Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and Occam’s Razor

Abstract

Even though dark matter and dark energy have long been accepted as being of fundamental importance in cosmology, in this paper, we will present arguments to show that neither is necessary. Instead, the phenomena they are thought to be responsible for are consequences of a vacuum whose curvature varies with time. We will focus on three phenomena that are thought to require the existence of dark energy and dark matter. The first is the idea that dark energy is responsible for the observed accelerating expansion of the universe. We will show instead that with time-varying curvature, Einstein’s equations demand such an acceleration without reference to dark or any other form of energy. Turning to dark matter, it is supposedly required to explain the observed constant velocity profile of the stars making up the disks of spiral galaxies and to explain the strong gravitational lensing observed in galaxy clusters. We will show, however, that both phenomena can again be understood in terms of the vacuum and its curvature. In the former case, we will show that galaxies exist within a rotating volume of the vacuum and that this leads directly to the observed constant velocity profiles. In the latter case, gradients of the vacuum curvature serving as a varying index of refraction are responsible. Using numerical results from our new model of nucleosynthesis, we estimate the degree of bending to expect and find that the results are in accord with observation. Our new model very naturally explains the phenomena attributed to dark matter and dark energy and since neither has been observed after several decades of looking, Occam’s razor tells us that neither exists.