Several Theories

[TheNick]

I have no formal education in cosmology or astronomy, except for a single Intro to Astronomy class I took a couple years ago. I do however have a good general understanding of the basic concepts involved in much of modern cosmological theory. I am extremely skeptical of modern cosmological models based on my personal logical instincts (not actual logical arguments, rather a "gut" feeling) as well as a large amount of actual reasoning. However, as I said, my big weakness is that I don't actually know any of the math involved in current theory, and would be unable to have a discussion that directly drew on those equations. I would like to present several theories I have formulated that go against many of the fundamental paradigms of modern cosmology, and have them discussed or even explained away by the experts here that do know the math. Although the math itself is not something I am interested in learning during the process, any interpretation of the math that can be explained in words would most likely be comprehensible to me. I would make the argument that if you can't do this, then your math is irrelevant anyway. So feel free to explain equations if need be.

I would also like to make it clear ahead of time that I do not take myself or any of my theories too seriously, and present them as much to further my own development as that of the theories. Most of my theories have just come off the top of my head at some point and I haven't seen any reason why they can't be true.

As a final preface, I will make it clear that, if I turn out to be some sort of genius and my theories turn out to be correct, I hold all of you witness that these are my theories and I arrived at them completely independantly.

I will start with just one, and present others where I see they might help the discussion:

Suppose there is a class of particles in the universe that has a similar sort of interaction to electromagnetic particles. (I believe what I'm thinking of is called "guage symmetry". Correct me if I'm wrong.) For these particles, however, the rules of interaction are exactly reversed: whereas in electromagnetics, like charges repel and opposite charges attract, suppose instead that in these hypothetical particles, like "charges" attract and opposites repel. This would cause particles of like "charge" to clump together, and oppositely charged clumps to push away from each other, all the while collecting and combining with other clumps of like charge. Ultimately, you would end up with large regions of space filled entirely with only one type of charge. Any particles of the opposite charge that were hypothetically placed inside such a region would quickly be expelled from it.

Now suppose inside one such region - let's say a region of "positive" matter - on one particular spherical clump of this matter, intelligent life emerged and began observing the universe around it. At least at first, these lifeforms would only be familiar with half of this interaction: all of the matter surrounding them, including that which made up their own forms, would be entirely of the "possitive" type. The nearest sizable coagulation of "negative" charge would be, say, several thousand lightyears away. The lifeforms would naturally assume at first that there only was one kind of charge involved in this particular force.

Now lets give this hypothetical type of "charge" some sort of name. How about "mass"? Yeah, mass would be a good name for it.

There is much I don't understand about current observations of the universe and the mathematics of current theory, but what I've just proposed fits verrrry nicely with everything I do understand.

If no other force of the universe ever overtook this one at any scale, this force would ultimately cause ALL the matter of "positive" mass and ALL the matter of "negative" mass to coagulate into exactly two regions of opposite masses. This would effectively divide the entire universe into two universes (universi?), whose main interaction between each other would simply be to push further apart. However, if instead there was a certain scale at which other forces began to dominate the movement of matter, the result would be a rough limit to the size of these coagulations. Instead of resulting in exactly two sub-universes, this force would instead result in a scattering of "island universes"...anyone heard that term before?

I believe this could help explain the spiral nature of galaxies as a result of the seperation process of the two types of mass. It could explain why the outer regions of galaxies rotate faster than "positive mass" alone could account for. It could help explain why something between the galaxies seems to be pushing them apart. What's more, I expect relativity theory could quite easily be modified to include both types of mass and the "antigravity" produced between them.

If we assumed that "positive mass matter" and "negative mass matter" was identicle in every way, then we would expect identicle types of coagulation structures from each type. I.e: "negative mass" galaxies should be expected to be identicle in structure and distribution to "positive mass" galaxies. Observing our "positive mass" galaxies, however, makes it clear that this cannot be the case. This suggests that the most common "negative mass" matter is different in several ways from our "positive mass" matter. This would not be unexpected, however. After all, protons and electrons, the primary particles by which electromagnetism makes its effects known, are different in almost every respect, excepting only the magnitude of their electromagnetic charge.

