Fundamental problem solved (or not, as the case may be)

This transcript of a talk on arXiv by physics and astronomy professor Paul Howard Frampton combines plausible sounding solutions to dark matter, dark energy and the nature of the universe with some rather peculiar personal observations. It's worth reading for its eccentric observations alone.

But the physics first. Frampton argues that primordial black holes created by a double dose of early inflation of the universe could account for all dark matter. Doesn't sound wildly improbable.

Secondly, he argues that if you assume the universe is "approximated" or "is close to" to being a black hole, the maths show that there should be a cosmic acceleration of about the right speed for what is observed. Why this should be is not entirely clear to me; it's one of those cases where I really need a science populariser to decipher some formulae. It is also not entirely clear as to what he means when he says the result falls out of the universe being "close to" a black hole. Does this mean he isn't saying the universe isn't really the inside of a giant black hole? I'm not sure.

It's not the first time anyone has suggested the universe might be inside a black hole, but it might be the first time the suggestion has been made that it should give an acceleration of the kind observed.

The consequence of this theory being right would be very important for fundamental unification of physics:

The aforementioned solution, of the dark energy problem, not only solves a cosmological problem, it casts a completely new light, on the nature of the gravitational force. Since the expansion of the universe, including the acceleration thereof, can only be a gravitational phenomenon, I arrive at the viewpoint, that gravity is a classical result, of the second law of thermodynamics. This means that gravity cannot be regarded as, on a footing with, the electroweak and strong interactions. Although this can be the most radical change, in gravity theory, for over three centuries, it is worth emphasizing, that general relativity remains unscathed.

My result calls into question, almost all of the work done on quantum gravity, since the discovery of quantum mechanics. For gravity, there is no longer necessity for a graviton. In the case of string theory, the principal motivation17,18 for the profound, and historical, suggestion, by Scherk and Schwarz, that string theory be reinterpreted, not as a theory of the strong interaction, but instead as a theory of the gravitational interaction, came from the natural appearance, of a massless graviton, in the closed string sector. I am not saying that string theory is dead. What I am saying is, that string theory cannot be a theory of the fundamental gravitational interaction, since there is no fundamental gravitational interaction.

Now for the eccentric passages. There are quite a few, but this is perhaps the highlight, explaining his feeling when he had his insight (only earlier this year):

There was an indescribable feeling of personal fulfillment, that the 66 years and 98 days, so far, of my life, had a significance. This was/is a totally individual experience which, unlike money or fame, involves no other person, and is therefore different. Because the visible universe is much bigger than the Solar System b, I had vindicated my claim, as a four-year-old, to be cleverer than Newton. Because, in my opinion, time travel into the past will forever be impossible, I cannot return to Isaac Newton in 1686 and forewarn him that a cleverer person will be born on October 31, 1943; nor can I return to 1948 and tell the four-year-old on a tricycle that he is right to say he is cleverer than Newton. The first reaction is to want to achieve the personal fulfillment again, and again.

Hmm. Paul Frampton looks quite normal, and appears to have had a long career in physics. He sure doesn't seem to write about himself a very "normal" way, though.