Matter and Energy

Our physicists believe they pretty much understand the physical basis of everything we see around us. But twice in the last 150 years the claim that understanding of physics is more or less complete, with only details left to be worked out, has been rudely interrupted by new discoveries. The first was Einstein’s theories announced at the beginning of the 20th century.

The second was the realisation that theories of how the universe works do not work without some additional factors. Those additional factors were therefore invented so as to make the current theories work. These invented factors now go by the names of dark matter and dark energy - ‘dark’ because they are invisible. No-one has been able to detect them.

To most non-physicists discovering that a theory only works if there is 9 times more matter in the universe than we can detect would suggest that the theory is pretty fundamentally wrong. This is what the statement ’90% of the matter in the universe is dark matter’ actually means. Either our understanding of ‘matter’ is wrong, or our ability to detect it is hopeless, or the theory is just plain wrong.

Physics has got lost in the maths. Hundreds of physicists around the world have spent decades developing ‘string theory’, which is a purely mathematical construct for which there is not a single bit of experimental evidence.

We are in dire need of a major breakthrough that will explain how the very successful theories of gravity and quantum mechanics can be brought together. There are thankfully a few physicists trying to break out of the research avenues that have failed to do this, and to see beyond them to something new.