MOND vs. dark matter in light of historical parallels

Abstract

MOND is a paradigm that contends to account for the mass discrepancies in the Universe without invoking ‘dark’ components, such as ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’. It does so by supplanting Newtonian dynamics and General Relativity, departing from them at very low accelerations. Having in mind readers who are historians and philosophers of science, as well as physicists and astronomers, I describe in this review the main aspects of MOND – its statement, its basic tenets, its main predictions, and the tests of these predictions – contrasting it with the dark-matter paradigm. I then discuss possible wider ramifications of MOND, for example the potential significance of the MOND constant, $a_0$, with possible implications for the roots of MOND in cosmology. Along the way I point to parallels with several historical instances of nascent paradigms. In particular, with the emergence of the Copernican world picture, that of quantum physics, and that of relativity, as regards their initial advent, their development, their schematic structure, and their ramifications. For example, the interplay between theories and their corollary laws, and the centrality of a new constant with converging values as deduced from seemingly unrelated manifestations of these laws. I demonstrate how MOND has already unearthed a number of unsuspected laws of galactic dynamics (to which, indeed, $a_0$ is central) predicting them a priori, and leading to their subsequent verification. I parallel the struggle of the new with the old paradigms, and the appearance of hybrid paradigms at such times of struggle. I also try to identify in the history of those established paradigms a stage that can be likened to that of MOND today.