Report of the COSMO-17 international conference

Report from the international conference COSMO-17

COSMO-17 Conference Report
Paris, France, 28 August – 1 September 2017

2 September 2017


French version

I have just returned from the 21st annual international conference on particle physics and cosmology (COSMO-17), held on the campus of Paris Diderot University in Paris, France, from 28 August to 1 September 2017. The event was organized by the Astroparticles and Cosmology Laboratory (APC). I suppose readers are wondering: “So, how was this conference?”

The reactions were the same as in Frankfurt. I’d even say it was worse.

First of all, internet users should understand what a real participation in an international conference is like when presenting a poster. It’s a reduced presentation. No comparison with oral presentations in a hall, which are the only ones where people can “react,” or simply wish to do so.

There were 193 participants from 24 countries, with a strong presence of Paris-based researchers. One room was completely packed, people were sitting on the steps. I will detail these presentations below. But it’s useful to describe what international symposia have become today, at least in this field. Speakers present their work for 30 to 40 minutes, illustrated by slides projected onto a large screen.

During these presentations, half of the participants—sometimes two out of three—had their laptop on their lap. What are they doing? When you glance at their screens, it has absolutely nothing to do with the presentation they are supposed to be listening to. Since everyone is connected to the internet, you can receive, read, and send emails and text messages during talks. I was sitting next to a young Russian woman working in Bonn, Germany, who spent the entire session staring at a Cyrillic text displayed on a small tablet, paying no attention whatsoever to the presentations. She didn’t hesitate to tell me she was reading… a novel!


In many sessions, I would say less than half of the participants were listening. This phenomenon was identical. When the presentation ended, the chair warmly thanked the speaker, and the room was then flooded with applause. I saw the same thing in Frankfurt. But back then, during the rare times I attended an international conference, I had never seen this. You can clearly distinguish “normal” applause from what I witnessed. It’s almost a standing ovation. As if the audience wanted to apologize for their lack of attention, or validate the content, usually completely empty, especially when it comes to theoretical talks.

So why do these researchers attend such conferences? For the majority of delegates, it boils down to the opportunity to mention their participation in an international event in an activity report. The research barons can also meet, present the development of their powerful observation instruments, costing tens of millions of dollars. Yes, observation is also very much alive. Technical means allow collecting increasingly precise data and making authentic discoveries, such as the Great Repulsor in January 2017.

This lack of attention during talks may seem shocking. But in the theoretical field concerned, there is no unity. The specialist on the right hand doesn’t understand a thing said by the specialist on the left hand. It’s like an overdose of unilateral speeches.

At this international cosmology conference held in France, I didn’t find a single French specialist: not Thibaud Damour, not Françoise Combes, not Aurélien Barrau, not Alain Riazuelo, nor even Marc Lachièze-Rey, who is a member of the laboratory hosting the symposium, APC (Astroparticles and Cosmology Laboratory).

I counted the participants, in descending order:

Japanese: 32 (…)
Americans: 31
French: 27
British: 27
Koreans: 12
Germans: 10
Dutch: 9
Spanish: 8
Canadians: 8
Swiss: 6
Poles: 5
Chileans: 4
Mexicans: 4
Portuguese: 2
Estonians: 2
Brazilians: 2
Finns: 2
Italians: 2
Iranians: 2
Chinese: 1
Indians: 1
Swedes: 1
Israelis: 1
Emiratis: 1

Total: 192 participants from 24 countries! A major annual international event in cosmology.

By the way: not a single French journalist. If they mention it, it will be through second-hand accounts. I contacted four journalists from the magazine Ciel & Espace; none came.

I presented two posters on the scheduled day (Tuesday, 29 August 2017). But I couldn’t expect any reaction other than curiosity (at best) toward something immense: the idea of replacing Einstein’s equation with two coupled field equations. In the second poster, I presented my alternative to the stellar black hole model: the escaping neutron star, which evacuates excess mass accumulated from the stellar wind of a companion star. I will dedicate an entire video to this topic.

I’ll skip over discussions with young Canadian, Japanese, and other researchers… who showed vague curiosity, but unfortunately nothing more.

MONDAY.

I began attending a talk on dark energy, presented by Italian researcher Filippo Vernizzi from the Institute of Theoretical Physics (IPhT) at CEA-Saclay. You can easily find his professional background on Google Scholar. He embodies the archetype of the contemporary theoretical physicist: scalar fields, quintessence, quantum gravity, etc. In his talk on dark energy, he speaks of “ghosts,” “massive gravity,” “quintessence,” “k-essence,” and “scalar-tensor theory.” I discover the word “Symmetron” (…). He concludes: “Something is missing in our framework.” Certainly…


Filippo Vernizzi, dark energy theorist
Department of Astrophysics, CEA-Saclay

I’ll meet him during the coffee break. He faces me with evident displeasure. After briefly outlining my approach (but he’s clearly not listening), I continue by citing something that could impact his field, quantum mechanics:

“Currently, the accelerated expansion of the universe implies, in quantum field theory, states of negative energy. Do you agree? As you stated in your main presentation (before all participants, not in smaller afternoon sessions), this cosmic acceleration implies negative pressure. Therefore, states of negative energy.”

I continue despite his frown:

“A pressure is also energy per unit volume, i.e., an energy density.”

