The Larson Research Center

In 2003, the U.S. National Research Council (NRC) laid out 11 key scientific questions at the intersection of physics and astronomy in a report entitled “Connecting Quarks to the Cosmos.” Then, early in 2004, in response to this report, an interagency working group of the U.S. National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) released a prioritized strategic plan, entitled “The Physics of the Universe: A Strategic Plan,” to coordinate efforts across several government agencies in addressing those 11 questions. In a letter accompanying the plan, John H. Marburger III, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and Science Advisor to the President, wrote:

As we enter the 21st Century, we have arrived at a special time in our quest to understand the universe. Just as it appeared that we were about to tie up the loose ends of our understanding of matter, space, and time, …new discoveries have revealed a challenging incompleteness in our picture of nature.

The new discoveries referred to are the apparent acceleration in the rate of expansion of the universe, from which the presence of “dark energy,” is inferred; the anomalous rotational velocities of the outer stars of galaxies, from which the presence of “dark matter” is inferred, and the surprising “flatness” of the universe’s geometry seen in the CMB data, from which a critical density of mass/energy is inferred that just happens to exist precisely at this particular point in the history of the universe. However, the fact that dark energy, dark matter, and a critical density of matter/energy are all concepts that are inferred from the observations is not explicitly recognized in the plan, but rather these concepts are treated as if they were the observations themselves. For instance, in discussing dark energy, the authors of the plan state:

Dark Energy, when it is adequately explored and explained, is expected to have strong implications for fundamental physics and perhaps the nature of gravity, as well as for the nature, history and potential fate of the universe.

Of course, what is assumed in all three cases is that the universe is a spacetime container of matter. Therefore, “dark” energy somehow must be responsible for producing a newly discovered tension in the spacetime fabric; “dark” matter somehow must be responsible for the gravitational behavior of rotating galaxies; and, clearly, the totality of mass/energy is responsible for the universe’s Euclidian geometry. These conclusions necessarily follow from the legacy community’s basic assumptions that the universe consists of an exploding mass of matter, creating the fabric of spacetime, which contains and guides its motion, but which, at the same time, is formed and shaped by it, and ultimately determines its geometry.

In contrast, the alternate set of assumptions, now available in the form of the Reciprocal System of Physical Theory (RST) that posits that the fundamental component of the universe is not matter, but motion, sheds a whole new light on these discoveries. This new set of assumptions implies that the acceleration of the rate of expansion of the universe, if it indeed exists, is due to motion, a combination of motions, or a relation between motions. The same holds true for the basis of the anomalous rotations of the galaxies, and, obviously, there is no need to explain the Euclidian geometry of the universe, since in the RST the presence of a given magnitude of mass and energy has no bearing on the matters of geometry.

However, what is most startling about this plan is the shear scale of effort it represents; it envisions a program of legacy physics on a colossal, industrial, scale, with descriptions of a large array of ground-based and space-based facilities, and scientific “missions” marshaled to probe the universe in a search for clues to help answer the 11 questions in behalf of mankind. While this seems like it should be good news, yet, from the vantage point of one armed with the knowledge of the fundamental inconsistencies of the legacy system of physical theory (LST), it portends a gigantic boondoggle reminiscent of the ancient Egyptians’ efforts to obtain immortality by engaging in a monumental enterprise based on their understanding of cosmology.

Nevertheless, the relentless march of legions toward the dead end of hot big bang cosmology, with its menagerie of theoretical banners waving the virtues of expanding spacetime, quark soup, cosmic inflation, black holes, WIMPS, and cosmological constant, grows ever larger in prestige, popularity and enthusiasm, in spite of the scientific recognition of the picture of a preposterous universe it presents in the cold light of day.

However, if we assert that the established scientific community is asking the wrong questions, based on its incorrect assumptions, then we must ask what are the right questions, based on Reciprocal System assumptions? How do we account for the new observations, the acceleration of the universal expansion and the rotational anomaly of the galaxies? Do these observations throw us curves as well? Fortunately, the truth is that they do not, or at least they do not in the perplexing sense that they do the LST folks. Still, we obviously need a plan to apply the Reciprocal System to these new observations as well.

