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Every Black Hole Contains Another Universe?

52 points| nreece | 16 years ago |news.nationalgeographic.com | reply

51 comments

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[+] btilly|16 years ago|reply
It is worth noting that the estimated mass of the universe is the same as the mass of a black hole whose event horizon has the radius of the visible universe.

This coincidence is rather striking and has been the subject of much speculation, though nobody has been able to make anything useful come out of it. If this theory manages to predict this relation within the created universe, that would be evidence for the theory.

[+] rbanffy|16 years ago|reply
> It is worth noting that the estimated mass of the universe is the same as the mass of a black hole whose event horizon has the radius of the visible universe.

Also note that if there are universes inside black-holes in our own universe, they have much less mass to play with.

The best this theory (that, unless it can be tested, may not deserve to be called one) has going for it is that the math is right. And since I haven't seen it, I can't say that either.

National Geographic is not the best source for news in Physics or Cosmology.

[+] aufreak3|16 years ago|reply
This is interesting news, but not very surprising strangely enough.

If you assume that the next approximation to Newton's gravity equations are similar to Maxwell's equations (thereby introducing a secondary field analogous to B, the magnetic field) then you can do back of the envelope calculations that get you interesting results including this one - i.e. our universe's radius is of the order of Schwarzchild's radius of a black hole of the mass we estimate, together with the acceleration equivalences under that condition. By that I mean - the two situations of you accelerating w.r.t the rest of the universe and the rest of the universe accelerating w.r.t. to you are physically indistinguishable. You can get that for rotation (in which case the B analog gives you Coriolis force) and for linear acceleration as well. I think in these limiting calculations you get some constant factors wrong (like the Newtonian escape velocity calculation) but the order turns out ok.

This "analog of B" is called the "gravitomagnetic field" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitomagnetism) and NASA's GP-A and GP-B probes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_Probe_B) are for measuring this effect near earth.

[+] dazmax|16 years ago|reply
Wouldn't that mean the expansion of the universe is being caused by addition of mass? Would we be able to tell if our universe was getting 'heavier'?
[+] gjm11|16 years ago|reply
The idea that black hole formation might also be universe formation is quite old; I don't know what the new contribution of Poplowski's work is. (For the avoidance of doubt, I simply mean "I don't know" and not, e.g., "I suspect there is none".)

Lee Smolin made an ingenious observation: if that's so, and if it happens that in the "daughter" universe the constants of nature are slightly (and variably) different from those in the "parent", then we have exactly the setup required for Darwinian evolution, and we should expect universes to be selected for black hole fecundity. (And if that's correlated with, e.g., the viability of stars, then perhaps it explains "fine tuning", in so far as that actually exists.) Smolin wrote a book about this, called "The life of the cosmos", but I haven't read it so can't recommend or disrecommend it.

[+] yacin|16 years ago|reply
They mention in the article that Poplowski's contribution is providing a new mathematical model for this old idea.
[+] eru|16 years ago|reply
Only we do not have competition for shared resources or any other pressure.
[+] fun2have|16 years ago|reply
Is this not a Turtles all the way down theory. We are in a Black hole which is inside a Black Hole?

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever", said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down

[+] rms|16 years ago|reply
I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with a Turtles all the way down theory, as long as it is supported by facts.
[+] chrischen|16 years ago|reply
Is the black whole compressing space? So basically it makes things so small to us it's practically another universe? Then considering things can become infinitely large we are just part of another bigger universe.

Anyways I always thought that parallel universes could not interact with each other (since, if I understand correctly, the parallel universes in the many worlds theory cannot interact with each other) so describing the black holes as containing another universe seems misleading.

[+] Deestan|16 years ago|reply
In these matters, the human concepts of size and space breaks down and are as good as meaningless, so it's counterproductive to think of other universes as smaller or bigger. They just are. :)

The many worlds theory and its parallel universes is unrelated to this, so its rule of no interaction does no apply.

