In previous Picture of the Day articles about
the existence of “dark matter” we noted that it is primarily an
add-on, or ad-hoc theory, so that the current
gravitational model of the universe can be preserved. The lack
of matter that can be observed in the universe has always
presented a problem to the underlying concept of “big bang
cosmology”. According to conventional theories, it was the big
bang that brought all matter and energy - including gravity -
into existence. Every modern cosmological theory starts with the
theory at its core.
According to conventional physics, without adding dark matter to
the equation there is not enough gravity in the matter that can
be observed in the universe to account for galaxies bunching
together. Also, without sufficient mass, the galaxy clusters
should have slowed down considerably over the last few billion
years and not maintained such wild recessional velocities, some
of which approach 90% the speed of light. In fact, much to the
perplexity of standard gravity-only views of the universe, the
more remote galaxies look like they are actually accelerating
away from the Milky Way.
Astronomers first postulated a dark – or cold or exotic – form
of matter when they noticed the stars at the edge of a spiral
galaxy revolving at the same angular speed as stars closer to
the center. But according to Newtonian mechanics stars further
away from the center should be moving more slowly. Therefore,
astronomers assumed dark matter, not observable by current
instruments, was imparting extra speed to the stars.
Investigators have also tried for years to reconcile the amount
of mass in the universe with how fast the universe is expanding.
Their only recourse has been to invent the existence of another
undetectable force, “dark energy”.
Princeton University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
scientists write that galactic expansion "is forcing us to
consider the possibility that some cosmic dark energy exists
that opposes the self-attraction of matter and causes the
expansion of the universe to accelerate."
However, Saul Perlmutter, leader of the Supernova Cosmology
Project at Berkeley Laboratory has said:
"The universe is made mostly of dark matter and dark energy and
we don't know what either of them is."
In other words, two of the most actively pursued problems in
physics could be based in erroneous ideas about how the universe
is made and how it should behave within the confines of those
ideas. But even conventional theorists don’t agree with one
another about dark matter and dark energy.
For example, if the universe is based on the
prevailing theories of Einstein and gravity is the bending of
time and space around any object with mass, then dark matter and
dark energy are merely illusions. The misunderstanding of
Einstein’s space/time curvature has necessitated the creation of
a new effect because the application of the theory is incorrect.
That idea was
first suggested in 2006 by a team of Italian researchers who
analyzed rotational curves from several galaxies and thought
that dark matter and dark energy were not necessary with their
new approach.
Even so, there is no need to resort to a
super-application of Relativity Theory in order to understand
why the required percentages of dark matter and dark energy are
so familiar. It is often written in the popular press that dark
matter makes up “25% of the universe” or that dark energy makes
up “75% of the rest of the universe”. To anyone familiar with
plasma physics, it is well known that plasma makes up 99.99% of
the universe. It is a fascinating convergence that the amount of
gravitational mass invented to save conventional theory is the
same as the amount of ionized plasma that is overlooked. Perhaps
the theoreticians should look to a science that is basic and
foundational rather than inventing brand new sciences and
arguing about which is more feasible.
From the perspective of the Electric Universe theory electric
currents drive the galaxies and their associated stars. It has
been demonstrated in laboratory experiments that twin Birkeland
current filaments can create structures that resemble spiral
galaxies in the magnetic vortices at their intersection. The
Birkeland currents have a longer-range attractive force than
gravity – diminishing with the reciprocal of the distance from
the current axis – which could account for the anomalous
movement of stars as they revolve around the galactic core.
So, it is the movement of electricity through plasma in space
that tends to initiate the effects that we can observe with
space-based telescopes and confirm in ground-based research
laboratories. It is the electric currents in the cosmos and
their associated magnetic fields that should be our focus and
not the search for the undetectable.
By Stephen Smith