Could the big bang have been the start of a black hole?

[Lightingbird]

Hello,

 

My first post here. /waves

 

Just a thought.

 

Is it possible our universe is actually the start of a black hole? Essentially that we and everything in this universe inside of that "hole"?

 

No way of knowing but think about it. To further explain exactly what I mean. For example, is it possible that everything in our "known" universe inside of a black hole. Explaining the expanding? Just a thought.

 

Discuss.

[Martin]

Hello,

 

My first post here. /waves

 

Just a thought.

 

Is it possible our universe is actually the start of a black hole? Essentially that we and everything in this universe inside of that "hole"?

 

No way of knowing but think about it. To further explain exactly what I mean. For example, is it possible that everything in our "known" universe inside of a black hole. Explaining the expanding? Just a thought.

 

Discuss.

 

This idea has been the subject of many research papers by various different people, some like the idea, some don't.

 

It will be the subject of a chapter in a book supposed to come out in August

called Beyond the Big Bang (edited by R. Vaas, published by Springer)

http://www.springer.com/astronomy/general+relativity/book/978-3-540-71422-4

Here's the table of contents:

http://www.springer.com/astronomy/general+relativity/book/978-3-540-71422-4?detailsPage=toc

The chapter related to your idea is called "Cosmic Darwinism"

 

There is an interesting point about this. If blackhole collapse does sometimes result in a new big bang universe branching off, so to speak, then a given spacetime region can have offspring, or daughter universes. Possibly with similar but slightly different values of the basic physics constants that determine forces, atoms, chemistry, fusion, star-formation etc. Analogous to how the mother's traits are passed on to the daughter but with some slight possible mutation or variation each time.

 

If regions of space reproduce by blackhole formation, and the physical constants can randomly change by small amounts during the collapse-bounce process, then this would allow evolution towards physics constants that favor the formation of massive stars and the production of a lot of black holes.

A set of constants optimized for reproduction can be expected to prevail in the population.

So this provides a testable hypothesis.

 

Are the physics constants which we in fact observe optimal for producing lots of black holes? Or are they not? There has been some debate about this.

A 2006 paper about it:

http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0612185

Edited January 7, 2009 by Martin

[Klaynos]

There was a new scientist article about something very similar to this.

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18925423.600

 

I have to say the idea appealed to be quite alot at the time, it just feels like a nice solution...

 

I've not heard about it much since though (but I've not been looking)

[Lightingbird]

Now how could this be tested? At least with current technology.

[Martin]

Now how could this be tested? At least with current technology.

 

Are you asking Klaynos? what Klaynos mentioned is entirely different from what I was talking about and I don't know how it might be tested. Need to search under the authors' names and find their paper.

 

If you are asking about what I mentioned---the Darwinian thing, reproductive cosmology---it has been being tested since early 1990s and has so far passed the test.

 

I gave a link to a 2006 paper which I believe explains this. If a neutron star were observed to have a mass above some particular amount this would falsify the hypothesis----it would show that our physics constants are NOT well adapted to producing lots of black holes and thus daughter universes.

But so far all the measured masses have come in under that particular amount.

 

I believe there are other feasible ways to test the hypothesis with current technology and some may be discussed in that 2006 paper.