3Q: Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano on possible hints of dark matter
Physicists operating an underground experiment in Minnesota reported last week that they have found possible hints of dark matter. The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) experiment detected three events with the characteristics expected of dark matter, Kevin McCarthy, a PhD student in physics at MIT, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Denver.These results do not meet the criteria physicists use to claim a discovery, so CDMS scientists now plan to conduct more analysis. One of those scientists, Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano, an associate professor of physics at MIT and McCarthy’s adviser, spoke with MIT News about the new results.Q: What are the implications of this result? Why should non-physicists care about this?A: We are trying to answer a very simple question: What is the universe made of? The strange picture that has emerged over the last two decades is one where over 84 percent of the matter in the universe...