Gravitational Flux Transport Networks v5.0: Gravity as Resistance to Expansion — A Dark-Energy-Free Cosmology

This paper proposes the third great baseline inversion in the history of physics.

Galileo corrected Aristotle's baseline (rest → uniform motion): the machinery of "sustained force for motion" dissolved.
Copernicus corrected Ptolemy's baseline (Earth stationary → Earth moving): epicycles dissolved.
We correct Einstein's 1917 baseline (static universe → expanding universe): dark energy (Λ) dissolves.

The central argument begins with standard cosmology's own analogy. The Friedmann equations were derived from the escape velocity condition. But a rocket that reaches escape velocity turns off its engine and coasts forever — no continuous fuel required. The cumulative cost of escape is finite (GMm/R) and the cost rate vanishes (dE/dr = GMm/r² → 0). The Big Bang was the engine. It fired once, 13.8 billion years ago. Since then, the universe has been coasting on inertia. Dark energy is the ghost of a misread analogy.

The underlying error is a baseline assumption invisible for a century: current cosmology treats the static Minkowski spacetime as the zero-cost default, and requires dark energy to explain why the universe expands. We invert this. Expansion is the zero-cost state (C_expansion → 0 as R → ∞). Static configurations cost energy (C_static = GM²/R > 0, always). The lazy propagation principle — developed in the companion paper v4.0 — selects the zero-cost state as the natural default. Expansion needs no explanation. Stasis does.

In the expanding baseline:
- Gravity is resistance to expansion: g = a_expansion − a_actual = H₀r − a_actual
- The flat galactic rotation curve (g ∝ 1/r) emerges from spherical geometry in the expanding baseline — an independent derivation of the v4.0 result
- E = mc² is the energy cost of maintaining mass at rest in an expanding universe
- The equivalence principle (m_inertial = m_gravitational) is the identity of two resistances to baseline departure, no longer a mysterious coincidence
- MOND's empirical scale a₀ ≈ cH₀ is the natural acceleration of the expanding baseline — the scale at which gravity and expansion balance
- The observable universe radius equals the Schwarzschild radius of its total mass (r_s ≈ r_H) as the critical balance condition, not a coincidence
- The Hubble tension is the difference in baseline deviation between early and local universe
- DESI's w(z) ≠ −1 is predicted: Λ_apparent(t) = (8πG/c²)·ρ_feedback(t) evolves as voids grow
- Observed accelerated expansion is weakening deceleration, not a new energy field
- The Big Bang is a laziness threshold violation (r_s > d_max); inflation is baseline recovery
- Cyclic cosmology without black holes: feedback builds structure, lazy propagation grows voids, uniform state is unstable, new threshold violation begins new aeon

Einstein's 1915 field equations without Λ already gave an expanding universe. The equations were correct. Einstein added Λ in 1917 because he assumed the static state should be the solution — the Aristotelian instinct applied to cosmology. The 1998 reintroduction of Λ repeated the same assumption. Both Λ's are epicycles.

No new physics is required. Einstein's original equations are sufficient. The universe was never dark. The assumptions were.

Companion paper: Gravitational Flux Transport Networks v4.0 (dark matter resolved by geometric correction A_eff = 4πHr).