We might start by asking, how does the intrinsic redshift of the supernovae spectrum, not recognized by LST physicists, affect the measurements of the expansion rate? Or how does the viscous nature of the motion in the galaxy of stars, resulting from the mixture of gravitational limits, something that is, again, unknown to LST physicists, affect the rotational speeds of outlying stars in these galaxies? Of course, our line of questioning is much different, because our research program is much different. We would tend to doubt that the expansion rate is increasing over time, since the space/time progression in the RST is constant, and we see the galaxy rotation as more like the rotation of a disk than the orbits of planets in a solar system due to the viscous interaction of the progression and gravity.

Yet, we also immediately recognize something else here that is most telling: the answers to these questions do not carry the same significance in the universe of motion as they do in the universe of matter. Indeed, while interesting, if these answers are found, they would simply constitute relatively minor additions to the characteristics of the motion of the galaxies, as consequences of the fundamental scalar motions involved, rather than profound new insights into the mysteries of nature. The anti-climatic flavor of all this, at least in our view, eventually could relegate society’s current Herculean effort to confront the scientific frontier of LST physics to the footnotes of history, where it’s more likely that its concepts and theories will be regarded as being just as irrelevant to the future world as the Egyptians’ Book of the Dead is to the modern world, and its colossal enterprise to establish the bonafides of LST ideas just as vain.

This assessment might seem harsh and unwarranted given that scientific institutions of our day enjoy the honor and respect of a modern, space exploring society, trusting in their vision. However, the truth of the matter is that we take ourselves way too seriously, and just as the Egyptians took themselves much more seriously than we ever can, looking back on them, so too future generations, looking back on us, might find it quite difficult to take us any more seriously than we do the Egyptians. For example, in the plan, question number 1, “What is Dark Matter?” is characterized as “one of the most important scientific questions at the beginning of the 21st Century.” This declaration is then supplemented by the following explanation:

Dark Matter—matter that neither emits nor absorbs light and that interacts very weakly with ordinary matter—holds the universe together.

Holds the universe together? Who says it does? The speculation of its existence is based on the assumption that no other explanation for the rotation speeds of stars in galaxies is possible, yet it is regarded as established fact, not speculation. The authors of the plan offer this description:

Its nature is a complete mystery. Despite the wondrous advances of science over the last century, we have yet to identify the majority component of the matter in the universe. The working hypothesis is that it is composed of elementary particles left over from the Big Bang that created the universe. The leading candidates for the Dark Matter are new particles whose existence is predicted by theories that go beyond the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Showing that one or more of these particles comprise the Dark Matter not only would answer a key question in cosmology, but also would shed new light on the fundamental forces and particles of nature.

This language, which is universal throughout the LST community, indicates that they are setting themselves up for a big fall should their assumption that only some form of unseen matter can be responsible for the observed phenomenon turn out to be erroneous. The scientists involved in crafting this language should know better, but their confidence in what they “know” to be reality seems to make them oblivious to the danger. The authors of the plan write:

Astronomers have shown that the objects in the universe from galaxies a million times smaller than ours to the largest clusters of galaxies are held together by a form of matter that is not what we are made of and that gives off no light. This matter probably consists of one or more as-yet-undiscovered elementary particles, and aggregations of it produce the gravitational pull leading to the formation of galaxies and large-scale structures in the universe. At the same time these particles may be streaming through our Earth-bound laboratories.

Actually, astronomers have shown no such thing. They have only observed that the speed of the outer stars in galaxies doesn’t drop off with distance as the theory of gravity predicts it should. Something is causing the rotational speed of these stars around the center of the galaxy to remain relatively constant. Physicists have assumed that the only thing that can cause this to happen is the existence of a quantity of unseen matter in the galaxy. Clearly, this is a precarious position to take.

Question number 2 shows the same unscientific propensity to jump to conclusions. The question asks, “What is the Nature of Dark Energy?” The question is not what is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate, it is not even “what is dark energy,” but it is “what is its nature,” as if there were no doubt that it exists. The plan states:

Recent measurements indicate that the expansion of the universe is speeding up rather than slowing down. This conclusion goes against the fundamental idea that gravity is always attractive. This discovery calls for the presence of a form of energy, dubbed “Dark Energy,” whose gravity is repulsive and whose nature determines the destiny of our universe.

The words “this discovery calls for the presence of a form of energy,” is not true except for the sake of theories that require the presence of matter/energy to affect the expansion and geometry of the universe. In the RST, no form of energy is required for this expansion, and if it is accelerating with time, it hasn’t been proven yet without the assumption that the redshifts of the type 1a supernovae and the other data being studied are well understood. They are not.