Thoughts?

[TheNick]

I'll take the nearly 7-hour silence on this post as an indication that everyone is dumbstruck by the damnable perfect beauty and elegance of this proposition.

By the way, other than the aforementioned lack of response to my first post, this forum looks absolutely fantastic. Actively and intensively maintained and moderated? Fascinating...

[Laguna]

By the way, other than the aforementioned lack of response to my first post, this forum looks absolutely fantastic. Actively and intensively maintained and moderated? Fascinating...

Yes it is! We have a strong team of moderators and a strict set of rules.
I would advice you to read them. Oh I would guess you already read the
advice for ATM theory supporters?

As for the review of your theory, I step aside letting pass those having some in detail knowledge of this topic.

I almost forgot: WELCOME to BAUT!

[Bogie]

...
Thoughts?

Thoughts? Yes, you're making my thinking thing hurt .

I guess you want to get into a little discussion about your idea and I am one of the few here who is qualified to talk with you about it.

I am qualified by being famous for a complete lack of understanding of the jargon of cosmology (according to those who insist on their particular usage ) and by the fact that proofs are not a part of my approach (either). I predict that you are wrong, which is better than saying you are "not even wrong" . Do you understand the difference? Good.

First please clarify if you are talking about galaxies in the observable universe being composed of one or the other type of mass, i.e. some of each scattered around in our observable universe? Or are you talking about all of the galaxies we see composed of "our" kind of mass, and that there are "their" kind of mass islands elsewhere, scattered around with "our" kind of island universes on the grand scale?

[Michael Noonan]

I'll take the nearly 7-hour silence on this post as an indication that everyone is dumbstruck by the damnable perfect beauty and elegance of this proposition.

By the way, other than the aforementioned lack of response to my first post, this forum looks absolutely fantastic. Actively and intensively maintained and moderated? Fascinating...

It is hard when excited and waiting for a reply. Welcome to BAUT TheNick.

If we assumed that "positive mass matter" and "negative mass matter" was identical in every way, then we would expect identical types of coagulation structures from each type. I.e: "negative mass" galaxies should be expected to be identical in structure and distribution to "positive mass" galaxies. Observing our "positive mass" galaxies, however, makes it clear that this cannot be the case. This suggests that the most common "negative mass" matter is different in several ways from our "positive mass" matter. This would not be unexpected, however. After all, protons and electrons, the primary particles by which electromagnetism makes its effects known, are different in almost every respect, excepting only the magnitude of their electromagnetic charge.

Thoughts?

I find this interesting and needing a process. To enable the clumping of like islands would appear to require more force to subdue lesser charge repulsion. What do you have in mind as the force provider?

I like that you are working with shape, that is a great start. Do you perhaps intend to work with gravity as Bogie does?

A positive charged mass with a negative charged gravity balance and a negative charge mass would then need a positive charged gravity. That allows for a charge attraction to be maintained by matter at the edge of your islands of matter. Is this sort of where you are looking?

And yes this forum is fantastic with excellent members but in this area ATM the mainstream science members will ask some hard questions.

[Cougar]

...whereas in electromagnetics, like charges repel and opposite charges attract, suppose instead that in these hypothetical particles, like "charges" attract and opposites repel.

If negative charge electrons were repelled by positive charge protons as in your speculation, no atoms would ever form, and there goes all of chemistry -- no atoms, no galaxies, no stars, no planets, and certainly no intelligent life.

Sorry about your Nobel.

[Bogie]

If negative charge electrons were repelled by positive charge protons as in your speculation, no atoms would ever form, and there goes all of chemistry -- no atoms, no galaxies, no stars, no planets, and certainly no intelligent life.

Sorry about your Nobel.

Except that protons are made of quarks that have fractional positive and negative charges. Protons would fly apart. Some of the quarks would go over to the positive side and some to the negative side.

[TheNick]

I never said anything about electrons repelling protons. I said I'm thinking of particles with the same symmetry, only with the interaction reversed. I am fully aware of what protons and electrons do to each other.

