Dark Matter and math confusion

Am I the last person on earth to find out about "dark matter?" I listened to a program about this recently (I hardly ever have the patience to actually sit and watch TV, but I do listen to it), and asked my son: "So do you understand the deal about dark matter?"

"Of course," he said. "What's the problem?" as if his mother was going suddenly dim. Apparently, all the space between matter in the universe is not empty, it's full of stuff (like the gunk the old Star Trek series called "anti-matter"). Scientists calculated how much actual matter was in the universe (by a mathematical process I missed, when I went to heat up a bowl of soup), and they came up way short, so they deduced that what they perceive as being empty space is actually invisible "dark matter." I'm still trying to comprehend this--is it like looking at a negative image or an optical illusion, where what you see is the stuff in-between the other stuff? They can't see dark matter, or prove that it exists, but mathematically, it has to be there. And don't even get me started on "dark energy," its evil twin. Concepts like this make me feel really inadequate, like my brain is stretching out as far as it can, and just isn't quite big enough to fold around the edges of an idea.

When I was 41, I went back to school because I was unhappy with my life and didn't want to take anti-depressants for it. I thought I wanted to go to Pharmacy school, so I started taking courses at the local community college, the pre-requisite math I couldn't pass in high school. Even though I never had made it through the second year of algebra or any trig at all, I signed up for pre-calculus, just to see what I could do. It was really hard. To get through just the first week of class, I had to re-learn what I hadn't used for 26 years, things like polynomials, quadratics and factoring equations. I did every nightly homework assignment twice. I attended every class, straining forward in my seat and listening with every fiber of my being, struggling to grasp the mystery.

In high school math classes, I had spent most of my time fuming about the dubious necessity of my knowing any of this "stupid stuff." At age 41, I knew that I was attempting to learn the foreign language of the universe, the absolute language of science. I was ignorant, but I had faith. Very occasionally, I would catch a brief glimpse of the immense world of mathematics. In a rare, breath-catching moment, the door would open, the light would shine through, the angels sang. I would sit very still, reaching out just a little further, brain cells curling like toes in sand, almost there...then a big, lunking, shadowy creature would barge into my brain, yelling "Hey! Who left this door open?" and kick it shut. Sigh.

But I persevered. I ended up with a B+ (which was a gift--I really only deserved a B- or a C+), mostly because the professor saw me right up front, everyday, trying so desperately. I gave it an all-out effort. It was a triumph of perspiration over inspiration. I moved on, changing my major to culinary arts, to everyone's relief, including my own.

I sort of "get" the dark matter thing, but I am also very comfortable letting the real mathematicians ponder it, just like I'm willing to let quadratic equations exist without me using them on a daily basis. I'm glad there are big mysteries in the universe, and I'm glad others are keeping tabs on them. I know if I work hard enough, repeat all the practice exercises, I might catch fleeting wisps of understanding, but that's as far as it will go with me. The big picture, as fascinating as it is, is something I want to be able to admire from a distance, like the immense beauty of the night sky.