For many years, scientists have believed that dark matter and dark energy make up most of the cosmos. But new research challenges that view, suggesting these mysterious components might not exist at all. Instead, the effects we attribute to them could arise naturally if the fundamental forces of the universe slowly weaken as it grows older.
The study, led by Rajendra Gupta, an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Ottawa, proposes that gradual changes in the strength of nature's forces (such as gravity) over time and space could explain several puzzling cosmic behaviors. These include how galaxies rotate, evolve, and cluster, as well as how the universe expands.
"The universe's forces actually get weaker on the average as it expands," Professor Gupta explains. "This weakening makes it look like there's a mysterious push making the universe expand faster (which is identified as dark energy). However, at galactic and galaxy-cluster scale, the variation of these forces over their gravitationally bound space results in extra gravity (which is considered due to dark matter). But those things might just be illusions, emergent from the evolving constants defining the strength of the forces."
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