New Newtonian Cosmology: Mass is Gravitational. Light is Not.

The basic postulate of New Newtonian Cosmology is that gravitational potential $\phi (x)$ is primordial from which mass density $\rho(x)$ is created through the Poisson differential equation:

• $\rho (x) =\Delta\phi (x)$                          (1)  

where $\Delta$ is the Laplacian differential operator acting on a Euclidean space coordinate $x$. The gravitational force $F(x)$ is equal to $-\nabla\phi (x)$ and scales with mass density $\rho (x)$:

• $F(x) = -\nabla\phi (x)\times \rho (x)$.    (2)

The action of $F(x)$ on $ \rho (x)$ can be viewed to be instant since both force and mass are created by the local operation of differentiation. 

In standard cosmology instead mass density$ $\rho (x) is assumed to be primordial from which the gravitational potential $\phi (x)$ is created as solution to the differential equation:

• $\Delta\phi (x) =/rho (x)$        (3)

corresponding to a summation/integration process which is global and so requires instant action at distance, which is a basic unsolved problem of cosmology.   

New Newtonian Cosmology thus offers a solution to a basic problem of standard cosmology. It also illuminates the nature of mass as basically gravitational mass "created" by (1), which is the origin of inertial mass as resistance to acceleration with necessarily 

• inertial mass = gravitational mass.     (4)

Einstein took (4) as the basic postulate/assumption of General Relativity picked from the air without need of justification as a deep secret of Nature beyond human comprehension.  In New Newtonian Cosmology (4) is a direct consequence of the nature of mass as created by a gravitational potential through (1) and thus ultimately of gravitational origin and nature. In other words, mass is gravitational mass and so any other expression of mass such as inertial mass, must be equal to gravitational mass. 

We also understand that what we view as matter is something having positive mass density with corresponding gravitational force appearing as weight. We thus see that the concepts of matter, mass and weight are basically the same as all being created by the same gravitational potential through (1).   

New Newtonian Cosmology based on (1) also may offer a solution to the mysterious dark matter as something with positive mass density, which does not emit/reflect light and so is invisible. The argument is that there is nothing in (1) that says that mass density must be visible. 

If now gravitational force acts only on positive mass density according to (2), it follows that something with zero mass density is not acted upon by gravitation. Or the other way around, if light has positive mass   

then light must be created by gravitation and so there can be no dark matter as something created by gravitation, which is invisible. We thus can argue that since there apparently is some dark matter out there in the Universe even if not detectable here on Earth, light must be massless. 

In other words, light cannot be affected by gravitation, since it does not have gravitational origin and so is massless. The apparent "gravitational lensing" of light thus must be caused by something else such as variable speed of light in a non-perfect vacuum (containing some form of "dust"). 

On the other hand, General Relativity states that light "bends" in a gravitational field just like the trajectory of any space object with mass. In other words, Einstein's energy = mass can be extended to also light = mass, and so everything is put into the pot as the same potato even if of fundamentally different nature. To make different concepts the same concept may seem as an advance but may also simply express confusion.

Notice that the idea that all mass is gravitational mass, is very different from the prevailing idea of modern physics expressed in the Standard Model, where mass is created by a force-carrying elementary particle of the Higgs field named Higgs boson granting mass to quarks and electrons, with unclear connection to gravitational potential.

So we have to views on mass and gravitation on cosmological scales: 

• New Newtonian Cosmology: Gravitational potential primordial giving mass to matter.
• Standard Model: Mass granted to matter by Higgs bosons as elementary particle. Gravitation a mystery.   

New Newtonian Cosmology connects to Mach's idea that the gravitational potential connects to the entire mass of the Universe, as a top-down process from large scale to small scale. The Standard Model offers a bottom-up process from extreme small scale to extreme large scale, which does not capture gravitation.

Which process would you vote for?