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This article explores the links between space, time, matter and its motion in the essential context of the universe they constitute. Conventional and standard physics maintains a nearly dismissive separation between dynamics and the matter-filled universe and indeed between cosmic matter and a priori space-time while asserting their mutual influence in other physical situations through the Einstein equations of general relativity. This can be traced to the incompatibility between the special theory of relativity that rejects a preferred frame and the real situation of a single matter-filled universe in which observers in different states of motion have measurably different experiences. We will argue that the present position cannot be maintained consistent with empirical and physico-logical evidence. The historical fact that all our fundamental theories were formulated and completed before we acquired significant and crucial knowledge about the matter content of the universe and its gravity is contrasted with the unavoidable situation that all our empirical experience and dynamics happens in the presence of all other matter in the universe. A careful analysis leads to a new and necessary paradigm in which several of our notions and even fundamental theories involving space, time and matter need to be reformulated with cosmic gravity as the determining factor. This, when combined with some crucial experimental results, answers several open issues that have been debated for centuries in foundational physics.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-44418-5_14

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