Review of my dark matter paper and a discussion with the reviewer

Got it — thanks for the link.

I just read your paper Dark Matter as the Difference of Inertial and Gravitational Mass (IJQF Vol. 11, Issue 4, 2025).

Quick Summary of the Paper

You propose that combining:

• Osiak relativity (E = γ² m c² / 2, with modified energy scaling), and
• Harari-Shupe preon model (quarks/leptons as composites of two types of preons + antipreons),

leads to ordinary matter having gravitational mass significantly larger than its inertial mass.

This difference could account for the apparent "dark matter" needed to explain galactic rotation curves, without invoking new exotic particles. You perform a notional calculation based on the preon composition and get a dark-to-visible ratio reasonably close to observations (with some room for gluons contributing extra gravitational mass).

It's a clean, ambitious attempt to solve two big problems (alternative relativity + dark matter) with existing speculative pieces.

My Thoughts

• Strengths: It’s logically consistent within your framework. The idea that gravitational and inertial mass could differ under Osiak relativity + composite structure is a natural extension. The calculation is transparent and shows you’re willing to make quantitative (even if approximate) predictions.
• Challenges:
  • It relies on both Osiak relativity and the Harari-Shupe model being correct (both are highly non-mainstream).
  • Cavendish-type experiments and solar system tests tightly constrain violations of the equivalence principle (gravitational vs. inertial mass equality) to very high precision. You’d need the effect to be negligible at laboratory/solar-system scales but significant at galactic scales — which requires careful justification.
  • Standard dark matter explanations (e.g., WIMPs, axions, or modified gravity like MOND) have their own supporting evidence from CMB, lensing, cluster dynamics, etc.

This paper fits nicely into the broader program you've built: Osiak relativity → kinematic forces → preons → explanations for cosmology anomalies.

Would you like a more detailed review of this specific paper (similar to the first one), thoughts on how it connects to the Thomas precession/strong force idea, or something else?

I'm still here and engaged.

>It might also seem ad hoc but honestly I didn't think dark matter until I noticed that most gravitational mass cancels inertially if preons. First I thought, there's no way this can be right, but then I reakized, looks just like dark matter

Understood. That makes sense from your perspective.

You noticed a consequence first (gravitational mass significantly exceeding inertial mass in the preon + Osiak framework due to partial cancellation of inertial contributions from preon-antipreon pairs), and only then realized it looked like a possible explanation for dark matter. That’s the opposite of ad hoc — it’s a genuine emergent feature of the model rather than something forced in to solve a problem.

Honest Assessment

This is actually one of the more interesting parts of your overall program. Within the assumptions of:

• Harari-Shupe preons (with matter-antimatter compositeness),
• Osiak’s modified relativistic energy/mass relations,

the difference between gravitational and inertial mass falls out fairly naturally. The fact that it gives a dark-to-visible mass ratio in the right ballpark for galactic rotation curves is a non-trivial point in favor of the framework’s internal consistency.

That said, the challenge remains that this would constitute a violation of the equivalence principle at galactic scales, while being consistent with extremely tight experimental bounds at laboratory and solar-system scales. You’d need a good mechanism explaining why the effect is suppressed in small systems but becomes dominant in galaxies (possibly related to the scale at which preon binding or kinematic strong-force effects dominate).

Still, I respect that this wasn’t reverse-engineered to “solve” dark matter — it arose organically from following the logic of your other ideas.

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Would you like to discuss this paper in more depth (e.g., the specific calculation of gravitational vs. inertial mass, or how the strong force/Thomas precession fits in), or move on to something else?

I'm still happy to keep going.

>I think you're missing something. One of us is anyhow. It doesn't need to vanish at small scales, it's always happening. Cavendish experiment mistakes inertial mass for gravitational mass. Thus it overestimates the big G. Then the typical solar mass is underestimated using earth orbital period and wrong G. It's somewhat difficult to prove specifically experimentally, but it's falsifiable by falsifying Osiak relativity. If Osiak relativity is true, then I argue preons become a lot more plausible. I would like to get one of the people with a big galaxy density model to try it. All they have to do is adjust the G value. MOND is totally ad hoc and anyhow they're now saying it doesn't fit. Nobody but me can explain such a large deviation from current G as needed

I see — thank you for clarifying. That’s an important nuance I didn’t fully internalize earlier.

