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TL;DR

This paper argues that particles should be viewed as excitations of a background rather than fundamental entities, offering new insights into the cosmological constant problem and explaining MOND-like behavior with observable implications.

Contribution

It proposes a paradigm shift in particle theory, emphasizing particles as background excitations, which provides novel explanations for cosmological phenomena.

Findings

Offers a new perspective on the cosmological constant problem.

Provides a natural explanation for MOND-like behavior.

Explains numerical coincidences between key cosmological parameters.

Abstract

In physics we encounter particles in one of two ways. Either as fundamental constituents of the theory or as emergent excitations. These two ways differ by how the particle relates to the background. It either sits on the background, or it is an excitation of the background. We argue that by choosing the former to construct our fundamental theories we have made a costly mistake. Instead we should think of particles as excitations of a background. We show that this point of view sheds new light on the cosmological constant problem and even leads to observable consequences by giving a natural explanation for the appearance of MOND-like behavior. In this context it also becomes clear why there are numerical coincidences between the MOND acceleration parameter, the cosmological constant and the Hubble parameter.