Educational Media Reviews Online

What would you say to the outlandish-sounding notion that everything we can observe: this and all other planets and all the stars makes up only a tiny fraction of the universe, that there is something else out there that we cannot see or detect that makes up the rest? As wild as it sounds, there are many compelling reasons to believe that it is true. Originally broadcast as part of the BBC science series Horizon, the documentary Most of Our Universe Is Missing: Dark Matter and Dark Energy is the story of a controversy in cosmology based on observation but supporting a theory that has yet to be experimentally (or conclusively) proven. As the narration says, "There’s something weird out there in the universe." A German physicist, Fritz Zwicky, concluded in the 1930s that there must be more matter in the universe than we can observe to keep galaxies from coming apart as they rotate. A 1974 paper again brought up the idea, but it seemed so foolish that it was largely ignored until the 1990s, when the concept exploded. The video starts by stating the question and then provides an historical overview. The primary scientists are interviewed in various locations: Europe’s deepest mine, laboratories, university campuses, observatories, a moving car, a glider, and others, some relevant, others irrelevant. The visuals do not add much to the information presented; they do, however, make it more interesting to watch. There are no equations or heavily technical language, with a simple graph all that’s needed to understand the basic gravity anomaly. About halfway through the video, contrarian viewpoints are introduced.

There is little direct evidence of the theory. Dark matter is likely made of something other than atoms, but it has yet to be detected. And as the theory developed, another puzzle appeared; there was considerably less dark matter in the universe than what’s needed, leading to the idea that unmeasured energy also exists in the universe. This energy accounts for what was thought to be missing from the dark matter hypothesis. And it’s a lot—75% of the universe may consist of this so-called "dark energy." This view of the composition of the universe is called the .standard model. in cosmology, the study of the universe as a whole. The NASA Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has provided some confirmation for the standard model. The image of the early universe from WMAP and the distribution of galaxies we see today are consistent. This only holds true if the universe has the amounts of dark matter and dark energy found in the standard model, largely confirming it.

The video is suitable for high school and college physics classes that cover astrophysics and cosmology. The DVD has no top level menu and no additional features.