I have adopted the "positive" type of this theoretical matter to be the matter that makes up galaxies. I was a little ambiguous about this in the original post, but it appears clear to me that if intergalactic space is indeed filled with negative mass matter, it cannot be in the form of islands. Rather, it would likely be in a single cohesive structure that surrounds all the galaxies. I.e., it occupies all intergalactic space.

Let's be clear here: using the term "negative matter" does not imply that this matter repels itself. Rather, all negative matter attracts itself, just like all our positive matter does. Repulsion only occurs between matter of opposite types, so the negative matter between the galaxies will still have cohesion. The structure is somewhat like a foam, with bubbles of positive mass surrounded by negative mass.

The question is begged: Why can't we see any of this stuff? Why does light pass right through it? I sure wouldn't be able to answer any of this, but the theory has one implication that might point us in the right direction: Assuming this is indeed the state of things, it is more than likely that the normal matter we are familiar with is at most only half of all the matter that is, and there are innumerable complex interactions occuring within the domain of negative matter that can be thought of as analagous to everything that goes on around us that is not a result of gravity. For example, it would seem likely that, as electrons and protons both survive easily in our domain, and especially since they both have had their masses measured (i.e. positive mass), both fall into the classification of positive matter. Perhaps these particles have stable analogues in the domain of negative matter, and some crazy analogue of electromagnetism is constantly is doing its thing out there.

Here's a question:
I know relatively little about particle physics, but I know there are several particles known that do not last for more than a few nanoseconds or something in the lab. Is it possible that this is because they don't belong here? Can someone tell me what would happen if a positron was surrounded only by other positrons? How about some of the other particles that don't last around here?

Here's another question:
If we assume this theory is correct, than light is obviously able to pass through all negative matter more or less undisturbed, hardly interacting with it if at all. Do we know of any particles that have a similar condition when they pass through the matter around us? Well I just looked up neutrinos on wiki cause I didn't know what they were, and I can tell you right now that the answer is yes.

[rebel]

I'm just leaving a line so I can find this post at a later time and reply. Talk to you soon TheNick. Also welcome to baut!

[Cougar]

I have no formal education in cosmology or astronomy... I am extremely skeptical of modern cosmological models based on my personal logical instincts (not actual logical arguments, rather a "gut" feeling)... I would like to present several theories I have formulated that go against many of the fundamental paradigms of modern cosmology... I would also like to make it clear ahead of time that I do not take myself or any of my theories too seriously, and present them as much to further my own development... Most of my theories have just come off the top of my head...

Well, see, Nick, I think this is the problem with the lack of any serious responses. You have not studied the field, yet based basically on your gut feeling alone, you think your ideas might more accurately describe the situation than the people who have spent decades studying the science of the people who have spent decades studying the science before them, on back to.... Anaximander. They are the ones who are up on what contemporary science has found out about the universe, and you would be utterly flabbergasted at how ingeniously clever these people are. So I hate to break it to ya, but to think that your unstudied gut feelings, based on not much more than your personal musings, are going to best the contemporary scientific community, well, it's really just preposterous.

It's an interesting sociological study though. You are certainly not alone in the desire to make some revolutionary contribution even though you don't have the background or the tools to make a meaningful, coherent, or relevant construction. Probably something to do with the yearning for immortality.

I would say it's never too late to learn. As physicist Gerard 't Hooft has said...

"If history has taught us one thing it is that, with hindsight, newly discovered laws always turn out to be quite logical extensions of what we have already known for a long time."

[TheNick]

You're vehemence does not become your skills of argument, good sir.

I invite anyone who cares to read my actual quote, the one which Cougar skillfully hacked to bits in his above post. It's very easy to find: First paragraph of message #1.

Although your logic could use some work, you are clearly very skilled at editing other people's words. Perhaps you should consider a job in mainstream media? You seem to be a mainstream kind of guy.

Referring to that original quote, if you will, Cougar, you will see that I do not base any of my beliefs on gut feeling alone. You will see that I am here to learn. You will see that I am serious about being here on this forum, amongst so many people I can clearly learn from.

Your first fallacy was to assume I am a fool, a strong indicator you don't think things through to completion.

Your second was to bring the history of science into the discussion - a history that is littered with mistakes of all sizes all the way back to - that's right - Anaximander.

