As a fan of cutting-edge physics and cosmology, I look out for quirky little discoveries and speculations by scientists as to what these quirky discoveries MIGHT mean. Most of them turn out not to mean much, but once in a blue moon some odd little thing signals the eventual overthrow of a whole way of looking at – well, looking at the Universe! E.g., back in the mid-19th Century, astronomers knew that something was a bit off with their observations of Mercury. They were still using Newtonian physics, whereby they needed the more sophisticated Einsteinian relativity theories to predict what light and gravity would do on larger scales like solar systems. And those theories eventually came along, and changed the Newtonian world of absolute coordinates and timeframes into the relativistic worldview that Einstein requires.

So, I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow after reading an article about the non-dilation of time in recent quasar observations. Time dilation is the crazy effect of clocks going slower on a system moving at very high speeds (perhaps close to light-speed) relative to the system where the observations are being made. E.g., the example given in many physics books regards twin brothers, one who stays on earth all his life and the other who blasts off in a super-rocket at age 20, loops around the Milky Way at near-light speed, then returns to earth 50 years later. The earth brother is now aged 70; the rocket man brother was subject to time dilation, and thus might only be 10 years older (this varies, depending on just how fast that rocket was cruising); he really does still have the body of a 30 year old!

Well, the astrophysicists now say that something’s not right with quasars; their own “clocks” don’t seen to slow down, despite their rapid movement relative to us. Or at least we’re not getting the observations that we expect, given how time dilation works with other very-distant objects. So what does it all mean? Right now, the physicists don’t really know. One possibility is that there are a lot more black holes out there than we thought, and these are bending light in a way that APPEARS to show no time dilation, even though there really is. Hmmm; if so, then perhaps the universe is sprinkled with mini-black holes, and these make up much of the “missing mass” that is behind the “dark matter” mystery. More on that in a second.

Then there’s an even bigger possibility: There’s a slight chance that the universe is not expanding and that the big bang theory is wrong. No responsible scientist wants to go THAT FAR right now. There are plenty of smaller-fish theories to examine first. But still, it’s an amazing possibility.

But even the “black hole sprinkle” idea (which is not well accepted either) would have big implications. I also read an article recently about the possibility of “dark and fluffy WIMP stars” being somewhere out there, perhaps from very early times in the universe. (Recall that when the Hubble telescope sees an object at the far end of the universe, it took the light from that object maybe 8 or 10 billion years to reach us; so we are making a picture of something as it existed long, long ago, something which may not be around anymore)(think of that old song by the BeeGees, “Edge of the Universe”).

WIMP’s are leading candidates for the missing dark matter in the universe; the acronym means “weakly interacting massive particles”. It’s possible that there were stars made up of WIMPS; they would have to be “dark stars”, given that dark matter does not directly give off any detectable radiation. The problem with WIMPS is that if they did come together by gravity into a star-like arrangement, they would annihilate each other over time. After billions of years, these WIMP stars might become black holes, from the stuff left over after the WIMPS self-destructed each other.

That idea would explain another cosmic mystery, i.e. why huge black holes are detected at greater distances (and thus at earlier times in the universe) than general physics theories predict.

Well then, I have to ask (naively, given that I don’t understand the complex physics behind all of this): is it possible that WIMPS have mostly been destroyed by now, and thus, dark matter is largely composed of black-holes that came from former WIMPS (and also from primordial black holes, i.e. somehow formed at the big bang itself)? And wouldn’t that be consistent with the other article, offering an explanation of why quasars don’t appear to be time-dilated like they should?

Then again, I’m not a physicist and there are probably plenty of reasons why my speculation here is totally wrong. But it’s still fun to take a shot in the dark, to get out the good old S.W.A.G. (“stupid wild-ass guessing”). If I were right, though, it would put a damper on another SWAG theory that I enjoy, i.e. Prof. Frank Tipler’s “Omega Point” scenario. Under this scenario, intelligent life will eventually engineer a way to reconstitute and re-enliven every sentient being who ever existed in the universe. I.e., the dead shall be raised and brought back to life. Perhaps in a very different way, more like “The Matrix” than through physical bodies made up of carbon-based organic materials. But alive and conscious, nonetheless.

Unfortunately, this will take many billions of years, and by then the trace energy signals from our lives that are expanding throughout the vast expanses of space, like waves in a pond after a rock is thrown in the water, might be torn up by all of those black holes out there. Black holes are seen as eaters of information (but that idea is also up in the air.)

So, even if the elaborate future envisioned by Tipler were to somehow transpire, those well-intentioned beings from the future might not have enough “information” to work with to bring us all back to life, due to all the little black holes out there. Oh well, no need to get upset. It’s all just “S.W.A.G.” (stupid wild-ass guessing) right now, anyway.