“Impossible!” he protests. “Pressure is force per unit area. It has nothing to do with energy. Even negative pressure implies positive energy.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s a mistake. If you want to approach this pressure issue as force per unit area, let’s go ahead. It’s a subject I master well, since I’ve done a lot of kinetic gas theory. Place a wall in a fluid medium. It experiences collisions with incoming particles. These particles then transfer part of their momentum to the wall, corresponding to the component of their velocity vector V perpendicular to it. Do you agree?”

“Yes…”

“Now, this momentum is mV. So if a fluid in contact with a wall has negative pressure, it doesn’t push the wall—it attracts it. Thus, if we speak of negative pressure, these collisions are due to particles with negative momentum. Since E = mc², the energy of these particles is also negative. Do you agree?”

“Yes, yes—don’t get upset. Okay, this energy is negative, you’re right. I’ll take it into account now.” (…)

“It’s not all. When you talk about instabilities caused by negative energy states, you think of energy emission by positive-energy photons. But particles with negative energy emit negative-energy photons. And this, quantum field theory does not address.”

“Yes… Very well—I’ll take it into account, I promise.”

Annoyed, he immediately turns around and walks away.

He clearly dismissed me, refusing any discussion. I couldn’t get anything more out of him. These people avoid all dialogue.

We return to the hall. Next presentation: Robert Brandenberger, McGill University, Quebec, Canada. Title of his talk: “Update on bouncing and emergent cosmologies.” These are trendy ideas. He presents himself as a “string theorist.” All the keywords are there: the “Big Bounce,” “quantum gravity,” “string gas” (…), “Hagedorn temperature” (beyond which hadrons can no longer exist—estimated at around 1030 K—some even claim this temperature is “unattainable”).

Brandenberger refers to inflation as the only theory capable of solving the horizon paradox. He concludes:

“There is no alternative to the inflation theory.”

At the end of his talk, during the question session, I speak up:

“As an alternative to inflation theory, what do you think of a model with a varying constant, which includes VSL, a variable speed of light, challenging this inflation theory? I published peer-reviewed articles on this topic as early as 1998, and even earlier in 1995, where I propose a joint variation of all physical constants as a gauge process—”

But Brandenberger immediately evades the question, pointing me toward a young Canadian researcher he identifies in the crowd, who has also worked in this direction:

“You’ll be better inspired talking to this researcher than with me.”

End of discussion. In reality, Brandenberger has very rigid ideas. Axions, string gas, quantum gravity… that’s serious. But a variable speed of light? What a crazy idea! Let the madmen argue among themselves.

Later, I exchange with this young Canadian, who is actually a pleasant person, who told me:

“I glanced at your poster and discussed it with colleagues. It seems interesting. But for the variable speed of light model, I haven’t done much, you know. Nothing related to your work in this field.”

Late morning: presentation by Eric Verlinde on “Emergent Gravity.” This is not a review of empirical methods for modifying gravity, as the Israeli Milgrom does with MOND, but a very complex theory that makes gravity an “emergent” property. I quote the key sentence:

“Using entanglement in the subspace of the code (…) we can reproduce the strange behavior of the duality region (…)”

TUESDAY.

I participate after the second presentation of the second day, discussing the various elements of consistency between the current dominant model (ΛCDM model) and observational data such as the CMB. Silvia Galli from the Paris Institute of Astrophysics (IAP) engages in this long investigation.

I raise my hand. I’m given the microphone:

“How do you view the compatibility between the ΛCDM model and the Great Repulsor?”

“… The… What?”

“The Great Repulsor, or Dipole Repulsor, presented in Nature in January 2017 by Hoffman, Courtois, Tully, and Pomarède, where they show a void region 600 light-years across, completely empty, pushing galaxies—including our own at 631 km/s.”

She has no memory of this and remains speechless. Then others in the hall confirm my statements. There’s a moment of great embarrassment when the IAP researcher finally says:

“I’m not aware of it.”


I hadn’t imagined creating such discomfort with this precise question. Let’s move on.

In a later presentation by Daniel Harlow, MIT, on black holes, quantum information, and the “holographic principle,” I try to spark interest in the foundations of the black hole model:

“I would like to emphasize that the black hole theory rests on a 1916 publication by Karl Schwarzschild. But who knows that Schwarzschild, at the beginning of 1916, just before his death in May, published not one, but two articles?”

Confusion in the hall. I continue:

“The content of this second article, translated into English only in 1999, is very important. Who knows that this second article exists?”

Silence… Then I ask:

“So, among the black hole specialists present here, who has read Schwarzschild’s first article, from January 1916?”

Deafening silence.

This confirms what I suspected. No black hole specialist has ever read Schwarzschild’s, Einstein’s, or Hilbert’s original articles. They’ve always worked, since the 1950s, on commentaries after commentaries. I don’t press further.

WEDNESDAY.

Third day. Hendrik Hildebrandt, head of the Emmy Noether research group at the Institute of Astronomy AIfA, University of Bonn, presents techniques of weak lensing, which distort galaxy images. Everything is oriented toward the reliability of conclusions drawn from this analysis, in relation to “bias,” i.e., possible errors due to assumptions made in data processing.

Thus, Hildebrandt’s interest lies in the reliability of these analyses.

