The Blowtorch Theory: A New Model for Structure Formation in the Universe

Summary

For scientists interested in citation, this post can be cited in Chicago style as follows:Gough, Julian. “The Blowtorch Theory: A New Model for Structure Formation in the Universe.” The Egg and the Rock, March 19, 2025. https://theeggandtherock.com/p/the-blowtorch-theory-a-new-model.DOI to follow.We have known since the 1970s that our universe has a complex structure. Dense nodes, packed with galaxies and gas, are connected by long, thin, filaments of galaxies and gas, all surrounded by largely empty voids. This structure resembles the neural network in a brain, and is known as the Cosmic Web. Its extraordinary scale and complexity was not predicted in advance of observation, and came as a huge surprise. So, how did all this unexpected structure form?This is – and I cannot emphasise this enough – not a photo of the Cosmic Web. We don’t have fabulously detailed photos like this, for all sorts of reasons. This is a computer-generated image of what we think the Cosmic Web looks like, taken from the Millennium Simulation (which we will talk about later). But yeah, it probably looks a bit like this. The bright yellow blobs are clusters and superclusters of galaxies. The pink and purple threads joining them are filaments, also containing gas and galaxies (yellow dots). The dark spaces are voids. (Your eyes would just see the galaxies.) Credit: Volker Springel / Max Planck Institute For Astrophysics. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.The current mainstream answer to that question is called Lambda Cold Dark Matter (ΛCDM ), and it is entirely passive. Based on gravity gradually pulling everything into shape, it requires huge quantities of (unfortunately, to date, entirely theoretical) “dark matter” to work. (Plus a lot of “dark energy” – that’s the lambda bit.) Despite decades of refinement, Lambda Cold Dark Matter still can’t coherently explain all the relevant observed phenomena without making some alarmingly ad hoc, post...