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...We are not made to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge (Dante, l'Inferno).
( We are not made to live like imbeciles, but to follow the paths of virtue and knowledge. Dante: l'Enfer ).
Introduction.
...We propose to present new ideas in cosmology, astrophysics and theoretical physics.
The ideas underlying this work are relatively simple and can be expressed in three different ways.
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In a language for specialists.
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In a schematic manner.
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In a popularized manner.
...Popularization can be practiced in different ways. In most cases the popularizers offer only verbal images, suitable for stimulating the reader's imagination. But, at the end of the road, he has not learned much.
...By using the image to the full, I mean geometry, which is strongly linked with physics and all kinds of sciences, one can manage so that the reader derives a double benefit. The analogy allows him to understand the broad outlines of an approach. But, along the way, he will enrich himself with very real geometric knowledge, in particular in 2d geometry.
A first schematic idea: Newton and anti-Newton.
To be schematic is to content oneself with presenting one aspect of a model.
...Cosmic structures are organized by a fundamental force: gravitation. If the objects of the cosmos did not attract each other, nothing would happen, or almost nothing. Galaxies would not form, nor would stars, and we would not be here to talk about all this. For example if the force of gravitation were repulsive, it would hold all particles at maximum distance from each other and the cosmos would remain amorphous, therefore very boring in the long run.
The law of universal attraction is Newton's law:
...G is the constant of gravitation. m and m' are two masses and d the distance separating them. As will be seen later, the model that we propose consists in making two types of masses interact, which will be called either "ordinary masses" (matter in the classical sense of the term, that of which galaxies, stars, atoms are made) and "ghost masses", m and m*, called thus because they are then fundamentally optically unobservable. The interaction scheme is then the following:
Ordinary masses attract each other according to Newton's law.
The "ghost masses" also attract each other, according to this same law.
On the other hand it is assumed that ordinary matter and ghost matter repel each other, according to "anti-Newton":
...One could then, at this stage, put "point-masses" in a computer, and see what happens when these attractive and repulsive forces are exerted.
...The physicist will immediately say: this is equivalent to bringing in negative masses m* < 0 . Indeed if one reverses the sign of one of the masses in Newton's law:
the force changes sign.
...If one reverses the signs of both masses it does not change sign. So one would be tempted to conclude that the above model would amount to considering that in the universe two types of masses would coexist, some positive and the others negative, which would imply the existence of particles with negative energy E = mc2. This possibility of the existence of negative masses was envisaged by the mathematician Jean-Marie Souriau in 1970, via group theory. See his work "Structure des Systèmes Dynamiques", Dunod, pages 197 to 200.
...The problem of objects with negative energy is, among other things: what happens in case of encounter with objects with positive energy?
...Let us recall that antimatter possesses a positive mass and energy. An encounter between a particle of matter and a particle of antimatter gives photons, of equally positive energy. But an encounter between a particle of mass m > 0 positive and of energy E > 0 positive with a particle of mass -m and of opposite energy E* = -E would give..... nothing.
Moreover the physicist would object that no particle having a negative mass has ever been observed.
...Here then the schematic presentation stops. As will be seen later the system will in fact function "as if the ghost masses were negative", according to Newton and anti-Newton, but the model is not so simplistic. To leave this schematic vision one must become familiar with a certain number of notions of geometry.
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