Physicists are very proud of their theories. They often refer to how accurate their theories are, especially quantum electrodynamics (QED) and general relativity are the theories that are often cited for special accuracy. I don’t dispute it, there are some very nice results, and physicists can really be proud that their efforts are sometimes embodied in beautiful equations that can give us accurate predictions that we can check with our experiments, but unfortunately, for physics as a whole, the situation is amazingly bad at the moment. Not only can the accuracy not be expressed in many decimal places, the terrifying situation is that our theories, believed to be incredibly accurate until now, only provide information about 4% of the Universe. And this cannot be called excessive accuracy. Think about the fact that we constantly brag to our friends about how precisely we know our city, that we know where and how big every single blade of grass is on the street. Then he would show us 96% of the city and confront us with the fact that although we know our street perfectly, 96% of the city is uncharted. In addition, it would suddenly seem that this unknown 96% is destroying even the knowledge we believed to be perfect, of which we were so proud until now. And we are not so sure about that 4%.

Dark matter and dark energy: 96% of our Universe is something we know very little about. This is not the first case when scientists, encountering an incomprehensible phenomenon, try to explain it with the assumption of something new. Phlogiston, or life force, were similar, concepts that wore out over time because they were replaced by other, more plausible explanations.

For the time being, dark matter and dark energy still hold their own, the majority of scientists in the world accept them as really existing things, while a minority expresses strong doubts about them.

Now I don’t want to write about who is right in this debate, but about how easily concepts and names that are imprecise and even wrong can spread in science.

Even in its name, dark energy and dark matter reflect the haste and unnecessary effort that characterizes the scientific society so much and has always characterized it. Still, we could expect that as science develops, our concepts will become more and more precise, since how could we expect to know the truth about things that are even named incorrectly.

Dark matter and dark energy are not dark at all, contrary to their names. Not only do I find it amazing and unacceptable that something has been named so badly, but it is also incomprehensible to me that these incorrect names have gained ground among scientists without further ado and are used by practically everyone in the world without any doubt or reservation.

How could I believe scientists who can’t even name a strange phenomenon? Translated from a programmer’s point of view, it’s like I want to write a program without specifying exactly what the program will do. The only way to deal with the properties of elastic bodies is to call them elastic bodies and not cube balls. The flow of liquids can only be discussed if I know what a liquid is and what a flow is.

Neither dark matter nor dark energy is dark. Something is dark if nothing illuminates it, or if light falls on it, it does not let the light through, but absorbs it. If it reflects, I call it reflective, if it lets it through, I call it transparent. But I only call it dark if it doesn’t let the light through. If dark matter and dark energy were dark, we would not see anything from the surrounding galaxies, even a large part of our own galaxy would be invisible. According to today’s assumptions, this 96% “dark” matter fills everything, so if it’s dark, it also covers everything.

How can something be called dark when the most appropriate adjective would be transparent or invisible?

And why do we call one matter and the other energy, when we know very well that matter and energy are one and the same, can be converted into each other and transformed? It is true that the effects of the two phenomena are different, while one exerts a repulsive and the other an attractive force on matter, but this does not justify calling one matter and the other energy. This is another example of irresponsible, imprecise, hasty behavior, something that a scientist should despise and condemn. All self-respecting scientists should distance themselves from these fancy formulations and urgently come up with a more accurate name that is close to reality.

When it was asked what the medium of light could be, at least they gave it a name, the aether, which was at least not misleading. True, the idea was later discarded, but then the aether returned, whether we think of it as a vacuum full of energy, or as curved space-time, or as a material that enables and gives space to entanglement, but even the speed of 600 km/s measured by Cobe we can consider it as the measure of movement relative to the aether, the aether is definitely a good name, a good concept, and in no way misleading.

For the time being, I can’t make any suggestions as to how the two incorrect names could be replaced, especially since I doubt their existence. Before we come up with hypothetical types of matter that we know nothing about in the universe, only that they somehow have a gravitating effect on their environment, we should definitely examine the alternatives, for example, how gravity works at great distances.

When the aether was introduced into physics, they at least imagined what properties it should have: it immediately became clear that it should be both rigid and without resistance, that light waves should vibrate in it at the same time and that the planets should move without resistance, it was immediately apparent that it should be an extraordinary substance, if it really exists. Currently, I am not aware of any attempts that have described what other properties these two hypothetical types of matter should have besides their gravitational properties.

The rotation of galaxies cannot be explained by the theories so far, can dark matter help?

Transparency and penetrability, lack of resistance, are the same as the properties of the supposed aether. We also know that one attracts and the other repels matter, but we do not know if they interact with each other and with themselves: does “dark matter” attract “dark matter” or “dark energy” ”, and does “dark energy” repel itself and “dark matter”. I wonder why we do not detect any of them at the scale of the Galaxy and the Solar System? And is the quantitative ratio of the two and the ratio of the strength of their interaction fine-tuned, and if so, how much? How necessary are they for the existence of the Universe and life in it? Could it be that two strange phenomena are the most shocking examples of fine-tuning, or perhaps planning?

These are all very important and fundamental questions. In order for us to have any chance of finding answers to these questions, first of all we need to clarify our concepts and find a suitable name for these two rebels of the Universe, which somehow managed to resist our attempts to get to know them.

If we manage to get closer to their nature, it may be necessary to rebuild the entire physics, and it may even happen that the question of fine-tuning and planning will be thrown into a completely new light.

April 17, 2018 – May 21, 2018

English translation: November 23, 2023