I speak up:

“In this type of observational data processing, there is a fundamental assumption: that this effect is due to positive-mass dark matter. A few years ago, a group of Japanese researchers published an article in Physical Review D, referring to the fact that if positive mass generates azimuthal distortion, negative mass would produce radial distortion.”

The document I refer to is:

Izumi, K. et al. (2013). « Gravitational lensing shear by an exotic lens object with negative convergence or negative mass ». Physical Review D. 88 : 024049. doi : 10.1103/PhysRevD.88.024049. arXiv:1305.5037.

I continue:

“Have you considered analyzing your data—concerning a million galaxies—by attributing the distortions not to positive mass, but to negative mass? I think this would require only a small change in your data processing program.”

“We already find radial distortions,” replies Hildebrandt, “when there’s a void in dark matter. Such a void acts as if it had negative mass there.”

“Of course, but here I’m talking about real concentrations of negative mass, similar to those I believe create the Great Repulsor effect.”

Obviously, my remark confuses him. He hasn’t really grasped the extent of my proposal and must be wondering, “Who is this guy? Where does he work? I’ve never seen him, I don’t know him…”

I don’t press further.

It’s very difficult to disturb people like this. After his presentation, Hildebrandt engaged in a long conversation with other colleagues, probably involved in similar studies. Me? I’m… completely exotic in this game. Negative masses? What an idea!

In another presentation by a researcher from the local French laboratory, APC (Astroparticles and Cosmology Laboratory) at Paris Diderot University, Chiara Caprini discusses results from numerical simulations, where “we hope to learn more about dark matter physics.” She adds:

“Regarding galaxies, they remain very mysterious objects.”

At that moment, I think of the work I initiated in 1972 and am currently finalizing on galactic dynamics (yes, I’ve resumed this work 45 years later). A work based on a joint resolution of the Vlasov equation and the Poisson equation.

She gives a fairly exhaustive presentation.

I ask for the microphone again and say:

“Since Monday, people in the hall have understood that I don’t believe in the existence of dark matter in the form of positive-mass particles, which have never been observed—neither in tunnels, mines, aboard the International Space Station, nor at the LHC. Personally, I think these astroparticles will never be detected, because these invisible elements aren’t where you’re looking. I believe that invisible negative mass is located at the center

I will show that it’s exactly the opposite. There has been a misinterpretation of Schwarzschild’s solution by the great mathematician David Hilbert. And everyone followed. The first to notice this was an American, Leonard Abrams, who published an article in the Canadian Journal of Physics:

Abrams, L. S. (1989). "Black Holes: The Legacy of Hilbert's Error". Canadian Journal of Physics 67 (9) : 919–926. doi:10.1139/p89-158. arXiv:gr-qc/0102055.

A work completely ignored (Abrams died in 2001). The Italian physicist Salvatore Antoci picked up this work:

Antoci, S. ; Liebscher, D.-E. (2001). "Reconsidering Schwarzschild’s original solution". Astronomische Nachrichten. 322 (2) : 137–142. arXiv:gr-qc/0102084.

Antoci, S. (2003). "David Hilbert and the origin of the Schwarzschild solution". Meteorological and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics. Bremen: Wilfried Schröder, Science Edition. arXiv:physics/0310104.

I tried to contact him, unfortunately he didn’t reply.

I believe he understood it wasn’t wise to challenge the cult object of current cosmology.

I will show (and you’ll understand my explanations) that the black hole rests on a topological error that has lasted for a century. In Frankfurt, I would have liked to ask all participants if they had read Schwarzschild’s articles, especially Maldacena. I bet I’d have gotten the same negative response as during my oral presentation on Tuesday.

It’s frightening. None of the specialists who make black holes their daily bread have ever read the two foundational articles published in January and February 1916 by Karl Schwarzschild, a century ago. It’s true that his first article (the “external” solution) was only translated into English in 1975. For 59 years, those who don’t read German had to rely on “commentaries after commentaries,” and errors spread, on which practically no one has returned. As for Schwarzschild’s second article (the “internal” solution), published in February 1916, three months before his death, it was only translated by Antoci in… December 1999!

How does the community perceive me?

The first answer is very simple: “It doesn’t perceive me at all.” No one pays attention to someone who gets only a poster presentation, especially one introducing negative mass into cosmology!

As for those who attended my repeated “outbursts” in the amphitheater: what did they think? I suppose they didn’t understand a single word I said. Negative mass between galaxies? Never heard of that…

No one approached to learn more. By questioning the existence of black holes, or even dark matter, and suggesting alternative research paths, I was probably perceived as “a retired researcher, a bit rusty, outside the main currents of current cosmology,” as Alain Riazuelo from the Paris Institute of Astrophysics (IAP), a major designer of black hole CGI, wrote to me.

The general public has a completely false idea of the scientific community. They imagine scientists as attentive scholars open to new ideas, ready for debate. Yet most behave like religious followers. In recent years, new currents have emerged that rest on no observational basis. The most spectacular is “quantum gravity.” You may know that gravity has not yet been quantized. Every attempt to create a graviton hits insurmountable divergence problems. But it gives the impression that, by speaking of “quantum gravity,” by repeating these words like a mantra, the thing will eventually exist.

Just think about how the black hole is announced, how it is literally “sold” to you. For thirty years, you’ve been served the same phrase, endlessly repeated by the media under the influence of this community (they sell what they’re given):

“Although there is no observational confirmation of the existence of black holes, no scientist doubts it today.”

