A new paper published in the prestigious paper 'Nature' suggests that our Universe might just be the result of the 4d star collapsing into a black hole. http://www.nature.com/news/did-a-hyper-black-hole-spawn-the-universe-1.13743 This is so exciting, and to me especially because when I first heard of black holes this was my first thought - that on the other side must be another universe. It was just a child's imagination, but as many other things, perhaps it's telling of an instinctive knowledge living things have? Does it mean that our own black holes are just portals into two-dimensional Universes with two-dimensional beings (perhaps the Mary Sues and Gary Stues )
Black holes are cool, but I always kind of imagined they aren’t holes at all, they just stuff mass into a super-duper dense blob (like making a snowball really dense and hard before you throw it at an unsuspecting passer-by) I like the theory of a multiverse, and the idea that our universe big banged when another universe fell apart. I read this short story – and this must be the truth about the origins of our universe – in which, at the beginning, there was a sausage floating in nothingness. First it was really, really, really hot, but then cooled down. When the sausage was cool, some weird creature and its friends stopped by. Two of them ventured on the sausage, wondering what the hell it was, and when the other creature accidentally touched it with its head, the sausage sucked it in and then big banged into our universe.
Hahhaha, sausage, that sounds so surreal. I see what you mean about the snowball. I always imagined black hole was a funnel with universes on either side
In fiction, we are limited by our imaginations. I science there are no such limitations. I still can't get my head around radio waves. I can't imagine what one would look like if I could see them. Whatever I come up with, there's always some hard evidence that tells me I'm wrong. As for quantum physics ..... Matter spontaneously creates itself, often in the form of wire coat hangers. Everyone has these but nobody buys them and shops don't even stock them!
You know how they say :"If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." Very true about the coat hangers too.
the common sense problem with both this and the 'big bang' theory is that something had to exist before the 'collapse' or the 'bang' or there couldn't be a collapse or bang... and if there was a star and a black hole [or material that could cause a 'big bang'] already in existence, wouldn't that = some form of a 'universe'?... and how did that get started? the fact is humans simply are not able to comprehend the concept of 'infinity' since everything in human existence has a beginning and an end... so they keep trying to make up scenarios to explain something they aren't capable of understanding... which is how ancient myths, the torah, and the bible came to be, along with all of those astrophysicists' illogical theories...
@mammamaia: Definitely, it suggests a preexisting universe, and many before that. It doesn't answer the question 'how did the first ever universe come to be' but rather 'how did our universe come to be'. I don't think there's any disagreement in the world of physics about the difficulties human brain has in accepting the idea of infinity. Certainly, I don't have the issue with it as such even though it's difficult to comprehend fully, but I don't think it's productive to assume things are infinite and leave it at that. Good science is about forever searching, probing, breaking things down into constituent parts, in order to gain deeper understanding. There might be an infinity at the bottom of it, or there might not. We have barely scratched the surface of the whole truth. However, theories like this one are purely based on mathematics which has no emotional attachment to philosophical possibilities
Lot's of sci-fi writers have postulated this bullshit idea. But anyone who has read A Brief History of Time knows it's just that. Black holes contain a pulsar, which exists in our universe. They are not wormholes to another dimension, and if you travel through one you die. I'd include a better link, but I can't find Hawking's book online. It's like he wants to make money off it or something.
Well there goes all hope for me to create an Empire on one... Serious Question what would happen if one happened to slam into another black hole? Would they merge or start ripping each other to shreds in an endless war?
However, if we assume that if something always had to come first we fall into an infinite regress as stated by Aristotle. If one object always formed from another, or an action from a previous, or one universe from another, that logic would create an infinite number of universes into the "past"; making today an impossibility because an infinite regress provides no starting time.
@Jack Asher: Yeah, but, 'Brief History of Time" was written like 20 years ago. Besides, Hawking's is just a theory, and theories are meant to be challenged, improved upon and even refuted. Even a part of a theory may be correct, and another part incorrect. It is my understanding there's a lot of squabbling in the physics community about just about everything, so I'm sure there are pro and cons teams about this as well But since publishing in 'Nature' is every natural scientist's wet dream, I won't be dismissing this article. @Dresden260: On one hand they could merge. For two universes of same dimensionality and age as ours, the collision probably wouldn't rip apart anything, because interstellar bodies are too far away for that. Similar to galaxy collisions we are seeing today. On the other hand, if the universes were more compressed, maybe it would tear apart the fabric of space or even cause annihilation. Or maybe they wouldn't interact but be 'conjoined' and sharing a 'membrane' (another concept suggested by some theoretical maths). Imagine multiple universes sharing 'membranes', like multicellular organisms, and becoming sentient, how cool would that be? It would certainly be interesting to find out
Yeah, @jazzabel , I agree it is important to realize that we're dealing with a lot of theory here. The history of science is full of examples of people becoming too comfortable with their theories and that tunnel vision leading them down the wrong path. Our knowledge of black holes comes primarily from indirect observation, and we formulate theories to explain and predict, &c. Branes are interesting, and if you look at some of Brian Greene's books written for the lay audience, you will find some discussions of them (I think The Elegant Universe gets into that). I found the article you linked interesting, particularly in that the model proposed addresses some longstanding issues with the Big Bang that have never had really satisfactory answers. Not that I'm ready to buy into the model proposed, but it is certainly interesting.