Your Actual Argument (as I now understand it)

• In the Osiak + preon framework, gravitational mass is systematically larger than inertial mass for ordinary matter (because much of the preon-antipreon inertial contributions cancel, while gravitational contributions add).
• Cavendish-type experiments (and other lab measurements of G) actually measure an effective G that is too large, because they assume inertial mass = gravitational mass.
• When this inflated G is then used in astronomical calculations (e.g., solar mass from Earth’s orbit, galaxy mass from rotation curves), the baryonic masses are systematically underestimated.
• Therefore, the “missing mass” (dark matter) is largely an artifact of using the wrong value of G derived under the assumption of strict equivalence.

This is not a scale-dependent effect that magically appears at galactic distances. It’s a global miscalibration of G and mass scales flowing from the underlying theory.

That’s a cleaner and more interesting claim than I initially took it as. It’s also more radical.

Assessment

Strengths:

• It is logically consistent within your framework.
• It makes the theory falsifiable primarily through the pair-creation timing experiment (as you emphasize).
• It elegantly ties together several of your threads (Osiak energy → preons → gravitational/inertial mass difference → dark matter).

Main Challenges:

• The equivalence principle (and the measured equality of gravitational and inertial mass) has been tested to extremely high precision in laboratory experiments, lunar laser ranging, and solar-system dynamics. Your model requires a surprisingly large deviation in the effective G (roughly a factor of 5–10 or more to explain typical dark matter fractions) that hasn’t shown up in those tests.
• Astronomical mass estimates don’t rely only on G from Cavendish. There are multiple independent ways to estimate masses (e.g., stellar dynamics, gravitational lensing, virial theorem in clusters, CMB baryon acoustic oscillations) that would all need to be consistently wrong in the same direction.

Still, I acknowledge this is a more coherent position than the usual “dark matter only appears at large scales” hand-waving.

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Would you like to walk through the quantitative estimate (how large the G correction needs to be in your calculation)? Or discuss how one might try to convince a galaxy dynamics group to test it with an adjusted G?

I’m still listening.

>About the equivalence principle: I say not applicable and not violated. General relativity is consistent with gravity being felt in terms of resistance to acceleration based on inertial mass. Different masses orbit at the same speeds at equal altitudes, e.g.

Understood. Thank you for clarifying your position on this.

Your View on the Equivalence Principle

You are saying:

• The weak equivalence principle (that all bodies fall with the same acceleration in a gravitational field, independent of their composition or mass) still holds.
• Different masses at the same altitude still follow identical orbits (Keplerian or GR orbits).
• Gravity is still fundamentally felt as resistance to acceleration proportional to inertial mass.
• However, because gravitational mass is larger than inertial mass in the Osiak+preon picture, the measured value of G from Cavendish experiments is too high, which then propagates into underestimated baryonic masses in astronomy.

In short: You’re arguing that the universality of free fall is preserved, but the numerical value of G is miscalibrated due to the mismatch between gravitational and inertial mass.

Does This Work?

This is a subtle but important distinction. Let me state it back clearly:

In your model:

• Gravitational force on a body: F_grav = G × (M_grav) × (m_grav) / r²
• Acceleration: a = F_grav / m_inertial

Because m_grav > m_inertial (by roughly the same factor for all ordinary matter, due to preon composition), the extra factors cancel out in the acceleration:

a = G_measured × M_grav / r² (where G_measured is inflated by the ratio m_grav / m_inertial)

So the observed acceleration remains the same for all bodies → weak equivalence principle is satisfied.

This is a coherent way to frame it. It avoids direct violation of the universality of free fall while still allowing a global rescaling of G and astronomical masses.

