Philip Mannheim: The Story of Conformal Gravity

Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal

Curt Jaimungal

Society & Culture, Physics, Science, Philosophy

4.6 • 616 Ratings

🗓️ 6 July 2026

⏱️ 155 minutes

🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS

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Summary

SPONSORS: - Don’t sleep on [@ultrapouches]. New customers get 15% Off with code TOE at http://takeultra.com! #UltraPouches #ad - Shopify: Accelerate your efficiency. Free trial at http://shopify.com/theories - I personally subscribe to The Economist. TOE listeners get 35% off the annual subscription. No other podcast has this! https://economist.com/TOE This podcast is about dark matter — and Professor Philip Mannheim thinks it isn't missing at all, just hiding in plain sight as the rest of the visible universe. In his first-ever podcast, on ideas he's pursued since 1972, Mannheim lays out conformal gravity: a theory built on Weyl symmetry rather than Einstein's equations, which explains galaxy rotation curves without dark matter, tames the cosmological constant, and fits the accelerating universe without fine-tuning. With longtime collaborator Carl Bender, he also resolves gravity's infamous "ghost" problem using PT symmetry instead of Hermiticity — suggesting the graviton may not even exist as a particle. I hope you enjoy. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00:00 - Einstein's Relativity Foundations - 00:05:47 - Riemann Tensor and Curvature - 00:11:50 - Flaws in Einstein's Equations - 00:17:23 - Quantum Gravity Renormalizability - 00:23:28 - Conformal Symmetry Principles - 00:30:09 - Dynamical Mass Generation - 00:37:08 - Inflation and Horizon Problems - 00:43:55 - Renormalization Group Fixed Points - 00:51:05 - Composite Higgs Solution - 00:57:03 - Weyl Tensor Action - 01:03:44 - Solving Dark Matter - 01:09:36 - Cosmic Coincidence Problem - 01:16:27 - Hubble Tension and Redshift - 01:24:31 - PT Symmetry and Ghosts - 01:31:21 - Probability Conservation vs. Hermiticity - 01:38:13 - CPT Theorem and Fermions - 01:45:14 - Quantum Decays and Resonances - 01:51:05 - Parity and Right-Handed Neutrinos - 01:56:14 - Gravitons and Wavefunction Collapse - 02:02:24 - Cyclic Universes and Singularities - 02:08:24 - String Theory Fine-Tuning - 02:14:45 - Unitarity and Poincaré Stresses - 02:21:02 - Gravitational Lensing and Tenure - 02:26:55 - Nature and Experimental Data LINKS MENTIONED: - Philip's Papers: https://inspirehep.net/authors/998943 - Newton's Law Of Gravity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_law_of_universal_gravitation - Geodesics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesics_in_general_relativity - Equivalence Principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_principle - Introduction To General Relativity [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0070004234?tag=toe08-20 - Foundation Of The General Theory Of Relativity [Paper]: https://isidore.co/misc/Physics%20papers%20and%20books/St.%20John's%20College's,%20TAC's%20curricula's,%20et%20alii%20sci.%20papers/1916-%20The%20Foundation%20of%20the%20General%20Theory%20of%20Relativity%20(Einstein).pdf - Dynamical Symmetry Breaking As A Bootstrap [Paper]: https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.12.1772 - Dynamics Of The Universe And Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking [Paper]: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1980ApJ...241L..59K/abstract - Mass Generation, The Cosmological Constant Problem, Conformal Symmetry, And The Higgs Boson [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.08907 - Living Without Supersymmetry [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1506.01399 - Exact Vacuum Solution To Conformal Weyl Gravity And Galactic Rotation Curves [Paper]: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1989ApJ...342..635M/abstract - No-Ghost Theorem For The Pais-Uhlenbeck Oscillator [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/0706.0207 - Fitting Galactic Rotation Curves With Conformal Gravity [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1011.3495 - Cosmic Coincidence Problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_coincidence_problem - Cosmological Perturbations In Conformal Gravity [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1109.4119 - Implications Of Cosmic Repulsion For Gravitational Theory [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9804335 - Exact Solution To Perturbative Conformal Cosmology [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.02608 - CPT Symmetry Without Hermiticity [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.02100 - Jenny Wagner [TOE]: https://youtu.be/Bj4Ra75vvTc - Neil Turok [TOE]: https://youtu.be/_xxLW71vT4s - Chiara Marletto [TOE]: https://youtu.be/Uey_mUy1vN0 - John Donoghue [TOE]: https://youtu.be/dG_uKJx6Lpg - Cumrun Vafa [TOE]: https://youtu.be/kUHOoMX4Bqw Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The missing mass that we've defined as the art matter problem isn't missing. It's the rest of the
0:06.4	visible universe and it's been hiding in plain size. It's been there all along. Is the Graviton
0:11.6	then composite or fundamental? It's neither. It doesn't exist. Man, talk about fighting words.
0:18.0	Nature will keep you honest. This is the legendary Professor Philip Mannheim,
0:22.8	and today I'm excited to bring you his first ever podcast.
0:26.5	He's been working on a theory which solves dark matter and quantum gravity
0:29.8	simultaneously for literally decades.
0:32.9	You start out with a standard theory.
0:35.0	It doesn't work for galaxies, so you invent dark matter. It doesn't work for cosmology. You invent dark energy. It doesn't work for quantum theory, so you invent string theory. I haven't done that. I've just taken the theory and I've solved it. On this channel, I, Kurtzai Mungle, interview researchers regarding their theories of reality with rigor and technical depth. Today, what the professor argues is that we've been wrong about dark matter.
0:56.9	We also have no big bang in the universe, according to his theory.
1:00.6	Add further speculations on what collapses the wave function is a particle that we don't see.
1:05.4	It's one of the most startling discoveries in human history.
1:08.6	I can't describe it any other way.
1:13.1	Welcome to the story of conformal gravity. Professor, what precisely is Einstein's theory of gravity? Oh, well, I have to give you a
1:20.5	somewhat extensive answer to that. Einstein, in the early 20th century, developed what's called the special theory of relativity,
1:29.6	and he was dealing with a problem, and the problem was there was Newton's laws of motion,
1:36.9	and there were the Maxwell equations of electromagnetism, and they had different symmetries.
1:42.9	And what Einstein realized was there had to be a universal symmetry,
1:46.0	which we now call Lorentz invariance,
1:49.0	which meant modifying Newton's law.
1:52.0	And you can see this very simply, if you take Newton's law,
1:55.0	it just says you apply a force, you get an acceleration.
	...

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