Does such a sentence deserve to be called scientific? Will you continue to swallow this without reacting? While we base everything on a single case—the binary system Cygnus X-1, detected in 1964, where the X-ray-emitting companion is credited with a mass of eight to fifteen solar masses (thus exceeding the critical mass of 2.5 solar masses). For fifty years, for half a century, this has been the only case of a “stellar black hole.” Distance: 6,000 light-years. There is therefore an obvious uncertainty in measuring the distance and in the resulting mass estimate of the two objects orbiting a common center of gravity.

There are two hundred billion stars in our galaxy. Half are multiple systems, generally binary. There would be between ten and a hundred million “black holes” in our galaxy, objects obviously closer to us than Cygnus X-1. And we haven’t observed them for 50 years, while our observational tools improve every year!

At the centers of galaxies: “supermassive black holes.” In ours, an object with a mass equivalent to four million solar masses. Immediately “it’s a supermassive black hole.” But this object does not behave like a black hole. The surrounding gas does not emit X-rays. In 1988, the Chandra satellite was launched, capable of detecting such radiation. It was pointed toward the center of the Milky Way: nothing.

“It’s a full black hole,” we even heard!

In 2011, an interstellar gas flow approached. Simulations were set up to show what would happen: the gaseous mass would deform and be sucked in.


Summer 2013: the matter passed nearby and… nothing. For more on this, see Françoise Combes’s talk on supermassive black holes at 12:33 here (in French).

Could it be… an anorexic black hole?

You’ve heard of quasars. Again, it’s a black hole that… etc. The model? In the same video: when the black hole has eaten enough, it “spits out”… The mechanism behind this cosmic hiccup? Unknown, not described.

It’s insane! This is astrophysics and cosmology today. Words, boasting, theories that don’t exist. Appeals to authority, mythic visions, and computer-generated images. Some even add a grand poetic flourish of ambition. Confrontation with observation? Why, is it so important? Let’s move forward, like with this nonsense of the multiverse!

FRIDAY.

I sat in the front row. This time, the chair warned me about the tight schedule and that long questions would not be allowed. A discouraging speech.

A Korean researcher presented on various candidates for dark matter. All the fairy dust candidates were reviewed.

At the end of the presentation, I raised my hand. But the chair, who was two meters away from me, turned his head, pretending not to see me, and fled down the corridor to find other questioners in the hall. In the front row, I remained with my arm fully raised.

A well-known tactic. Two or three speakers are selected and given the floor, after which the chair returns toward the potential troublemaker saying:

“I’m sorry, but we’ve now exhausted the time.”

But he found only one person who wanted to speak. He then returned to me and, to cut off any remark I might make:

“I want to ask one question. Just one.”

All participants heard. He reluctantly handed me the microphone.

Then I asked:

“In this context of dark matter candidates’ behavior, how do you consider the effect of the Great Repulsor?”

The Korean researcher stared at me with wide, round eyes. He seemed stunned. As an Asian, he was “losing face.” I persisted:

“You know, the Great Repulsor, as shown in January by Hoffman, Courtois, Pomarède and Tully. A void 600 million light-years across, completely empty, yet pushing galaxies.”

Once again, the Korean researcher was unaware. I didn’t press further…


Each time I spoke, I tried to keep a calm tone, so as not to appear an energetic madman. A difficult exercise in such a context. I forced myself to do it. I was present at this conference thanks to financial support from internet users. I therefore had to show just how far things had gone.

My wife told me:

“By creating such embarrassing situations, you risk seeing the doors of international conferences in this field close in front of you.”

Very possible. In the future, it will happen the same way, obviously. Yet I have never been aggressive or insulting. But all my interventions touched a nerve. I think what was most frightening was the Italian theorist, expert in dark energy, who told me that negative pressure does not go hand in hand with negative energy density. How could he say such nonsense? There, I made a mortal enemy, one more.

Fortunately, the next part of the video, subtitled in English, may eventually have an international impact and spark interest among some scientists. Not necessarily positive, though. Think of this remark from that young Italian researcher in Frankfurt, who told me:

“I’ve seen your articles on your Janus cosmological model. I’m watching how you’re received here. How can you expect these people to do anything other than turn their backs on you? What you’re proposing is to destroy the very foundation of their work!”

The first barrier is skepticism. A few sparks of curiosity lit up among the young, but nothing more. During Thursday’s dinner, when I tried to talk to a young American researcher sitting next to me, he obviously considered me a madman, even when I cited my peer-reviewed articles from 2014 and 2015. He was just as stubborn as the others. What are these “young researchers” seeking? A fascinating thesis topic? No. They’re looking for a job opportunity within a research group of similar type, where they can easily co-publish. Or a well-paid contract under a powerful boss.

Believing that young researchers will be interested in new ideas is an illusion, I think. They have everything to lose, just like their mentors.

A reader told me about this 24-year-old woman, Sabrina Pasterski, presented as the future Einstein.


Profile of Sabrina Pasterski on Forbes

It’s true her path is surprising. See the video where she is shown building a light aircraft at age 13–14, which she flew solo at 16. Joined MIT, she immediately showed great aptitude for theoretical physics, then joined the research team of Andrew Strominger.


