2023-01-04 First new, shorter post : the state of MOND research.

Short, single topic post.

These posts were getting really long - and therefore daunting to undertake. Maybe doing shorter, single topic posts will be easier.

New Year, New MOND data

A personal itch, being scratched in public

On a regular basis one hears assertions that "Big Science suppresses non-standard theories" - often followed up by "Free energy" schemes, Climate change scepticism, Anti-vaccination screeds and the like. It's a feature particularly of Slashdot, but more generally of the Internet. If I "did" Facebook, I'd probably cite them too. Kooks are everywhere and are vocal, and they love a "my voice is being suppressed" narrative.

So, a few months ago, I conducted an (admittedly crude) survey of a "controversial" idea in "non-standard" science using Arχiv. It was nothing complex (I searched for various terms ["Mordehai Milgrom", "MOND", "Non-Newtonian Gravity", "MOG", "Dark matter" in Arχiv's database (anywhere in article title, abstract, or body text, or figures) from Jan 01 to Dec 31 for each year, recording the counts. And now, it's time to update the numbers. They're not good reading for the conspiracy-of-suppression" theorists (well, is any reading good for them? It's not as if they like actual evidence).

Date of search	Mordehai Milgrom	MOND	Non-Newtonian Gravity	MOG	Dark matter
1991 - 2001-12-31	75	1072	735	180	43348
2001-12-31	4	38	46	16	3404
2002-12-31	2	12	13	2	693
2003-12-31	1	22	17	2	765
2004-12-31	1	12	20	2	885
2005-12-31	2	35	22	2	1005
2006-12-31	2	35	27	4	1068
2007-12-31	2	49	24	2	1179
2008-12-31	3	61	20	3	1329
2009-12-31	4	51	23	6	1635
2010-12-31	5	50	38	4	1586
2011-12-31	4	60	35	5	1643
2012-12-31	5	42	23	6	1765
2013-12-31	6	56	33	3	1802
2014-12-31	3	58	33	8	1986
2015-12-31	3	40	33	5	2123
2016-12-31	6	51	32	6	2150
2017-12-31	2	55	39	17	2239
2018-12-31	3	48	35	16	2231
2019-12-31	4	55	34	8	2419
2020-12-31	3	51	46	19	2525
2021-12-31	2	43	47	9	2651
2022-12-31	4	63	44	11	2836
2023-12-31	4	85	51	24	3429

How long is it since I made a snide comment about conspiracists and their data aversion? Too long. See table above. For those who aren't familiar with the field, "Mordehai Milgrom" is a prominent researcher in "modified gravity" ; "MOND" is a popular theory of "modified gravity" ; "MOG" is a different such theory ; "non-Newtonian Gravity" is more general term for the field ("Newtonian Gravity" being the "Big Science" conventional theory in favour of which all the other theories are being suppressed for (whatever) reason(s) ; "Dark Matter" is just there for a marker of overall theoretical activity in astronomy.

Lots of data. Would a picture help?

Much clearer. Publications in these two particular theories of non-Newtonian gravity have continued to happen at comparable rates to general astronomical activity, though the relative popularity of these two theories varies a little, "MOG" having picked up in the last few years. Mr (Professor? Probably.) Milgrom continues to publish at a fairly consistent rate - which isn't so surprising, since he's been doing so for about 40 years.

That's not the sign of a field of research that is being "suppressed", "forced underground", or even "harmful to researcher's careers". It's a sign of a relatively unpopular topic within a field. Now, "unpopular" may not be a particularly nice state to be in (anthropomorphising "theories"), but it's not a sign of effective suppression. Effective suppression is samizdat publication on midnight press runs, and the occasional publisher's head boiled in tar and spiked over the entry gates to Physics & Astronomy Departments pour encourager les autres (a short-form Voltaire-ism [Candide, ch.xxiii]; the long form is darker than many people realise.)

Having done the leg-work, I'll continue to update the data file yearly (until I get bored). If you think I should be looking at different data, that's what the "Comments" are enabled for.

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