Study finds ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ may not exist

Personally, I've never been a fan of the so-called "dark matter", feeling that it's simply a placeholder concept for something we don't yet understand. So this article caught my attention: theconversation.com...

It cites a paper, published at arxiv.com, which gives new versions of Newonian equations that introduce a small accelerating force, which arises due to the proposed scale invariance in space.

The hypothesis of the scale invariance of the macroscopic empty space, which intervenes through the cosmological constant, has led to new cosmological models. They show an accelerated cosmic expansion and satisfy several major cosmological tests. No unknown particles are needed. Developing the weak field approximation, we find that the here derived equation of motion corresponding to Newton's equation also contains a small outwards acceleration term. The new term is particularly significant for very low density systems.

Any physics buffs here could comment, please? How valid is this paper and its equations? In particular, I'd like to know where does this accelerating term in the equations come from, what causes it?

I can't help but stare at your avatar waiting for a white blood cell to attack.

a reply to: wildespace

Suppose for a moment that both dark energy and dark matter are too strange a pill to swallow. What would the alternatives be? One way out would be to suppose that our understanding of the universe is at fault.

Understatement of the Epoch.

2d Flatlanders have no idea whats outside their realm of understanding.

As far as missing matter, its in our minds. Imo, we can't see it but we figure its there. Follows that our estimates of the number and density of black holes for instance is waaaay off. The number especially, but how would we know about all the strong silent types wandering the space between galaxies, we can't see them.

Could it be because the Universe is said to be expanding, that this 'force' exists ...

a reply to: wildespace

I have thought for a long time that dark matter and dark energy were far fetched assumptions used as place holders to explain the supposed lack of matter in the universe. The formulas that they used to predict the amount of matter were rather simple, even for the time they were first proposed.

Exciting stuff. it will take some time to verify this, but if it holds water, this could actually change the way we look at newtons equations.

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: wildespace

Suppose for a moment that both dark energy and dark matter are too strange a pill to swallow. What would the alternatives be? One way out would be to suppose that our understanding of the universe is at fault.

Understatement of the Epoch.

2d Flatlanders have no idea whats outside their realm of understanding.

As far as missing matter, its in our minds. Imo, we can't see it but we figure its there. Follows that our estimates of the number and density of black holes for instance is waaaay off. The number especially, but how would we know about all the strong silent types wandering the space between galaxies, we can't see them.

I've always been doubful about dark matter/energy. Anytime on the past people have said something is there because it had to be there we were wrong:
Ether
Humours
Bodies filled with bile that cause diseases

Dark matter just seems like one of those things scientists say has to be there because their models say so. I don't know how accurate their physics models are but when I learned about ecological modelling the idea was the model has to be right and if the model didn't match the world the world was wrong.....at least so I was taught...

a reply to: wildespace

scientists created the idea of dark matter in order to explain for what they couldn't find or detect, now they are saying, we don't need dark matter to exist anymore because we now understand a little better what we are observing, and what we're seeing are just the effects of motion and time..

If there are particles popping in and out of existence at the quantum level and they have a charge, would they not be able to force some expansion of the universe.

Racists.

They are going to have to change "Black lives matter" to "black matter lives" now.

originally posted by: stormcell
If there are particles popping in and out of existence at the quantum level and they have a charge, would they not be able to force some expansion of the universe.

They 'pop' into existence during collisions in atom smashers, then return to their stable orbits. On a stellar scale thats like smashing a bunch of suns together, measuring the effects, counting the particles and then it all 'disappears' back into stable suns and solar systems.

a reply to: dug88

I've always been doubful about dark matter/energy. Anytime on the past people have said something is there because it had to be there we were wrong:

Ether

Lots of stuff there we can't see but can detect with instruments. Visible light is just one tiny sliver of the Known EMS.

Magnets produce fields we can't see or measure.

Personally I believe space has 'ether' too. Its what all the bits of matter float on or in.

Like clouds in the atmosphere or fish in water.

If true..
There goes our chance of visiting other stars

Like virtually all other modified gravity theories, this variant cannot explain all the observations behind dark matter and has been critisized widely by scientists:

Eliminating the most important topics in physics with some maths sounds incredible, so a few news outlets, most notably Newsweek as well as the usual suspects such as the Daily Mail and IFLScience, ran with the story without calling outside sources.

If they had, they'd probably have found out that many physicists don't think Maeder's idea holds water. Several, including Stanford dark energy physicist Andrei Linde and Yale dark matter physicist Priyamvada Natarajan at Yale, told Gizmodo that it wasn't worth writing about (despite the fact that it ended up in the fairly prestigious Astrophysical Journal).

