Although most of my research and teaching since I left Manchester in 1972 has been concerned with astronomy and astrophysics, I still tried to keep abreast with developments in other areas of physics. However, I was uneasy about the way subatomic physics was going. I was uncomfortable with the quark theory of matter, and when string theory came along I was even more uncomfortable, especially as it involved spaces of more than four dimensions.

Ever since my first introduction to neutrons, protons and electrons I was struck by the fact that although the proton was almost 2 000 times more massive than the electron, the electric charge on the two were exactly equal in magnitude, but opposite in sign! While, as a post-graduate, in was attending lectures on cosmic electrodynamics in the department of mathematics at Manchester University (given by Professor Leon Mestel, who is a world authority magnetic stars) and lectures on magnetic fields in astronomy (given by the late Professor Franz Kahn, a world authority on the interstellar medium) I had an idea about how the neutron might decay to give a proton, an electron and a anti-neutrino. The image that I conceived was that this neutron decay was similar, in some respects, to the formation of a loop prominence and a sunspot pair on the Sun. It was several years before I could take this idea further.

The central feature of my theory is the concept of lines of force. In this theory there are no particles, only three kinds of space and electric lines of force. What we normally call particles are "compactified" bundles of lines of force wound up in the form of 'yarns of wool'. The electrical energy in these 'balls of yarn' give the particles their masses according to Einstein's formula E = mc2 . In ordinary space these lines will go from a proton to an electron, but in plasma space the lines of force go back from the electron to the proton in very thin braided ropes that are encased in sheaths of insulating space. The sheaths of insulating space are elasticated, so they behave like stretched elastic tubes or like spiral springs. Their stretching means that they have energy stored in them. At the atomic and sub-atomic level the main consequence of these encased ropes of electric lines of force give rise, when we are dealing with large numbers of protons, neutron and electrons, to a criss-crossing web which can push particles around, thus giving rise to the 'quantum noise' of the universe. On the scale of galaxies and clusters of galaxies the many billions upon billions of these ropes, and the tension in the sheaths surrounding them, give rise to an additional attraction between vast masses of particles. It is this additional attraction which we call 'Dark Matter'. The energy contained in the web itself gives rise to additional mass which is another component of dark matter. On the cosmological scale the braiding begins to 'unbraid' as the cosmic net expands and the lines of force within the sheaths of insulating space become more and more parallel to each other. The tension, or negative pressure, in the elasticated sheaths will increase as the universe expands and this, in the context of the General Theory of Relativity, will give rise to the accelerating expansion of the universe. This is what we call 'Dark Energy.'

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