Latest news with #BlackHoleUniverse
Mint
2 days ago
- Science
- Mint
Are we inside a black hole? New study challenges the Big Bang theory: ‘We are not special'
A new study by UK scientists has questioned the famous Big Bang theory. It suggests the universe may not have started from a single explosion. The research, published in Physical Review D by scientists from the University of Portsmouth, puts forward a bold new idea. It says our universe exists inside a black hole. The team believes the universe was born from a huge gravitational collapse that formed a black hole. This theory, called the 'Black Hole Universe', goes against the older idea that the universe came from a point of infinite density. Instead, the new theory says the matter inside the black hole got extremely compressed. Then, it bounced outward like a spring. This bounce is believed to have led to the universe we see today. The idea suggests that the universe was not created from nothing. But, it is part of a continuous cycle of collapse and rebirth. The study challenges long-held views of cosmic beginnings. According to Professor Enrique Gaztanaga, when matter collapses due to gravity, it doesn't always end in a point of infinite density. Instead, it can become very dense and then bounce back, creating a new, expanding universe. According to the theory, our universe's edge is the black hole's event horizon. It is a boundary that blocks us from seeing what lies beyond. Unlike the Big Bang theory, this model combines general relativity and quantum physics. Quantum laws say matter cannot be compressed forever. "We are not special. We are not witnessing the birth of everything from nothing, but rather the continuation of a cosmic cycle - one shaped by gravity, quantum mechanics, and the deep interconnections between them," GB News quoted Prof Gaztanaga as saying. New images from the James Webb Space Telescope show more early galaxies spinning one way than the other. This odd pattern suggests the universe may have been born spinning. This is believed to be a sign it could have formed inside a black hole. Experts say this idea, called black hole cosmology, might also explain the mystery of dark matter and supermassive black holes. The Big Bang Theory says that our whole universe began from one tiny point nearly 14 billion years ago. Then, like a sudden explosion, this tiny point burst and started expanding in all directions. At that time, there were no people, Earth, or sky: just energy and tiny particles flying around. Slowly, over lakhs and crores of years, stars, galaxies and planets like our Earth began to form.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Big Bang theory is wrong, claim scientists
The Big Bang theory is wrong and the universe is sitting inside a black hole, scientists have suggested. Researchers have believed everything that exists exploded from a single point of infinite density, or singularity, since the 1930s, when Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian theoretical physicist, proposed that the universe emerged from a 'primeval atom' – the theory known as the Big Bang. Now an international team of physicists, led by the University of Portsmouth's Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, has suggested instead that the universe formed following a huge gravitational collapse that generated a massive black hole. Matter within the black hole was crunched down before the huge amounts of stored energy caused it to bounce back like a compressed spring, creating our universe. The new theory has been named Black Hole Universe and suggests that, rather than the birth of the universe being from nothing, it is the continuation of a cosmic cycle. It also suggests that the edge of our universe is the event horizon of a black hole, from which light cannot escape, making it impossible for us to see beyond into our parent universe. It implies other black holes may also contain unseen universes. Prof Enrique Gaztañaga said: 'We've shown that gravitational collapse does not have to end in a singularity and found that a collapsing cloud of matter can reach a high-density state and then bounce, rebounding outward into a new expanding phase. 'What emerges on the other side of the bounce is a universe remarkably like our own. Even more surprisingly, the rebound naturally produces a phase of accelerated expansion driven not by a hypothetical field but by the physics of the bounce itself. 'We now have a fully worked-out solution that shows the bounce is not only possible – it's inevitable under the right conditions.' The Big Bang theory was based on classic physics, but scientists have struggled to make it fit with known effects of quantum mechanics, which sets a limit on how much matter can be compressed. Physicists such as Roger Penrose and Prof Stephen Hawking had suggested that gravitational collapse inside a black hole must lead to a singularity, but under the new model that does not need to happen. Matter does not need to crunch down infinitely, just enough so it can bounce back. Unlike the Big Bang theory, the new theory model aligns with both the general theory of relativity and quantum physics. Prof Gaztañaga added: 'In contrast to the famous singularity theorems by Penrose and Hawking, which assume that matter can be compressed indefinitely, we rely on the fact that quantum physics places fundamental limits on how much matter can be compressed. 