"A BRIEF HISTORY OF DARK MATTER"
As early as 1784, discussions of dark stars were in the
literature,
although attempts to evaluate the density of these non-luminous
objects were rare before the early part of 20th Century.
In the second
half of the 20th Century, observations with large optical
and radio
telescopes and spectrographs led to the surprising conclusion
that
most of the matter in the universe is dark. I will
discuss the early
history and the observations that led to this conclusion.
I will also
briefly examine alternatives to a universe in which most
of the matter
is not radiating.