2 days ago
A Scientist Thinks the Universe Bounced Out of a Black Hole
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story:
A new hypothesis from physicists at the University of Portsmouth in the U.K. challenges the long-standing Big Bang Theory as the ultimate origin of the universe.
This new 'Black Hole Universe' hypothesis, suggests that our universe possibly 'bounced' from the formation of larger black hole in another parent universe.
While intriguing, the Big Bang Theory is the undisputed cosmological champ for a reason, so it'll take lots of rigorous experiments to confirm its theoretical conclusions.
Throughout human history, there has been no greater question than 'where do we come from?' This existential curiosity has spawned entire religions, philosophies, and (more recently) serious scientific inquiry. Amazingly, as science and technology have progressed over the past century, we've begun to actually answer that age-old question. Thanks to groundbreaking discoveries in the 20th century—not the least of which was the accidental discovery of the cosmic microwave background in the 1960s—we now know that the universe most likely formed from a rapid expansion of matter known formally as the Big Bang.
But just because the Big Bang is our best answer for the beginning of everything, that doesn't mean it's the only one. In the early years, the main competitor to Big Bang Cosmology was the Steady State Universe (though the discovery of the CMB largely put that idea to rest). But in recent years, new alternatives have emerged to challenge the Big Bang's cosmological supremacy. One of the latest in this contrarian family is detailed in a new paper published in the journal Physical Review D, in which physicists from the University of Portsmouth in the U.K. theorize that maybe our universe formed within an interior black hole of a larger parent universe.
Yeah, let's dig into it.
Comparisons between black holes and the cosmology of our universe make some sense—after all, both contain singularities of a sort and horizons beyond which we can't hope to glimpse. However, this new theory, which is called the 'Black Hole Universe,' suggests that our black hole-generated universe is just one step in a cosmological cycle driven by gravity and quantum mechanics.
'The Big Bang model begins with a point of infinite density where the laws of physics break down. This is a deep theoretical problem that suggests the beginning of the Universe is not fully understood,' Enrique Gaztanaga, lead author of the study from the University of Portsmouth, said in a press statement. 'We've questioned that model and tackled questions from a different angle—by looking inward instead of outward. Instead of starting with an expanding Universe and asking how it began, we considered what happens when an overdensity of matter collapses under gravity.'
The genesis of this theory and others like it stems from the fact that we simply don't know what goes on the heart of black hole. And because knowledge (like nature) abhors a vacuum, scientists begin crafting hypotheses in an attempt to understand this unknown. In Gaztanaga and his team's case, they've shown that a gravitational collapse doesn't necessarily end in a singularity, but can instead 'bounce' into a new expansion phase.
'Crucially, this bounce occurs entirely within the framework of general relativity, combined with the basic principles of quantum mechanics,' Gaztanaga's team said in a press statement. 'We now have a fully worked-out solution that shows the bounce is not only possible—it's inevitable under the right conditions. One of the strengths of this model is that it makes predictions that can be thoroughly tested.'
As a science coordinator on the ESA mission Analysis of Resolved Remnants of Accreted galaxies as a Key Instrument for Halo Surveys, or ARRAKIHS (a true master-class in science acronym-ing), Gaztanaga hopes to use the instrument's ability to analyze ultra-low surface brightness structures in the outskirts of galaxies to see if data points to a 'Black Hole Universe' or the undisputed scientific champ, the Big Bang.
Presenting alternative ideas to long-standing theories is a key function of the scientific method, as it rigorously tests what we think we know from new angles. Even if ARRAKIHS confirms our Big Bang suspicions (as it most likely will), this alternative hypothesis still take us one step closer to truly understanding a question that's followed our species for hundreds of thousands of years.
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