'The Black Hole Universe also offers a new perspective on our place in the cosmos. In this framework, our entire observable universe lies inside the interior of a black hole formed in some larger 'parent' universe. 'We are not special. We are not witnessing the birth of everything from nothing, but rather the continuation of a cosmic cycle – one shaped by gravity, quantum mechanics, and the deep interconnections between them.' The theory that the universe might exist inside a black hole was first proposed in 1972 by Raj Kumar Pathria, an Indian theoretical physicist, but gained little traction. However, recent observations by the James Webb Space Telescope have reignited interest in the concept. In March, images of early galaxies showed that two-thirds were spinning clockwise, while a third were rotating anti-clockwise. In a random universe, the distribution should be even – so something was causing an anomaly. One explanation is that the universe was born rotating, which would occur if it had been created in the interior of a black hole. Lior Shamir, an associate professor of computer science at Kansas State University said: 'That explanation agrees with theories such as black hole cosmology, which postulates that the entire universe is the interior of a black hole.' Black holes form when the core of a massive star collapses under its own galaxy, leading to a supernova explosion. They cannot be seen because of the strong gravity that is pulling light into the black hole's centre. However, scientists can see the effects of its strong gravity on the stars and gases around it, and it sometimes forms an accretion disc of spiralling gas which emits x-rays. Under the theory of black hole cosmology, each black hole could produce a new 'baby universe' connected to the outside universe through a an Einstein-Rosen bridge, or a 'wormhole'. Scientists are hoping that the new model may be able to explain other mysteries in the universe, such as the origin of supermassive black holes, the nature of dark matter, or the formation and evolution of galaxies. The new research was published in the journal Physical Review D. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Daily Mail
04-06-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
Scientists claim the Big Bang theory is WRONG - as they reveal how the universe really began
For decades, almost every scientist has agreed that the universe began in an enormous explosion known as the Big Bang. But one group of researchers now controversially claims that everything we think about the birth of the cosmos might be wrong. In a radical new research paper, Professor Enrique Gaztanaga, of the University of Portsmouth and his co-authors have proposed a new theory they call the 'Black Hole Universe'. They claim that the universe was formed by a gravitational crunch, forming a massive black hole that then 'bounced' outwards. Professor Gaztanaga claims this theory can explain everything we know about the structure of the universe without the need for any exotic elements such as dark energy. Importantly, the theory also predicts that space should be slightly curved rather than completely flat as the Big Bang model suggests. This is something that current NASA missions such as Euclid may soon be able to confirm, possibly offering a strong hint that the Black Hole Universe theory is correct. However, the Black Hole Universe theory may also have some staggeringly strange consequences for humanity's place in the universe. According to the Big Bang theory, before the universe as we know it came to be, all the matter that currently exists was packed into an infinitely dense point called a 'singularity'. From this point, around 13.8 billion years ago, the universe exploded outwards in an extraordinarily rapid phase of expansion known as cosmic inflation. The shape etched into matter as that initial explosion cooled laid out the patterns that would become stars, galaxies, and even larger structures like galactic superclusters. Since then, as observations from space telescopes like Hubble have shown, the universe has been expanding outwards at a steadily accelerating rate. This so-called 'standard model of cosmology' works well for explaining many big questions such as why galaxies are where they are, but Professor Gaztanaga wasn't satisfied. The problem was that the standard model only works well when scientists make some big assumptions about how the world might work. For example, to explain why the universe is still accelerating scientists have been forced to add mysterious 'dark energy' to the picture - a force that is pushing