The origin of mass and gravity
Everything Wants to Expand: One Principle That Replaces Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and Explains the Origin of Mass and Gravity
JongJin Ma — June 2, 2026
What if the entire universe could be explained by a single sentence?
Not a complicated equation. Not a dozen postulates. One sentence:
Everything seeks to expand as freely as possible.
From this single principle, we derive the origin of mass, the nature of gravity, why galaxies rotate the way they do, why the universe looks like a cosmic web — and why dark matter and dark energy were never needed.
This is the Expansion Freedom Principle, presented in full in the preprint available on Zenodo (v6.0)(https://zenodo.org/records/20502253)
The Premise: Expansion Is Acceleration
Before anything else, one idea must be accepted. It may feel unfamiliar — but once you accept it, everything follows.
Cosmic expansion is not just things moving apart. It is acceleration.
Hubble’s law: v = H · d. The farther something is, the faster it recedes. Velocity increases with distance; distance increases with time. That is acceleration.
More precisely: take an object moving at constant speed and track it in an expanding universe. It appears to accelerate. This is not a trick of coordinates. Expansion genuinely changes inertial frames.
This also explains why F = ma exists. In a hypothetical static universe, pushing something would move it by a fixed distance: F = kx. Translate to an expanding universe where position maps to velocity, and you get F = ma. Expansion elevates physics by one dimension. Aristotle was right for a static universe. Galileo is right for an expanding one.
The Natural State: Expanding Like Light
Galileo overturned Aristotle: rest is not the natural state — uniform motion is.
This framework takes one more step. Uniform linear motion is not the deepest natural state either. It is what you get when free expansion is partially blocked by binding forces.
The true natural state is free expansion — spreading outward in all directions, like light.
Light has no mass, no binding forces. It perfectly embodies free expansion. The speed of light c is not an arbitrary constant. It is the speed of completely unobstructed expansion.
Everything in the universe is trying to be light. Most things can’t quite make it — because they are bound together.
Where Mass Comes From
Particles are held together by binding forces: strong nuclear, electromagnetic, weak. These forces resist free expansion. When a particle is prevented from expanding freely, it lags behind the universal expansion.
By Mach’s principle, inertia is acceleration relative to everything else. The cosmic expansion is the most universal acceleration there is. So when a particle lags behind due to binding forces, it acquires inertia relative to the universe.
That inertia, measured as a quantity, is mass.
The stronger the binding force, the more a particle resists free expansion, the more massive it is. This is why protons are so much heavier than electrons.
Since c is the speed of free expansion:
Nuclear reactions release energy that was always supposed to be traveling at c — finally freed.
Why Massive Objects Are Hard to Accelerate
This is where Newton’s second law gets a real physical explanation — not just a formula, but a reason.
A massive object has strong binding forces. Those same binding forces that create mass make it difficult for the object to expand in any direction. Even the freest available path — uniform linear motion — becomes harder to accelerate along, because the binding forces are holding the object back from expanding freely in any direction.
To push a massive object is to try to redirect its expansion. But binding forces resist this in every direction. The stronger the binding forces, the harder it is to produce any change:
A light object has plenty of expansion freedom remaining — easy to redirect. A heavy object has most of its expansion freedom already locked up by binding forces — hard to move in any direction.
This also explains why acceleration becomes harder as velocity approaches c: the remaining expansion freedom diminishes toward zero. There is simply no room left to push.
Gravity Is Not Attraction — It Is Exclusion
Here is the most important reframing.
Gravity does not pull things together. Voids expand away, and matter gets left behind.
Matter also tends to separate — it participates in the same drive to expand. But bound matter lags behind free space. As voids expand freely, bound matter is excluded — pushed toward other matter.
This is not attraction. It is exclusion. Like oil droplets on water: the water expands its surface, the oil is pushed aside and appears to clump. The water is not attracting the oil.
And the equivalence principle — Einstein’s famous axiom — is no longer an axiom. It is a necessary consequence: both inertial mass and gravity arise from the same cause: binding forces resisting free expansion.
The Killer Point: Flat Rotation Curves Are Inertial Motion
For decades, flat galactic rotation curves have been the central puzzle of cosmology. The standard answer: dark matter. But this framework says the premise is wrong.
Here is the argument that dark matter cannot work, ever:
Adding mass (dark matter) preserves the Keplerian shape of the rotation curve. No matter how much mass you add:
You can shift the curve upward, but it will always decline with radius. v = const is mathematically impossible from a Keplerian system.
Flat rotation curves are not a Keplerian anomaly requiring more mass. They are inertial motion — a completely different type of motion.
| Solar system | Galactic outskirts | |
|---|---|---|
| Balance | Gravity = centrifugal force | Expansion acceleration = gravity |
| Motion type | Dynamical orbital | Inertial |
| Velocity | Keplerian: v ∝ r−1/2 | Flat: v = const |
In the solar system, the circular orbit deviates from the expansion contour — it is forced motion. In galactic outskirts, the expansion contour itself is circular — stars follow it naturally. That is inertia.
Why is the inertial contour circular in a galaxy?
The void surrounds the galaxy disk from outside, pushing stars inward. Galactic gravity resists further inward motion. The only open direction — the only path of maximum expansion freedom — is tangential. Stars don’t orbit the galaxy. They slide along the only free path available.
This is the same move Galileo made. Aristotle said motion needs a cause. Galileo said uniform motion needs no cause — inertia. Now: astronomers say flat rotation curves need a cause (dark matter). This framework says flat rotation curves need no cause — they are inertial motion.
The Cosmic Web Is Evidence That Matter Wants to Separate
Matter also tends to separate — it participates in the expansion drive, just less freely than void space.
If matter only attracted, it would collapse to one lump. If only void pressure acted, matter would form flat sheets. But the actual universe shows filaments — matter spread thin across maximum volume.
The filamentary web structure is therefore direct observational evidence that matter tends to separate. The cosmic web is not a puzzle requiring dark matter. It is the natural result of a universe where everything — matter and void alike — tries to expand as freely as possible.
Dark Energy: A Solution to a Non-Problem
Free expansion costs zero energy. It is the ground state. The universe does not need a driving force to expand — expansion is what it does by default. What requires energy is stopping expansion.
One Sentence
Every phenomenon above follows from one sentence:
Everything seeks to expand as freely as possible.
| Phenomenon | Standard interpretation | This framework |
|---|---|---|
| Inertia | Newton’s axiom | Free expansion embodiment |
| Mass | Intrinsic property | Expansion freedom denied |
| E=mc² | Mass-energy equivalence | Stored denied expansion energy |
| F=ma | Newton’s 2nd law | Expanding-universe translation of F=kx |
| Equivalence principle | Einstein’s axiom | Necessary consequence |
| Gravity | Attractive force | Exclusion from void expansion |
| Flat rotation curves | Needs dark matter | Inertial motion |
| Cosmic web | Needs dark matter | Void expansion + matter separation |
| Dark energy | Expansion driver | Unnecessary |
What’s Next
This is v6.0. Future versions will address: Hubble tension, black hole rotation, galactic morphology, hierarchical cosmic structure, and quantum uncertainty as expansion freedom’s microscopic expression.
Full preprint with all derivations: Zenodo — Gravitational Flux Transport Networks v6.0.
JongJin Ma is an independent theoretical physicist.
Previous work: The Geometry Was Wrong: Why Dark Matter Doesn’t Exist
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