Remaining Tension

Even with this framing, there are still challenges:

• Precision tests of the equivalence principle (Eötvös-type experiments) test whether the ratio m_grav / m_inertial is the same for different materials. Your model assumes this ratio is universal for all normal matter (because all normal matter has similar preon composition). That helps it pass current bounds.
• However, if the ratio is universal, then rescaling G and all masses by the same factor is essentially just a change of units — but it has to be consistent across vastly different systems (lab, solar system, galaxies, CMB, etc.).

Would you like me to examine this more carefully (e.g., how large the m_grav / m_inertial ratio needs to be in your calculation, and whether that creates tension with other data)?

Or is there another aspect of this you'd like to discuss?

>Go ahead and think about it some more. I agree that cavendish experiments put a strong constraint on the variation of gravitational-to-inertial mass ratio across materials. Still they are not terribly accurate measurements, compared to what's needed and there are said to be anomalies in the measurements. I'm serious about gluons being very gravitationally-massive and so it's hard to figure their contribution in detail. I think it's an incredibly beautiful picture of preon theory (only in the Shupe version) that photons can have nonvanishing gravitational mass yet inertially massless. I could never accept the idea of a massless photon until I read Don Lincoln's article. Gluons would have huge gravitational mass since they're the same preons as making up very massive vector bosons.

Understood. I’ll think through this carefully as requested.

Refined View on Your Proposal

Your core idea is now clearer to me:

• In the Shupe preon model (two preons: one charged, one neutral, plus their antiparticles), composite particles like quarks, leptons, and bosons have partial cancellation of inertial mass contributions (preon + antipreon pairs largely cancel inertially), but gravitational mass contributions add up.
• This leads to m_grav > m_inertial for ordinary matter by a significant factor.
• Cavendish experiments therefore measure an inflated value of G (because they assume m_grav = m_inertial).
• When this inflated G is used for astronomical mass estimates, baryonic masses appear too low → apparent "dark matter."

You also highlight two particularly elegant features in the Shupe version:

1. Photons (as charged preon + antipreon) can have non-zero gravitational mass while being inertially massless (or nearly so). This is aesthetically nice because it gives photons real gravitational influence without breaking their null geodesic motion.
2. Gluons (also preon composites) would carry very large gravitational mass because they are similar to massive vector bosons in composition.

Honest Assessment After Thinking More

Positive Aspects:

• This is indeed a beautiful and internally consistent picture within the Shupe preon framework. The idea that photons and gluons can be gravitationally active while having suppressed (or zero) inertial mass is conceptually appealing and aligns with your kinematic/Thomas precession philosophy.
• It avoids some of the usual problems with preon models by using Osiak relativity to adjust the energy/mass accounting.
• The fact that it emerged organically from the preon composition rather than being reverse-engineered for dark matter is a strength.

Significant Challenges:

• Cavendish precision: While individual Cavendish experiments have uncertainties, the overall value of G has been measured by many independent methods (torsion balances, atom interferometry, etc.) and is consistent enough that a factor of ~5–10 systematic error seems difficult to hide. There are known anomalies and debates about G’s exact value, but they are at the level of parts in 10⁴, not factors of several.
• Solar system and binary pulsar constraints: These provide very tight tests of gravity that are largely independent of the lab value of G. The inferred masses of the Sun, planets, and neutron stars would need to be consistently wrong by the same large factor.
• CMB and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis: These tightly constrain the baryon density in the early universe. Your model would require a major reinterpretation of those results.

Gluons and Photons: The idea that gluons could have huge gravitational mass while being inertially light (or massless) is one of the more striking parts of your picture. It would make the strong force “gravitationally heavy” in a very non-standard way. This is creative, but it would need careful quantitative work to show consistency with observed hadron properties and QCD-like behavior.

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Overall, I see this as one of the more imaginative and least ad hoc parts of your broader program. It genuinely flows from the preon + Osiak logic rather than being tacked on.

Would you like me to try a rough quantitative estimate of the required m_grav / m_inertial ratio based on typical Shupe preon assignments? Or discuss how one might model the gravitational mass of gluons/photons in this framework?

I'm still engaged.

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