[Gillianren]

Referring to that original quote, if you will, Cougar, you will see that I do not base any of my beliefs on gut feeling alone. You will see that I am here to learn. You will see that I am serious about being here on this forum, amongst so many people I can clearly learn from.

Perhaps not. However, you did say you largely base them on gut feeling. Not logical arguments. That's a bad way to pursue science. You need the logical arguments--and the math!--to know if your ideas are right or wrong.

Your first fallacy was to assume I am a fool, a strong indicator you don't think things through to completion.

I don't see where anyone has called you a fool. Ignorant, sure, but you've admitted ignorance yourself, and there's absolutely no shame in ignorance, provided it isn't willful. You are inferring that you are being called a fool. I think you are being called wrong, but if you aren't prepared for that, you probably shouldn't share your ideas. Someone is bound to call you wrong eventually, even if you aren't. I think you're being called naive, but it is naive to believe that, without any math to support your ideas or an understanding of more than the most basic principles, you can overthrow mainstream cosmology.

Your second was to bring the history of science into the discussion - a history that is littered with mistakes of all sizes all the way back to - that's right - Anaximander.

Yes. Yes, it is. Science is the process of, through experimentation, observation, and repetition, correcting our errors about how we perceive the universe around us. Again, no one disputes this. The thing is, though, you're trying to disregard the math, and the history of science shows that you need the math. (It's one of the reasons I'm not better at science than I am.) Measurement, for example, is math. If you're not interested in the math, you're not ready to do the science.

[Michael Noonan]

To give thought to the more complex details of the 'design' of it all clearly shows you are no fool. I did say that this is a section where some of the mainstream comments and questions are fairly strenuous.

In truth I do not believe that mainstream science would believe that potentially a fundamental flaw of science could indeed be their mathematics. As that is not allowed to be called into question (and goodness knows I have tried) it will make it that much harder for you as a thought experiment seeking person.

Given that with negative matter it is basically charge that is the difference and the photon is still a photon, have you considered that the matter may be visible but not in a way or place that it would be suspected?

If I am going the wrong way with my questions please let me know, cheers

[Cougar]

...I am here to learn... I am serious about being here on this forum, amongst so many people I can clearly learn from.

Welcome to the board, Nick.

[JustAFriend]

No, the negative universe is just where everyone is evil and have beards and the coin flips are always the opposite.

Don't you EVER watch StarTrek and Futurama????

;-)


P.S. Your first mistake is relying on "logical instints" and "gut feelings".... using those with any subject slipping over into the superquantum realms won't get you very far..... ;=)

[schwa]

Hi TheNick,
I have a question for you: when you talk about positive and negative mass, there's a little complication. We have both GRAVITATIONAL and INERTIAL masses for objects. Do your negative mass objects have only negative gravitational mass or do they also have negative inertial mass?

Thanks!

[TheNick]

Well, schwa, as I am only talking about a new description of gravity, I suppose I would only be talking about different kinds of gravitational mass. This is a difficult question for me to answer (as may well have been the purpose of asking it), but from what I can understand, I'm inclined to think a negative inertial mass would either violate conservation of energy, or else behave exactly the same as any "regular" inertial mass, making the distinction meaningless. Perhaps you can help me figure out which one it is?

I am somewhat dismayed that this has become an attack on my scientific approach. Such a discussion is necessary for me to take part in, but I would like to try to have it in another thread, which I may at some point start in another section if I feel I have the time for it. For now, suffice to say, the "instincts" and "gut feelings" I was originally referring to are more than just general biases and reflections on what I'd like to be true. They are my "scientific instincts", and if you don't have any of those, I don't know why you're into science. These are beliefs I have based purely on observation and which cannot be proven mathematically, but nevertheless form a coherent network of reason. They are my "philosophy". For example, I believe an accurate description of the universe must be beautiful. Inflationary big-bang cosmology is ugly to me. Therefore it goes against my instincts. I cannot prove that the universe is beautiful, and I can not provide a definition for "beautiful" or "ugly", but my personal feelings for what these words mean come entirely from observation, and I could, if so inclined, explain how I have reached my personal understanding of such things. I also believe the universe is fundamentally symmetrical, and big-bang theory is fundamentally asymmetrical. These are the sort of instincts I refer to.