Most notably, science blogger and theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder picked apart the paper on her blog, Backreactions. "For those of you who merely want to know whether you should pay attention to this new variant of modified gravity, the answer is no," she wrote. "The author does not have a consistent theory. The maths is wrong."

Dark Matter Is Not Dead

originally posted by: stormcell
If there are particles popping in and out of existence at the quantum level and they have a charge, would they not be able to force some expansion of the universe.

That is the main theory behind dark energy, however when we calculate how much the vacuum energy would cause the universe to expand we get an answer that is many orders of magnitude too large, that is known as the vacuum catastrophe. So in order to make it work they need another huge but opposite force to cancel out the vacuum energy and leave just the right amount to cause the rate of expansion we observe, which requires an absurd amount of fine-tuning and we don't know what the opposite term could be. The fact this is the best answer we have is very telling we're missing something very important.

a reply to: wildespace

Great find. I certainly don't have the knowledge to determine if this is real science or not. I too have always had a theoretical problem with these ideas. I've always found it humorous that materialist are willing to believe in these things simply because they're mathematically possible or necessary to a theory. It's a leap of faith as religious as any immaterial belief but for some reason they can't see that.

a reply to: wildespace

There may be a threshold of mass to matter that when reached by a certain amount being collected in a region of space small enough without making a black hole at a focussed point, that the universal laws of nature can change.

Super gravity and alternating states of time dialation may make matter as we know it behave very differently.

Its possible that every region of space is unique and will require different methods of travel and exploration /imaging.

Parts of our universe could require our physical presence or otherwise.

There may even be a shore of sorts that acts as a boundry to life as we are presently. Like fish jumping out of water.

originally posted by: Spacespider
If true..
There goes our chance of visiting other stars

Climbing dimensions puts us everywhere, all at once.

originally posted by: ChaoticOrder
Like virtually all other modified gravity theories, this variant cannot explain all the observations behind dark matter and has been critisized widely by scientists:

Eliminating the most important topics in physics with some maths sounds incredible, so a few news outlets, most notably Newsweek as well as the usual suspects such as the Daily Mail and IFLScience, ran with the story without calling outside sources.

If they had, they'd probably have found out that many physicists don't think Maeder's idea holds water. Several, including Stanford dark energy physicist Andrei Linde and Yale dark matter physicist Priyamvada Natarajan at Yale, told Gizmodo that it wasn't worth writing about (despite the fact that it ended up in the fairly prestigious Astrophysical Journal).

Most notably, science blogger and theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder picked apart the paper on her blog, Backreactions. "For those of you who merely want to know whether you should pay attention to this new variant of modified gravity, the answer is no," she wrote. "The author does not have a consistent theory. The maths is wrong."

Dark Matter Is Not Dead

Thanks for the reply with links, it does indeed like this paper will be dismissed and forgotten about.

I really had to wonder where that accelerating part to the equations came from.

originally posted by: stormcell
If there are particles popping in and out of existence at the quantum level and they have a charge, would they not be able to force some expansion of the universe.

That's the kind of understanding I have of how vacuum works. Because of the Uncertainty Principle, vacuum's lowest energy state has to be above zero. Basically, this means that vacuum always contains some energy, which due to quantum fluctuations give rise to virtual particles. All this creates a slight pushing force, causing space to expand.

originally posted by: intrptr

originally posted by: stormcell
If there are particles popping in and out of existence at the quantum level and they have a charge, would they not be able to force some expansion of the universe.

They 'pop' into existence during collisions in atom smashers, then return to their stable orbits. On a stellar scale thats like smashing a bunch of suns together, measuring the effects, counting the particles and then it all 'disappears' back into stable suns and solar systems.

Not true. The Casimir force is the result of "pressure" (for the want of a better expression) of these quantum particles popping in and out of existence. If the gap between two plates is smaller than the wavelength of these particles the no quantum splitting occurs between the plates and the plates are pushed together. This has been proved to be the case.

I have always believed (but can't prove it) that if the universe is full of a quantum "foam" of particles popping in and out of existence then at any given point in time (a quanta of time) there has to be a mass due to these particles. Is that mass the same as the supposed "missing mass". I don't know but I have yet to see it explained away....... A secondary effect is the interaction between this quantum foam and anything moving through it, such as photons......again I never read anything to refute this "bleedin obvious" interaction.