Andrew Strominger

At 61 (and thus relatively young), he has received numerous awards for his contributions to string theory.

His young disciple has a website: physicsgirl.com which states she has already been invited everywhere, and the press talks about her worldwide.

People tell me: “Maybe this girl…?”

I also have the email address of this young “genius.” I’ll write to her too.

I’ll write to Strominger asking him to meet me and present my ideas and work. Internet users’ financial support would allow me to carry out such a mission. But will he respond?

In any case, today I’m sending messages to two laboratories, to the seminar organizers:

– the Astroparticles and Cosmology Laboratory (APC) at Paris Diderot University, where George Smoot and Marc Lachièze-Rey are affiliated.

– the Astrophysics Laboratory at CEA-Saclay, where theoretical physicist Filippo Fabrizzi works.

asking to be allowed to present my work there.

I bet that, once again, no one will reply. And then I’ll mention these behaviors in the Janus videos, which will remain online indefinitely, with the names of the individuals involved. Because such systematic avoidance is abnormal.

It’s a sign that this part of science is becoming increasingly authoritarian.

Previous conference report (KSM 2017)
The Janus cosmological model on YouTube

In many sessions I would say that less than half of attendees do listen. By the way, it was the same. When the presentation ends, the chairman thanks the speaker very much, and the room is then overwhelmed with applause. I witnessed the same phenomenon in Frankfurt. But back in the day, the few times I've been able to attend an international conference, I've never seen this. One can very well distinguish between "normal" applause and what I saw. It is almost a standing ovation. As if the audience wishes to apologize for its lack of attention, or to validate the content, which is usually completely empty, when it comes to theoretical lectures.

So what? Why do these researchers attend such conferences? For the most part of delegates, it can be summed up as the possibility to mention their participation to an international event in an activity report. The barons of research can also meet, present the development of their powerful observational instruments, to the tune of tens millions of dollars. Yes, observation is as fit as a fiddle. Technical means make it possible to collect more and more precise data, to make authentic discoveries, like that of the Great Repeller in January 2017.

This lack of attention, during the presentations, may seem staggering. But in the theoretical field concerned, there is no unity. The specialist of the right hand does not hear anything to what the specialist of the left hand has to say. This is like an overdose of one-way talks.

At this international conference on cosmology held in France, I didn't find any of the French specialists: neither Thibaud Damour, nor Françoise Combes, nor Aurélien Barrau, nor Alain Riazuelo, not even Marc Lachièze-Rey, who is a member of the laboratory hosting the symposium, the APC (Astroparticle and Cosmology Laboratory).

I made the count of participants, in descending order:

Japanese: 32 (…)
American: 31
French: 27
English: 27
Korean: 12
German: 10
Dutch: 9
Spanish: 8
Canadian: 8
Swiss: 6
Polish: 5
Chilean: 4
Mexican: 4
Portuguese: 2
Estonian: 2
Brazilian: 2
Finnish: 2
Italian: 2
Iranian: 2
Chinese: 1
Indian: 1
Swedish: 1
Israeli: 1
Emirati: 1

Total: 192 attendees, from 24 countries! A major annual international milestone in cosmology.

By the way: not even one French journalist. If they echo this event, it will be according to second-hand testimonies. I called upon four journalists from the Ciel & Espace magazine; none came.

I presented two posters on the scheduled day (Tuesday, 29 August 2017). But I should not expect any reaction other than curiosity (at best) with respect to something as enormous: to consider replacing Einstein's equation with two coupled field equations. In the second poster, I presented my alternative to the stellar black hole model: the leaking neutron star, which evacuates any mass in excess that would be accreted from the stellar wind of a companion star. I will dedicate an entire video to this subject.

I pass on discussions with young Canadian, Japanese, and other researchers… who showed a vague curiosity, but alas nothing more.

MONDAY.

I started attending a lecture devoted to dark energy, presented by Italian researcher Filippo Vernizzi, from the Theoretical Physics Institute (IPhT) of CEA-Saclay. You can easily find his professional track record on Google Scholar. He is the archetype of today's theoretical physicist: scalar fields, quintessence, quantum gravity, etc. In his presentation on dark energy, he speaks of "ghosts", "massive gravity", "quintessence", "k-essence", "scalar-tensor theory". I discover the word "Symmetron" (…). He concludes: "Something is missing in our schema". Certainly.....


Filippo Vernizzi, dark energy theorist
Astrophysics department at CEA-Saclay

I go to meet him at the coffee break. He faces me with evident displeasure. After having evoked the main lines of my approach (but he obviously does not listen) I go on to quote what may have an impact on his field, quantum mechanics:

"Currently, the accelerating expansion of the universe implies to assume, in quantum field theory, negative energy states. Do you agree? As you said in your main presentation (in the face of all attendees, not to little groups in smaller rooms during the afternoon), this cosmic acceleration implies a negative pressure. Hence negative energy states."

I continue despite his pout of annoyance:

"A pressure is also an energy per unit volume, i.e. an energy density."

"No way!" He protests. "A pressure is a force per unit area. That has nothing to do with energy. Even a negative pressure implies a positive energy."

"I am sorry but this is a mistake. If you want to address this issue of pressure as a force per unit area, let's go. This is a subject I know very well since I did a lot of kinetic theory of gases. Place a wall in a fluid medium. It undergoes collisions from incident particles. These will then transfer some of their momentum to the wall, corresponding to the component of their velocity vector V perpendicular to it. Do you agree?"