Concerning my proposition of negative matter, I would like to clarify once again that this is just an idea I came up with and could not dismiss based on my own knowledge. I presented it here to have the idea thrown around and see if it either gets dismissed by those having a better understanding of things than me, or evolves into a stronger theory. The idea I came up with was very simple and basic: is it possible that there is a symmetric class of particles that attract like, and repel opposite? It seems that if it were the case, there would be certain aspects of this force that are very similar to gravity. I am only suggesting a general behavior, a type of interaction, without trying to define its patterns mathematically. I don't know enough of the observational data to be able to calculate the force vector field set up by a negative mass particle, or anything of that kind of mathematical detail. I am proposing a concept only. It would be nice if others would discuss the concept, or else just tell me to buzz off.

Regardless, any response is appreciated at a certain level, and I do value the criticism I have received thus far, so continue if you must.

[djellison]

details of the 'design'

What are you suggesting with that specific choice of words?

[Cougar]

I am somewhat dismayed that this has become an attack on my scientific approach.... It would be nice if others would discuss the concept...

You're right, Nick. Sorry for the rough introduction. Your lack of background should not be an issue with respect to the ideas you are presenting. It's just that you admitted your lack of background and math savvy, and then you said, "I would like to present several theories I have formulated that go against many of the fundamental paradigms of modern cosmology..." I have studied modern cosmology to some degree. I have found today's scientists to be extremely clever and sophisticated. I just think it terribly unlikely that someone who hasn't "done his homework" could overturn the prevailing consensus of those who have.

But enough of that. Let me give some thought to this "negative matter" business you're talking about.....

[schwa]

Thanks for answering my question, TheNick. I hope I'm not one of the ones you were talking about when you said "this has become an attack on my scientific approach". I have given a lot of thought to what would happen if there were masses that were negative both gravitationally and inertially and I'm pretty confident that such things can't exist for reasons that I've already thought of. But if the gravitational mass is negative and the inertial mass is still positive, I'll have to think about it some more.

So, after some more thought ...

Well, one big problem is that it violates the equivalence principle, so general relativity pretty much goes out the window. You can tell an accelerating elevator from a uniform gravitational field because in the elevator your negative gravitational mass particle (hereafter ngmp) will hit the floor while in the gravitational field the ngmp will hit the ceiling.

Astrophysically, I think it would be pretty tough too. Locally, negative mass attracts itself and repels the positive, so matter would tend to clump very aggressively into negative and positive chunks, right? But the chunkiness we see on a whole lot of scales, all the way up to superclusters, is explained well by positive mass nowadays. In fact it needs some extra positive mass (dark matter), doesn't it?

And then there's gravitational lensing. I'm presuming negative mass would act like a diverging lens instead of converging ... but in distant galaxies we're only observing the converging kind.

So theoretically it seems rough on general relativity grounds, and observationally it seems tough too because of what we observe of clumpiness of matter and gravitational lensing.

[TheNick]

Unfortunately, it's become clear to me that I am not really qualified to discuss my own theory. I'm going to be making an effort to educate myself on the fundamentals of relativity and quantum mechanics in the near future. I still have a few comments though:

You can tell an accelerating elevator from a uniform gravitational field because in the elevator your negative gravitational mass particle (hereafter ngmp) will hit the floor while in the gravitational field the ngmp will hit the ceiling.

Have you taken into account that the material of the elevator itself will have an effect on the movement of the ngmp? It depends on if the elevator is made of negative or positive gravitational matter. Also, it occurs to me to wonder, since I'm imagining the gravitational force to be symmetrical in the same style as electromagnetism, how does the equivalence principle apply to electromagnetism? Can it be applied to a theoretical symmetrical force of gravity in the same way?

Astrophysically, I think it would be pretty tough too. Locally, negative mass attracts itself and repels the positive, so matter would tend to clump very aggressively into negative and positive chunks, right? But the chunkiness we see on a whole lot of scales, all the way up to superclusters, is explained well by positive mass nowadays. In fact it needs some extra positive mass (dark matter), doesn't it?

