Generally, I am a sceptic about MOND, but I acknowledge its successes in explaining a lot of strange phenomena in cosmology, and I am much more skeptical to the existence of dark matter and dark energy. But I do not think that MOND provides an explanation, or can even be considered a theory. What it does, it provides an interesting and very successful empirical relation that explains a variety of observations without directly invoking dark matter.
Another aspect of the book is the philosophical side of the story. I learned a lot about the philosophy of science, though I was vaguely familiar with some of it before. It is an interesting approach to defend a candidate theory using philosophical arguments. What I definitely do not agree with is that those philosophical criteria should have any weight in deciding which theory is true or not. Specifically, a large emphasis is given to the ability of a new theory to predict observations, and if those observations were really known before the theory or not. That, in my opinion has little to do with validating a theory. A theory is an objective knowledge. Its truthfulness does not depend on when a certain civilization decided to perform one or another experiment or observation. A theory should be judged by how well it explains known and future facts, regardless of the timing. And even explaining known facts cannot always be a sufficient condition for its truthfulness or even acceptance as a valid hypothesis. And here is the main problem with MOND, which is carefully avoided in the book. MOND, as currently built has some fundamental problems. One of the most obvious is that the modified gravitational force makes it a non-conservative force. Meaning that the energy change of a particle going from point A to point B should not depend on the path it chooses to take. In MOND the path matters. If the particle chooses a path with acceleration less than 10^-10 m/s^2 it will gain different amount of gravitational energy than if it chooses a path with higher acceleration. That either violates conservation laws or supposes an energy exchange with something else, which is not specified, and can well be called "dark matter". So, in this way MOND is no different than the dark matter hypothesis. It is just not saying that dark matter causes this discrepancy in the observable gravitational force. Those kind of concerns, that a hypothesis must not violate some basic principles even if it explains everything known, is the main reason why MOND has not gained much scientific traction. Many scientists find dark matter more acceptable than violating those basic principles.
So, while I do not find myself convinced of the scientific merit of MOND, I find the book to be a very interesting reading. I learned a lot from it about both, MOND and the philosophy of science. Strongly recommend even to not so open minded readers. One can definitely learn from it.
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Top reviews from other countries
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Un remarquable livre : tout étudiant en physique devrait y jeter un œil.
Reviewed in France on October 29, 2020Amazon Customer
Clear outline to this view on gravity.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 10, 2021