against gravity but has never been directly observed. So, instead of looking at the expanding universe and trying to work out where it comes from, the researchers looked at what happens when matter collapses in on itself. The Black Hole Universe Theory The Black Hole Universe theory claims that the cosmos did not begin with the Big Bang. The Big Bang theory says the universe exploded outwards from a single, infinitely dense point. The Black Hole Universe suggests that the universe we now see started after a cloud of matter collapsed into a black hole. At a certain point that black hole couldn't compress any more and started to bounce outwards. Our entire universe is inside this black hole, which is nested inside a larger host universe. When large stars collapse in on themselves, they form black holes - objects so dense that not even light can escape their gravitational pull. According to the standard view proposed by Stephen Hawking and British physicist Roger Penrose, when this happens gravity squishes matter down into an infinitely dense point. This would mean that singularities, like the one in the Big Bang theory, are a natural and inevitable part of the universe. However, some scientists now think that the rules of quantum physics mean you can't keep squishing matter together forever. According to quantum physics, you can't pin down a quantum particle to a single point and two particles can't occupy the exact same location. This means that black holes must stop collapsing before gravity squishes matter into a single infinitely dense point. Professor Gaztanaga told MailOnline: 'Infinities may appear in mathematics, but they have no physical meaning. Nature doesn't work with infinite masses or infinite precision.' Therefore, when a cloud of matter like the universe collapses under gravity it will squeeze on itself until it forms a black hole before hitting this limit and bouncing back. What forms out of that bounce is a universe which looks remarkably like our own, suggesting this could be a possible way our universe began. Professor Gaztanaga says this Black Hole Universe Theory is better than the Big Bang because it solves some 'major questions the Big Bang model leaves unanswered'. Most importantly, this theory gives a natural explanation for the two phases of the universe's expansion: the rapid phase of cosmic expansion and the later acceleration we are now observing. According to the researchers' mathematical solutions, both of these phases emerge from the physics of the bounce itself rather than from other factors like dark energy. Professor Gaztanaga says: 'Inflation is simply part of the same dynamical process - the collapse and bounce - so it doesn't need to be added as a separate mechanism.' However, this theory has some fairly wild consequences for our understanding of the universe as a whole. According to the Black Hole Universe, the entire observable universe is inside a black hole nested inside a large parent universe which could, itself, be inside another black hole. Professor Gaztanaga says: 'We don't know for sure, but the theory allows for black holes within black holes - a nested, possibly endless structure. 'The key insight is that our universe may not be the beginning of everything. We are not unique, just part of a larger system. 'It's a continuation of the Copernican principle: Earth is not the centre of the cosmos, our galaxy is not the only one, and our universe may not be either.' Critically, the Black Hole Universe theory makes predictions about the shape of the universe that we should soon be able to test. The researchers say that the 'smoking gun' would be that the structure of the universe should be ever so slightly curved. That would mean the angles in a giant cosmic triangle would add up to slightly less than the 180 degrees that they would make on a flat surface. Soon, with space telescopes such as Euclid or the European Space Agency's upcoming Arrakhis mission scientists will be able to see whether this is true, potentially re-writing our understanding of the universe. The Big Bang Theory is a cosmological model, a theory used to describe the beginning and the evolution of our universe. It says that the universe was in a very hot and dense state before it started to expand 13,7 billion years ago. This theory is based on fundamental observations. In 1920, Hubble observed that the distance between galaxies was increasing everywhere in the universe. This means that galaxies had to be closer to each other in the past. In 1964, Wilson and Penzias discovered the cosmic background radiation, which is a like a fossil of radiation emitted during the beginning of the universe, when it was hot and dense. The cosmic background radiation is observable everywhere in the universe. The composition of the universe - that is, the the number of atoms of different elements - is consistent with the Big Bang Theory. So far, this theory is the only one that can explain why we observe an abundance of primordial elements in the universe.
