustion - was sunk without trace once modern chemistry explained the true state of affairs.
So, what lies behind the shocking discovery that neutrinos can travel faster than light (if true). Does the assertion underpinning all of modern physics - that nothing can travel faster than light - fall? If so everything changes. Genius Fred Hoyle was ridiculed for standing by his Steady State theory, but what if the red-shift explained by receding galaxies has another explanation: Some 80% of the mass in the universe can't be found: the so-called Dark Matter. Light travels more slowly through dense material than through a vacuum. If this dark matter is spread uniformly throughout 'empty' space, however thinly, could the red-shifted light from distant galaxies show not that they are receding, but that the light from them has travelled through something less than a perfect vacuum. Dark matter perhaps?
Will someone explain why not, please.
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