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Dark Matter and Dark Energy - a different way of looking at it

What's this then? A unified theory of dark matter and dark energy? Could be. Or it could just be another crazy idea by Zyra, who is a mad scientist as we know.

Before going on about this odd idea about the unified dark matter and dark energy theory, here's approximately the story so far as conventional science has found it:

In the beginning there was gravity doing its thing and everything all carried on in the universe as expected, give or take a few surprises such as the speed of light being a constant for all observers, etc. Then it was discovered that stuff going round and round in the galaxy goes somewhat faster than expected. Rather than like on a merry-go-round where it's surprising people don't get flung off. It seemed to be spinning more like a CD where it all stays approximately together in a disc. This, in galactic terms, was explained by the idea that there might be some invisible "dark matter" hiding around in it. However, the calculations showed there was quite a lot of it, and no-one has yet (2005/01) managed to find any to put in a test-tube. As if this wasn't enough, it was later found that the universe was not slowing down in its expansion, and wasn't going to go crunch as some eminent people had originally speculated, and it wasn't keeping up a steady expansion, but was in fact expanding ever faster! This was a total shock to the scientific world, and was explained as being possibly caused by some invisible anti-gravitational stuff which, in line with the now well believed idea of "dark matter", was called "dark energy".

Now don't get me wrong. For all we know this could all be perfectly true and might all make sense. But, as with many other well accepted and respected theories, I have my doubts!

My theory is a bit different, and I'm willing to see it tested in a cosmological fluids testing research supercomputer to see if there's any sense in it.

Here's my theory: When the universe started, there was a lot of stuff which had the property of being gravitationally attracted and there was also a lot of stuff which repelled by gravity. The stuff which was made of particles which attracted each other formed into galaxies and stars and the material world we are familiar with. The other stuff (Pescunium) is antigravitational and doesn't hang around much on planets. If you had a brick made of the stuff, it would try to "fall up" and it would be possible to hold it like a helium balloon on a string. Positive mass, but negative weight. So where's all this antigravitational material gone? When the gravity attracting particles formed galaxies and stars, the gravity repelling particles floated away and got further and further spaced, producing intergalactic voids. Although some of the antigravity material remains around in galaxies, it's less dense, and even less dense still in the galactic centre where there's even more mass to repel it.

To put this in the context of dark matter, what happens is that normal matter is actually much heavier than was previously supposed and needs to be recalibrated, but the relative rarity of antigravitational particles in some places makes it seem as if there is such a thing as dark matter.

The nice thing about the theory is that it explains the phenomena associated with dark matter and dark energy in one go, without having to have a separate idea added for each. Also, the anomaly on the tracking of the Pioneer/Voyager spacecraft may be explained by this theory, the relative densities of antigravitational particles in space causing other effects.

Another nice thing about the theory is that it might be that "Pescunium" exists. This would be very handy! It would mean that if we (the kind of people who have loads of junk in the backyard and are always doing crazy experiments) could get some, we could build spacecraft as easily as we can build computers. An old truck loaded up with gravity repelling bricks of Pescunium would lift off from the earth quite easily. More of this kind of thing will be explored in the later editions of www.pescu.net

Note that Pescunium is not anti-matter, any more than repelling magnets are antimatter. It's notionally a form of matter which has a negative gravitational effect and so a negative weight, although it had positive mass. A kilogramme of the stuff would have an inertial mass of 1Kg but would "weigh" minus 1Kg. So, it could swing on a string as an upside-down pendulum! Also see weight and mass

Hunting for Pescunium: If the stuff exists, it would not be found on the surface, but might be found on the ceilings of underground tunnels, in mine shafts, etc. I have though about going around with a vacuum cleaner on the underground railways to see if there is anything worth vacuuming off the ceilings, but I think it would take a lot of explaining to the railway security guards who would nodoubt be curious about what I was doing. However, I have now found a dinner table in the loft which has been gathering dust for many years, and it may have some antigravitational dust underneath. If I find any, it will be worth mentioning on this page! ... 2009/04/25 a dust sample has been collected, and it will be interesting to analyse it to see if there is any Pescunium.

Another possibility is that Pescunium exists, but as it doesn't coalesce into stars like hydrogen does, it doesn't usually undergo fusion, so almost all of the antigravitational stuff is in a basic hydrogen-like form. So, even if we could get some, it might not look anything like as interesting as a "Pescunium Brick", as it would just be a very thin gas. Imagine trying to convince an audience of respectable physicists "Look, this balloon I've got here contains anti-grav material! See, it goes UP!". Howls of laughter! However, if we put the balloon in a vacuum chamber, and it still goes up... OH!

If it turns out that this theory is just total folly, well, at least it makes interesting science fiction. But if it's true, it will with hindsight be regarded as a brilliant theory right from the start. That's how history judges these things, in retrospect.