[+] binarymax|16 years ago|reply
"If future experiments reveal that our universe appears to rotate in a preferred direction, it would be indirect evidence supporting his wormhole theory, Poplawski said."

I was wondering, If the universe is our only point of reference, and everything in it is (at a whole) rotating at the same speed and in the same direction, how we could tell?

[+] 83457|16 years ago|reply
speed of light?
[+] crazydiamond|16 years ago|reply
If we are within a black hole, should we not see matter pouring in ?

Or would it be too slow for us to notice?

[+] ldh|16 years ago|reply
As the article states, this might be observed in the form of the big bang and/or gamma ray bursts.
[+] daniel-cussen|16 years ago|reply
A recursive universe then?

So, if a universe is big enough for black holes, it might have black holes in it, but if it isn't, it's just a regular-old stars and planets universe. And then, any black hole it might have has a reduced universe inside it.

[+] markbnine|16 years ago|reply
I like that this article is filed under Daily News.
[+] SanPedroGrouch|16 years ago|reply
This is something Carl Sagan said matter-of-factly near the start of his series COSMOS. "We live inside a Black Hole."
[+] chanux|16 years ago|reply
Oh that is recursion!
[+] ldh|16 years ago|reply
This just in: scientists discover the fate of our universe will be a stack overflow.
[+] peterbraden|16 years ago|reply
If this is true, is the LHC creating universes?
[+] JCThoughtscream|16 years ago|reply
And if so, what are the ontological implications of it creating universes with a strong anthropomorphic bias?
[+] rbanffy|16 years ago|reply
That last a fraction of a second.
[+] suraj|16 years ago|reply
By definition there is only one universe.
[+] jjs|16 years ago|reply
By definition there is only one universe.

Ontology recapitulates tautology.

[+] rms|16 years ago|reply
But what about by ontology?
[+] apphacker|16 years ago|reply
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Also what happens to this "universe" when the black hole dissipates due to Hawkins Radiation?
[+] CUViper|16 years ago|reply
I thought it was weird that Stephen Hawking wasn't mentioned at all in an article about black holes. But to be fair, I don't think we have any evidence of Hawking Radiation either.
[+] malbs|16 years ago|reply
The idea of the big bang being caused by some sort of 'white hole', is kind of cool. Here you have an object absorbing all matter, becoming infinitely dense, and at some point, it becomes so dense with matter that it actually tears a hole right through the fabric of the universe, where it then diffuses into a new reality where matter is low/non-existant. You'd have to agree that if this is possible, the 'explosion' that would occurr as the black hole diffused through the tear would be terrific. Would it be equivelent to a 'big bang'? I don't know.

Perhaps the life (or death) of a black hole varies, dependent on the available matter for the black hole to consume. A black hole that never reaches that critical amount of mass required to tear through into a new dimension (or whatever the terminology for describing the event is) is doomed to dissipate via Hawkins Radiation, however a black hole that consumes enough matter to tear such a hole, ends up disappearing anyway, as it diffuses into the newly created universe?

I have no idea, nor am I qualified in any way to have an opinion. I did read 'A Brief History of Time' once though!

[+] ntoshev|16 years ago|reply
Right, I had this theory as a teenager, reading popular physics. I'm sure lots of other people noticed the big bang / black hole symmetry. A pretty model should not be enough to make it significant... otoh, relativity theory was once just a pretty model too. Is their model pretty enough?

Also, any matter falling into a black hole should appear in the other universe. It would be an interesting to have new mass/energy appearing in our universe.

[+] bdfh42|16 years ago|reply
You are quite correct "Hawking Radiation" (entropy) completely blows this (rather fun) theory to pieces. Nice idea but does not stand up to inspection.
[+] korch|16 years ago|reply
"Real Hackers" generate black holes, constructing them in turn to generate sub-Universes, causing a Universal exception, which can be used as a buffer overflow exploit in the Laws of Physics. Basically, if you can figure out how to do this, you'll be Neo.