A visual metaphor for space, gravity, and dark energy

Because you like to think, imagine, visualize, and perhaps solve . . .

Dark energy is often described as one of the great mysteries of modern cosmology. It appears to be driving the accelerated expansion of the universe, but no one knows what it actually is.

Why doesn’t it clump? Why don’t we feel its effects locally? Why does it seem to oppose gravity?

These questions persist largely because of a hidden assumption: that gravity is the only large-scale curvature shaping the cosmos, and that its effects should simply add up.

The more mass, the greater the pull, the greater the slowdown. But the universe isn’t slowing. It’s accelerating.

In general relativity, gravity isn’t a force. It’s the shape of space. Mass is said to curve space, and objects move along the paths defined by that curvature—known as geodesics.

When the curvature is concave (like a bowl), geodesics converge. When it’s convex (like a dome), they diverge.

In this picture, gravity’s seeming “pull” is just motion along inward-bending field lines. There’s no pulling—just falling into curves. What we call attraction is a form of concave geometry.

Now consider dark energy. It doesn’t attract. It doesn’t bind. It doesn’t even register locally. But it causes everything far apart to become farther apart faster. That’s not a push—it’s a change in global geometry. The geodesics are bending outward. Dark energy, in this sense, is not a force. It’s convex curvature on the largest scales.

Here’s a way to visualize the problem. Imagine standing in a valley halfway up a mountain. Locally, the landscape is sloped inward—you’re surrounded by concavity. That’s gravity. But when viewed from above, you’re clearly in the outward-facing slope of a mountain—a convex curve. That’s dark energy.

We measure gravity in solar systems and galaxies, where it dominates. Its concave geometry overwhelms everything else. But when we look across billions of light-years—between galaxy clusters—we begin to see the larger, convex shape: space itself is stretching.

This makes dark energy nearly impossible to isolate locally. It’s like trying to detect Earth’s curvature while standing in a ditch. The local dip masks the larger shape.

In molecular biology, protein folding determines function. A single molecule can behave in radically different ways depending on how it’s folded. Geometry creates behavior.

What if the same is true for spacetime?

Concave folds may produce behaviors we interpret as “attraction.” Convex folds may produce “repulsion.” Field lines aren’t forces—they’re guidance structures.

And when space folds in different ways, it produces different relational outcomes between objects: pull, push, bind, scatter.

This kind of geometric reasoning already appears in quantum field theory. The strong nuclear force, for instance, has both attractive and repulsive geometries depending on distance.

There’s nothing strange about a field shifting behavior based on shape and scale.

It’s important to distinguish visualization from explanation. A photo of a flower is not a flower. Analogies can help us think clearly—or mislead us. However, when used with care, they offer profound insight.

The mistake may not be in our math, but in our mental model. We’ve been trying to interpret the universe through the lens of forces—things that push and pull.

But space doesn’t push or pull. It guides. And that guidance depends on how it’s shaped.

Gravity is not inherently attractive; it’s a concave shaping of space that brings paths together. Dark energy may be a convex shaping, spreading paths apart over vast scales.

Locally, gravity dominates. Universally, dark energy emerges. We can’t detect dark energy near us because we’re inside a gravitational valley—yet we’re also halfway up a cosmic mountain.

Shape is function. Like proteins, spacetime may express different “forces” through different geometric configurations.

So perhaps the real mystery is not dark energy at all. Perhaps the mystery is why we ever expected the universe to behave like a sum of forces—rather than a living landscape of evolving, folded geometry.

A thought: Is it possible that, like the strong nuclear force, which has both attractive and repulsive geometries depending on distance, “dark energy” is a model for gravity at a longer distance?

Fruitlessly, we search for the graviton, the hypothetical elementary particle that mediates the force of gravitational interaction. Equally fruitlessly, we search for Dark Sector Mediators.

There may be no mediators of gravitational or dark energy. It could be that gravity and dark energy are two sides of the same fundamental coin, shaping everything in the universe.

If we ask, what is the fundamental “substance” from which all matter and energy are made, one candidate might be gravity and its opposite, dark energy.

Gravity is the Janus of reality—one face curving space inward, the other bending time outward.

One face pulls galaxies together; the other drives them apart. One wears the mask of gravity, the other, of dark energy.

Both faces arise from the same unseen geometry but show us opposite illusions: attraction and repulsion.

We search for the graviton on one side and, perhaps, the “repulson” on the other—neither particle found, yet both shaping the cosmos.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

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