I mentioned in my initial post that it would not be too surprising to find that the majority of negative mass in the universe actually behaves quite differently from the majority of positive mass. I also mentioned that this would almost certainly be the case just based on observations of the structure and distribution of galaxies, which I take to be made of only one kind of mass. The point is, the overall structure and "consistency" of negative matter need not necessarily be "chunky". It could be be rather smooth and elastic, or what-have-you. As far as I can tell, the only predictable property based on my theory is that it will have some sort of internal cohesion. Also, the fact that several things that would be affected by such a force are already explained well by existing theory is of course evidence against it, but in my blissful ignorance of so much of the current theory, I remain undeterred by this fact alone. As I've only proposed a basic principle, there is still much room for variations on how negative and positive mass matter interacts at different scales, and it seems quite possible that there would be several cases where one or the other type of matter has very little influence on what happens in certain regions of space.

And then there's gravitational lensing. I'm presuming negative mass would act like a diverging lens instead of converging ... but in distant galaxies we're only observing the converging kind.

All I know about this is that, given the existence of negative-gravity matter in intergalactic space, it would clearly have some extremely interesting science to how it interacts with light, as it would seem to basically not interact at all. I don't know enough about particle physics to understand what this would imply, but I've read things here and there that indicate it might not actually violate anything in particular.

[rebel]

TheNick,

With trying to keep up with your theories, you are saying that the positive mass is toward the center of the galaxy and the negative mass is toward the edge.... right?

What about water, water is not a negative or positive mass. Are you saying that water would be classified as a positive mass and only associated with the planets toward the center of the galaxy? Which would mean that there is no hope for intelligent life except toward the center of this galaxy. Wouldn't this also mean that all the positive mass of the planets in the center of the galaxy will eventually collide killing the human race, because the positive mass attracts; thus killing all hopes for intelligent life? My gut feeling says that this theory doesn't make much sense unless I'm understanding your theory incorrectly.

Also don't be ashamed that you're knowledge of the mathematics evolved in the universe has eluded you, because from what I've read and asked in this forum assures me that no one else here fulling understands the mathematics either!

[TheNick]

I don't quite understand your questions regarding life, but you do seem to have some misunderstanding of the idea, so perhaps I can clarify some things for you and then you can restate the question:

Let me first state explicitly that my concept of the theory implies that all galaxies are concentrations of only one type of mass, and that it is the same type for all galaxies, i.e. positive. The vast majority of negative mass matter resides in intergalactic space. How much of it there is, what shapes and structures it forms, etc., are things I couldn't postulate about yet. I can only say that if it exists, that's the only place it can exist in quantity. From this follows directly the observation that, if it exists, we can't see it. Perhaps there are some cases where small amounts of it become visible for some reason, but in general we have the following basic rule:

If you can see it, it has positive mass.

Besides being visible, water is gravitationally attracted to the Earth, and so, by the theory, it must be of the same "type" of mass as the Earth. By arbitrarily assigning Earth as positive, we thus give the same label to everything the Earth attracts, such as water. Indeed, the theory implies that everything on Earth is of positive mass. If we imagine, say, a water balloon filled with "negative mass water" (whatever that might be), placed on the surface of the Earth and released, by the theory, the water balloon would "fall" up, away from the Earth into outer space. From there, the general concentration of positive mass that is the galaxy would continue to push the balloon away, so that over time it would fall out of the galaxy and into intergalactic space, where the majority of negative mass mater resides. As it gets closer to the negative matter in intergalactic space, this negative matter will start to pull it more and more strongly out of the galaxy, and the further it gets from the positive mass concentrated in the galaxy, the force with which this positive matter pushes it out will get weaker and weaker.

The net gravitational force on a body is the sum of the attractive force of like-mass matter on the body and the repulsive force of opposite-mass matter on the body.

The main lesson of the negative-water-balloon thought experiment is to show that negative-mass matter simply doesn't hang around near the Earth. We are surrounded by positive-mass matter only, and we experience and observe only the attractive effects of gravity for the vast majority of our observations.

I know that doesn't really address your question, but hopefully that helps you understand the ideas a little better.

