Has the photon concept been a misnomer,something to fit a mathematical formula without knowing what it is?

Question

Isnt dark matter the only substance that would be considered massless?

Answer 1

No, not really.

Even high school labs now do light experiments that show photons are quanta. One simple experiment, is with the photometer that emits electrons when struck by light. The electrons are like billiard balls and the photons are the cue balls striking them to send them on their merry way.

If light were simply a ray (a force field), the amount of electrons emitted would be proportional to the strength of the light beam. But they aren't and the number of electrons actually follow a step-function where at a given threshold of light, the electrons suddenly burst forth after none up until that threshold.

The photon concept, as bundles of energy, is the result of what I would call good physics. Good physics is physics that starts with the physical phenomenon and then derives equations to explain it. Bad physics, like string theory, starts with the math and then tries to explain a physical phenomenon, like strings.

As to your last assertion, think about it...would even physicists, who are renowned for their weird jargon, call something a "matter," which is a synonym for "mass" if it were not a mass? No, dark matter is a mass...more correctly a mass-energy (due to E = mc^2). DM accounts for about 96% of all the mass-energy in our known universe.

Until just recently, DM has not been observed, which is why they called it dark. But a recent observation of two galaxies colliding has seen the effects of the dark masses surrounding those two galaxies also colliding. So, there is now observable evidence that the dark matter exists...the theory has been validated. [See source.]

Answer 2

Ew chi squares... Evolution is VERY observable when tinkering with H-W equillibrium... my AP biology class once did a lab where certain genotypes were selected against, and the allele frequencies changed quite noticeably after several generations.