"Yes…"

"Yet this momentum is mV. Therefore if a fluid in contact with a wall has a negative pressure, it does not repel the wall, it attracts it. So if we are talking about a negative pressure, such collisions are due to particles with a negative momentum. Since E = mc² the energy of these particles is also negative. Do you agree?"

"Yes, yes — Don't get upset. OK this energy is negative, you're right. I will now take it into account." (…)

"That is not all. When you talk about instability issues due to negative energy states, you think of an emission of energy using positive energy photons. But negative energy particles emit negative energy photons. And that, the quantum field theory does not handle it."

"Yes… Fine — I will take this into account, I promise."

Annoyed, he immediately turns on his heel and walks straight away.

He obviously played me for a fool, refusing any discussion. I could not get anymore. These people are fleeing from any dialogue.

We return to the auditorium. Next presentation: Robert Brandenberger, McGill University, QC, Canada. Title of his communication: "Update on Bouncing and Emergent Cosmologies". These are the trending ideas. He presents himself as "a string theorist". Every buzzing word happens there: the "Big Bounce", "quantum gravity", the "string gas" (…), the "Hagedorn temperature" (beyond which hadrons can no longer exist – estimated at about 1030 K – one even read that some think such temperature would be "unsurpassable").

Brandenberger refers to inflation as the only theory able to solve the horizon paradox. He concludes:

"There is no alternative to inflation theory."

At the end of his presentation during Q&A, I take the floor:

"As an alternative to inflation theory, what do you think of a variable constant model, which in particular implies VSL, a variable speed of light, which challenges this inflation theory? I published peer-reviewed papers on this subject as from 1998 then 1995, where I propose a joint variation of all physical constants as a gauge process —"

But Brandenberger immediately dodges the issue, redirecting me toward a young Canadian researcher he points to in the crowd, who also would have worked in this direction:

"You'll be better off speaking with this researcher than with me."

End of discussion. Actually Brandenberger has very fixed ideas. Axions, string gas, quantum gravity… that's serious. But a varying speed of light: what an idea! Let the wacky guys discuss among themselves.

I will have an exchange afterward with this young Canadian, who is a kind person by the way, who said to me:

"I had a look at your poster and I talked with colleagues. It seems interesting. But as for that light velocity model, I did not do much, you know. Nothing to do with your work in this area."

Late morning: Eric Verlinde's presentation on "Emergent Gravity". This is not a review of the empirical ways of modifying gravity, as the Israeli Milgrom does with MOND, but of a very complex theory that makes gravitation an "emerging" property. I quote the key phrase:

"By using entanglement in the code subspace (…) we can reproduce the puzzling behavior of the region of duality (…)"

TUESDAY.

I take part after the second presentation of the second day, situating the different elements of concordance between the current dominant model (ΛCDM model) and observational data like the CMB. Silvia Galli, of the Paris Astrophysics Institute (IAP), is engaged in this long survey.

I raise my hand. Someone give me the mic:

"How do you consider the compatibility between the Lambda-CDM model and the Great Repeller?"

"…"

In another presentation by a researcher from the local French laboratory, APC (Astroparticles and Cosmology) at Paris Diderot University, Chiara Caprini presents the results of numerical simulations through which "we hope to learn more about the physics of dark matter." She adds:

"With regard to galaxies, they are still very mysterious objects."

At that moment, I think of the work I initiated in 1972 and am currently finalizing on galactic dynamics (yes, I have resumed this work 45 years later). A work based on a joint resolution of the Vlasov equation and the Poisson equation.

She delivers a fairly exhaustive lecture.

I ask for the microphone again and declare:

"Since Monday, the people present in the audience have understood that I do not believe in the existence of positive-mass dark matter particles, which no one has ever observed, whether in tunnels, mines, aboard the International Space Station, or at the LHC. Personally, I think these astroparticles will never be detected, because these invisible elements are not where you are looking for them. I think negative mass, invisible, is located at the heart of large cosmic voids and between galaxies, where it ensures their confinement and immediately promotes their formation at the end of the radiation-dominated era. It is also this surrounding negative mass that produces their spiral structure through dynamical friction. I think that if you introduce into your simulations other data, with high-density negative mass, self-attracting gravitationally, but interacting with positive mass via mutual repulsion, you would discover many interesting things. For example, large-scale structure, as described by the Israeli Tsvi Pirán, which takes the form of adjacent soap bubbles."

These sentences provoke immediate astonishment, triggering a general silence. They must be thinking: “This guy really irritates everyone with his negative masses!” The presenter is disturbed, doesn't know whom to address or what to say. I would make a comparison with an intervention during a religious service. Imagine yourself, in a Western country, inside a church, taking the floor and suddenly saying to the priest and the faithful:

"How do you know that the foundation of your belief is a reality, that the story you speak of as facts actually unfolded?"

The astonishment would be comparable. We are no longer in a scientific meeting where ideas are debated, but, in purely theoretical cases, in a series of religious services, a staging of beliefs devoid of any observational basis.

The young woman continues and speaks about how simulations show the influence of supermassive black holes on galactic dynamics.

I raise my hand again:

"You speak of giant black holes. But what evidence do you have that they are actually black holes?"