[rebel]

TheNick,

Okay, as you explained in your theory, all mass that we can see is "positive mass". Also as you explained, "positive mass" attracts "positive mass". Which leads me back to my previous statement, that all of the planets would "attract" and collide. This would mean that the milky way galaxy would be getting smaller, when in reality the galaxy is expanding. It would also mean that when the planets eventually "attract", that all life as we know it would die. Now am I understanding you better?

[rebel]

TheNick,

To put it in a direct question. Are you predicting that all the positive mass that we can see will eventually come together and all the negative mass will eventually come together? Because reality shows that the individual galaxies are "spreading apart" so to speak.

[TheNick]

I believe we understand each other.

I would say that, yes, in its simplest conceptual form, the theory predicts that all matter of, say, positive mass will eventually come together, and the same will eventually happen for negative mass, leaving exactly two concentrations of matter - one positive and one negative - which push further apart from each other forever afterwards. The fact that you see this prediction tells me you understand the basic idea. As I said, however, that is the simplest form of the theory, and it can be adjusted in a variety of ways to produce much more complex predictions. How would such a universe evolve if the two types of matter were initially mixed equally throughout space? What if they initially had a very complex distribution resulting from some previous process? What if there was more of one type than the other? What if the force-field set up by negative matter does not follow an inverse-square law? What if other forces affect the universe as well? This last one we already know must be taken into account.

For the record, I believe that negative matter would follow an inverse square law just like positive matter. If it were otherwise, the symmetry and elegance that attracts me to the whole theory in the first place would be severely compromised.

I would also like to point out that the theory does not predict the ultimate collapse of all positive matter into a single entity any more than our current understanding of gravity does. It still allows for the formation of stable orbits, etc. It predicts that, in the absence of negative matter nearby, gravity behaves exactly the way you and I are familiar with. This is the very reason we have reached our current understanding of gravity: our position well inside the galaxy, a region dominated by positive matter, ensures that there is no appreciable amount of negative matter anywhere near us, so that locally, we observe only the effects of positive gravity. In addition, the theory actually provides an additional repulsive force in the universe; the anti-gravity between matter of opposite types of mass. Assuming negative matter is collected in intergalactic space, this would mean that galaxies are actually being pushed by the negative matter between them, possibly in a way to make the system as a whole expand.

[rebel]

TheNick,

So what would you call the "stuff" that's in between the positive matter and negative matter? Once they are completely separated they must be separated by something. Also what keeps all of the positive mass from colliding, you said that positive mass attracts positive mass? Why doesn't the moon collide with the Earth, because the farther the negative mass gets from the positive mass then the more positive the positive mass becomes? Sort of a thermal runaway effect but with positive mass.

[TheNick]

No, this is simply gravity we're talking about. The Moon doesn't collide with the Earth because it's in orbit. It's still attracted to it though. The whole system formed within the galaxy, away from the effects of negative matter.

[AstroRockHunter]

Rebel:
What you're forgetting, and as 'TheNick' points out, is motion. As we observe, masses left to themselves will eventually pull themselves together. If this did not happen then we would not be here discussing it. What bothers me about this idea is where the 'negative mass' comes from.

Remember that Einstein showed that mass and energy are two sides of the same coin, E=mc^2. Since I have not heard of 'negitive energy' (energy opposite what we experience) then what could have formed the 'negative mass'???

[north]

" Suppose there is a class of particles in the universe that has a similar sort of interaction to electromagnetic particles. (I believe what I'm thinking of is called "guage symmetry". Correct me if I'm wrong.) For these particles, however, the rules of interaction are exactly reversed: whereas in electromagnetics, like charges repel and opposite charges attract, suppose instead that in these hypothetical particles, like "charges" attract and opposites repel. This would cause particles of like "charge" to clump together, and oppositely charged clumps to push away from each other, all the while collecting and combining with other clumps of like charge. Ultimately, you would end up with large regions of space filled entirely with only one type of charge. Any particles of the opposite charge that were hypothetically placed inside such a region would quickly be expelled from it. "

your intro was well spoken

but I have this question ;

how does your theory explain liquid hydrogen ?