Thanks for the book recommendation @Steerpike , I'll look it up I'm not going to buy into a first publication of a new theory either, but I find the proposal really elegant and intuitive and that appeals to me.
Everyone seems to be thinking in terms of 'cause and effect'. Apparently, on a quantum level, this principle doesn't apply. So 'something out of nothing' is not necessarily a problem. At least we don't believe in a God that's meant to have appeared out of nothing for no reason.
Mmmmm! Sausage!!! Hope its Italian sausage. Some mild, some hot, both with green peppers and onions orbiting. Then I warp in with my hoggie bun and gravity draws them inside. There's no escape for I am the black hole. Their kinda like BLT's made with fresh garden tomatoes and thick peppered bacon. I just don't know how many I could eat before exploding because my event horizon always run out of bacon. It's a finite universe. I better go check the freezer.
A Big Bang does not require any "before" state. A collapse would. bit not a sudden expansion from a singularity at time t = 0. In fact, the Big Bang also marks the beginning of time as well, so there rally is no "before." It's intuitively difficult, because we are used to thinking that every event has other events preceding it. But intuitive or not, the concept of something preceding the Big Bang is fallacious.
@jazzabel are you sure this was actually published in Nature? This looks like its nature news talking about a paper archived on an arxiv site.
Yes, I think this is important and hard for people to conceptualize. Also, if I'm not mistaken, what we currently know about a Big Bang, or even what we can know, grinds to a complete halt at the Planck Time, which comes just after the Big Bang and beyond which the physical laws of the universe break down and we're left in the dark.
One of the scientific laws is that matter is never destroyed it simply changes from one form to another. Yet they say the one exemption is in a black hole matter is destroyed forever. Maybe the matter is in fact not destroyed, but transported to a different dimension or a different place in the universe. Why would that be so hard to believe?
I think J. B. S. Haldane said it best when he said, "The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, it is queerer than we can suppose."
Ah, the universe. I can't say much valuable about this proposed theory as I entirely lack the required knowledge to even begin to comprehend it to its fullest. I can get the layman explanations of course, but I can't even begin to pretend that I can say anything productive about this theory and whether or not it's true. I hope this won't derail the thread, but here is a video that view every now and then to appreciate the size of things. Puts our pathetic squabbles into perspective:
Who are "they"? The mass of a black hole continues to in crease as it accretes matter. Also, the mass/energy of a black hole can return to the rest of the universe over time, due to the Hawking Effect, quantum tunneling across the event horizon. As the black hole shrinks due to the Hawking Effect, its rate of loss increases and its temperature increases, to the point that it evaporates explosively in a high energy burst of radiation.
The First Law of Thermodynamics also assumes a closed system, so if a black hole did have a gateway to another universe through which things could somehow pass, then that law would no longer apply within the confines of our universe.
There are other scientist who believe Hawking is wrong, which of course it is hard to prove one way or the other because it entirely theoretical.
There really isn't any discussion about this one. I suppose you say that black holes are actually dwarf kingdoms, and pretend there was a scientific controversy. But they aren't and there is not. Here's why: There is a flaw in theoretical allegory that compare space to a grid or a peice paper or to a sheet of rubber. That is that all of these things can develop holes. This has given rise to the sci-fi trope of a hole in the universe. In most cases this is caused by a huge expenditure of energy, an explosion, or the extreme gravity of a black hole. Invariably the concept is that space has been torn irreparably and must be fixed somehow. The reality is that the fundamental nature of the universe is more like thick soup. It can bend and warp, but it never changes it's cohesive structure. When it does break (as with a wormhole) the expenditure is enormous, not to cause the break, but to keep it open. The structure of reality closes up a wormhole almost instantly. If a wormhole was a portal to another dimension...somehow...then the mass at the heart of the wormhole, the pulsar, would shift from one universe to another. This would close the "portal" and the black hole would dissapear. The model is unsustainable. When the article mentioned a brane that was two dimensional, he wasn't talking about a physical thing. The event horizon has an inside and an outside, and is therefor two dimensional.