"Euh… We rely on the increase in star velocities near the galactic center."

"Of course, and their motion implies the presence of a very massive object at that location. But if you place, in a sphere with a radius equal to that of Earth's orbit, a gas whose average density is that of water – which corresponds to the average density inside the Sun’s orbit – then you obtain your four million solar masses. As for the supposed black hole, where is the spectral signature confirming its presence? You know that when the Chandra satellite was launched 17 years ago, we expected to receive a powerful burst of X-rays. But we received nothing. You also know that in 2013, an interstellar gas cloud passed nearby and its behavior was in no way what it should have been if it had passed near a black hole. The observation completely contradicts the predictions from the simulations."

Such comments should trigger a debate among the scientists present. But no, nothing. One might think that science is dead. There remains only a gleam in the eyes of a few young people who suddenly hear a different voice. But for most of them, and for their superiors, I am just a Charlie disrupting the smooth running of the symposium.

Thus, I think I must try to attract the attention of the "big names," and during the coffee break, I decide to approach George Smoot, who is currently working at the Astroparticles and Cosmology Laboratory (APC) at Paris Diderot University.


George Smoot, Nobel Prize in Physics 2006

He received the Nobel Prize for demonstrating that the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation corresponds to a blackbody radiation. I stand beside him as he climbs the stairs.

"Mr. Smoot, I would like to present my work at a seminar in your laboratory."

"It will be difficult, as I am soon leaving for Hong Kong."

"There is no urgency. We could set a date."

He quickens his pace, annoyed.

"You may have seen my poster. I have developed a model where the universe is populated by positive and negative masses."

"When such opposite masses meet, they repel each other and the kinetic energy of the positive mass increases indefinitely…"

"Yes, that's the energy run-away effect, demonstrated by Bondi in 1957. But precisely, in my model, this effect disappears. The interaction laws derived from the Newtonian approximation based on two coupled field equations make negative masses self-attracting and opposite-sign masses mutually repel each other according to an anti-Newtonian law."

Smoot pours himself a cup of coffee, clearly not paying the slightest attention to what I am saying. He does not even glance at me, nor turn his head toward me. I have never seen such rudeness in my life. I conclude by saying:

"You treat me like a crackpot. But I am a serious scientist. I have published my work in peer-reviewed journals —"

I haven't finished my sentence when Smoot himself has already turned his back and walked away. Completely stunned by this behavior from a Nobel laureate.

Perhaps he was warned about me by his French colleagues, who do not allow me to present my work in any of their laboratories and do not even reply to my emails.


THURSDAY.

Fourth day. I decide to rest. It is very hot in Paris. 31°C (88°F) in the late afternoon, and I struggle to sleep. These "hostile interventions" are extremely exhausting. Nevertheless, the day's presentations focus on the detection of gravitational waves, a subject I have not yet addressed. Still, I attend the evening event at the restaurant Le Train Bleu, near Lyon Station, where the traditional dinner gathering all participants takes place.

In passing: a meal costing 90 euros absolutely scandalous. A waiter pours a single drop of red wine. There was so little that it seemed like a tasting. The cheese board: laughable, with slices only 2 mm thick. The bread, half-stale, visibly frozen. The appetizers and desserts straight from a supermarket. Only the decoration, the ceiling paintings, remain. The menu at this restaurant Le Train Bleu, Lyon Station: you would have eaten better in a snack bar!

I don't find the few young people I discussed with earlier days, so I randomly sit at a table. I try to start a conversation with my right neighbor, a young American. He is not a researcher but just a student. I am then confronted with a very simplistic conservatism, typically American. This boy is already well "programmed," very self-assured, completely closed to any idea that deviates from what he was taught during his studies. Our exchange is brief.

My left neighbor is the director of a high-energy laboratory. I mention the failure to find supersymmetric particles. But nothing shakes his conviction that all ongoing projects must continue: "We'll eventually find something," he says. The same goes for the work of Italian researcher Elena Aprile, who, in her tunnel beneath Mount Gran Sasso, searches for the neutralino in a ton of liquid xenon (and discovers… nothing!).

At one point, he steps out mockingly:

"Say, if no one paid attention to your theory, maybe it's because it doesn't hold up?"

You can be certain that this person will never read my articles.

In Frankfurt, I had erred through timidity. It is not easy to speak before two hundred people, defending ideas diametrically opposed to theirs. Ideas that, worse still, if confirmed, would collapse their entire body of work.

Frankfurt is Schwarzschild's hometown. The conference was called the "Karl Schwarzschild Meeting," and the "young hopes of cosmology" were awarded a "Schwarzschild Prize." You have seen (here) my report on this conference, where a senior German researcher admitted he had never read those foundational articles. In his presentation, Juan Maldacena referred to that first work, published exactly a century ago, as "something that caused confusion, but which was later clarified."

I will show that the exact opposite is true. There was a misinterpretation of Schwarzschild's solution by the great mathematician David Hilbert. And everyone followed suit. The first to notice this was an American, Leonard Abrams, who published an article in the Canadian Journal of Physics:

Abrams, L. S. (1989). « Black Holes: The Legacy of Hilbert's Error ». Canadian Journal of Physics 67 (9) : 919–926. doi:10.1139/p89-158. arXiv:gr-qc/0102055.

A completely unknown work (Abrams died in 2001). Italian physicist Salvatore Antoci picked up this work:

Antoci, S.; Liebscher, D.-E. (2001). « Reconsidering Schwarzschild’s original solution ». Astronomische Nachrichten. 322 (2) : 137–142. arXiv:gr-qc/0102084.

Antoci, S. (2003). « David Hilbert and the origin of the Schwarzschild solution ». Meteorological and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics. Bremen: Wilfried Schröder, Science Edition. arXiv:physics/0310104.

I tried to contact him, unfortunately he did not reply.

I believe he understood it was unwise to challenge the cult object of modern cosmology.

I will show (and you will understand my explanations) that the black hole rests on a century-old topological error. In Frankfurt, I would have liked to ask all participants whether they had read Schwarzschild's articles, especially Maldacena's. I bet I would have received the same negative response as during my oral presentation on Tuesday.

It is distressing. None of the specialists who make black holes their daily bread have ever read the two foundational articles published in January and February 1916 by Karl Schwarzschild, exactly one century ago. It is true that his first article (the "external" solution) was only translated into English in 1975. For 59 years, those who do not read German were content with "commentaries on commentaries," and errors spread unchecked, with practically no one revisiting them. As for Schwarzschild's second article (the "internal" solution), published in February 1916, three months before his death, it was only translated by Antoci in… December 1999!

How does the community perceive me?

The first answer is very simple: "It doesn't perceive me at all." No one pays attention to a person who only gets a poster presentation and, moreover, introduces negative mass into cosmology!

As for those who attended my "repeated interventions" in the amphitheater: what did they think? I suppose they didn't understand a word of what I said. Negative mass between galaxies? Never heard of such a thing...

No one came to me to learn more. By challenging the existence of black holes, and even that of dark matter, by suggesting alternative research paths, I was probably perceived as "a retired researcher, a bit rusty, out of step with current trends in cosmology," as Alain Riazuelo of the Paris Astrophysics Institute (IAP), a major CGI designer of black holes, wrote to me in an email.

The general public has a completely false idea of the scientific community. People imagine scientists as attentive to new ideas, ready for debate. In reality, most behave like believers. In recent years, new trends have emerged, with no observational basis. The most spectacular is "quantum gravity." You probably know that gravity has not yet been quantized. Every attempt to create a graviton hits insurmountable divergence problems. But it seems that by talking about "quantum gravity," by repeating these words like a mantra, the thing will eventually exist.

Just consider how black holes are presented, how they are literally "sold" to you. For thirty years, you've been served the same phrase, endlessly repeated by media under the influence of this community (they sell what they are given):

"Although there is no observational confirmation of the existence of black holes, no scientist doubts their existence anymore."

Does such a sentence deserve to be called scientific? Will you continue swallowing it without reacting? When everything rests on just one case—the binary system Cygnus X-1, detected in 1964, where the companion object emitting X-rays is credited with a mass between eight and fifteen solar masses (thus exceeding the critical mass of 2.5 solar masses). For fifty years—half a century—this is the only case of a "stellar black hole." Distance: 6,000 light-years. There is therefore an obvious uncertainty in measuring the distance and thus in estimating the masses of the two objects orbiting a common center of gravity.

There are two hundred billion stars in our galaxy. Half are multiple systems, usually binary. There should be between ten and a hundred million "black holes" in our galaxy, objects obviously closer to us than Cygnus X-1. And we haven't observed them for fifty years, despite our observational tools improving year after year!

At galactic centers: "supermassive black holes." In ours, an object with a mass equivalent to four million solar masses. Immediately, "it's a supermassive black hole." But this object does not behave like a black hole. The surrounding gas does not emit X-rays. In 1988, the Chandra satellite was placed in orbit, capable of detecting this radiation. It was pointed toward the center of the Milky Way: nothing.

"It's a saturated black hole," we even heard someone say!

In 2011, an interstellar gas flow headed toward it. Simulations were run to show what would happen: the gaseous mass would distort and be sucked in.


Summer 2013: the matter passed nearby—and nothing happened. For more on this, see Françoise Combes' conference on supermassive black holes at 12:33 (in French).

Could it be… an anorexic black hole?

You've heard of quasars. Again, it's a black hole that… etc. The model? In the same video: when the black hole has eaten enough, it "spits out"… The mechanism of this cosmic hiccup? Unknown, not described.

It's absurd! This is today's astrophysics and cosmology. Words, bluff, theories that aren't real. Arguments from authority, mythic visions, and computer-generated images. Some even add a grand poetic flourish of ambitious aspiration. Confrontation with observation? Why, is that so important? Let's go ahead, like with the absurdity of the multiverse!

FRIDAY.

I sit in the front row. This time, the chairperson warns me that the schedule is tight and long questions won't be allowed. A discouraging speech.

A Korean presents on various candidates for dark matter. The entire spectrum of "fairy dust" is reviewed.

At the end of the presentation, I raise my hand. But the chairperson, who is two meters away from me, turns his head elsewhere, clearly ignoring me, and exits into the corridor to look for other people wishing to ask questions in the room. In the front row, I remain with my arm fully raised.

This strategy is well known. Two or three speakers are selected and given the floor, then the chairperson turns toward the potential troublemaker and says:

"I'm sorry, but we have no more time."

But he finds only one