If there's one thing in the universe that unites us all in an awesome, slightly terrifying, and unexplained way, it's a black hole! We know these things are there, and we know they can destroy our planet in an instant, but there's still a lot we don't know. And, while these cosmic giants seem to have all the dangers, there are some theories that they may be vital to our existence. Today's video will answer a particular question: What if we lived in a black hole? Before continuing this topic, you may wish to press and hold the like button to give my video a high recommendation so that more friends can see it. If you're curious about today's question, let's get started!
Scientists have long wondered why our universe is the way it is. There are too many things to consider when trying to understand the universe, and it can be a daunting process. But many of the answers we need may lie in the deepest, darkest and most mysterious place in the universe – in black holes. Black holes are the remnants of collapsing stars. Their spatial regions are so dense that all the matter around them is distorted, and everything that precedes them is distorted. Therefore, nothing and things dare not go near them, not even light can escape.
Today, scientists are relentlessly exploring the heart of these black holes... While no one can be sure what is hidden behind the veil, current theory suggests that at the center of every black hole there is a point of infinite density: the singularity as we know it. Here, the laws of physics, made up of space and time, will fail completely. Nothing will go out, nothing will make sense, and there is nothing we can do. Beyond black holes, however, there is another famous, formative example in the history of everything: at the beginning of the universe, one of the points of infinite density played a key role. So, will there be some kind of connection between these events? According to some, they may.
In a black hole, the boundary that determines the non-returnable point is called the "event horizon." In a way, the horizon can be thought of as a cloak of hidden singularities, which is only revealed when it is too late to turn back. The point, however, is that when a star collapses to form a black hole, the event horizon begins to expand rapidly outward, and then slows down as the surrounding material gradually falls into the abyss. In a way, we saw this pattern at the beginning of the universe.
The main explanation for the birth of the universe is the "Big Bang Theory". The theory is that everything starts out as hot spots (singularities) of infinite density, then expands like a balloon at unimaginable speeds, then slows down, and eventually forms the universe we know today 13.8 billion years later. Of course, we know that the expansion is accelerated again, most likely due to dark energy, but this is another topic!
The wide similarities between the evolution of black holes and the birth of our own universe have led some researchers to ask the question: Is our universe the event horizon of another cosmic black hole? Do we really live among these most mysterious and unknowable superstructures?
This hypothesis is based on two core theories of physics: general relativity and quantum mechanics. Einstein's general theory of relativity is a macroscopic theory that describes the gravitational pull of the universe at its maximum scale as a result of a distortion of space-time. At the same time, quantum mechanics studies the microscopic world, starting with atoms and then gradually diving into the basic structure of matter. Scientists have been working to combine these two theories to best describe the intersection of large and small ones, as mysterious as they do in black holes. In 1922, the French mathematician Élie Cartan proposed the "Einstein-Cardon gravitational theory". It allowed scientists to take a closer look at the quantum mechanical properties known as "spin," which led to the development of a new concept known as "torsion."
Writing for Inside Science in 2012, polish theoretical physicist Nikodem Poplawski explained that "reversal requires a reimaginement of space-time." We know that space-time bends, but if we think of it as a thin rod instead of a wide plane, then by twisting it it will also bend. When that happens, all sorts of other strange things happen too." The most important thing for today's problem, however, is that in the early stages of the universe, torsion may have acted in the opposite way of gravity, and probably in all black holes.
Poprawski proposed in a 2014 paper that "torsional force could mean that a black hole is not a place of infinite collapse, it could become a place of infinite creation." This process is now known in science as the "Great Bounce." We know that the broader Great Bounce theory is also one of the major theories about the creation of the universe. Broadly speaking, the Great Rebound Theory holds that the universe we live in now is really just the latest in a long list of universes. They expand and contract in a regular way, and every time all matter and energy is redistributed, something new is produced. Even the seemingly immutable laws of nature (from our point of view) have different results.
But what exactly is contributing to this incredible mechanism? What can accommodate such a powerful process? You guessed it, a black hole.
This may be enough to make you question the land you walked through and the air you breathe, but what's even more exciting is that the implications of this theory are essentially endless. Because, if we imagine that our universe exists in one black hole, then that black hole exists in another universe, and this universe may also exist in another black hole in another universe, and so on.
It also suggests that at our level, in our universe, every black hole could be a gateway to another world inside. And, considering that there are indeed trillions of black holes out there according to the highest estimates, we basically have infinite possibilities for cosmic makers. At the same time, while we can't see and confirm what's happening or not happening inside a black hole, observers from other universes may be equally oblivious to this... This is the best-kept secret in reality. Importantly, there is currently no experimental evidence to fully validate this astonishing theory. It's just one of many attempts to figure out how, why, and when it all started. But it does lay the groundwork for another incredible approach, the large-scale evolutionary process proposed by the American theoretical physicist Lee Smolin.
In the early 1990s, Smalling came up with a theory known as "natural selection of the universe." Not only does it show that black holes can serve as gateways to new universes, but that these universes are inherently shaped and perfected by any universe in which their black hole creators reside. In such a reality, there are nascent universes whose fundamental constants—the immovable rules that determine how they function—change and mutate as they pass down from their parent universe through black holes. The long-term implication of this phenomenon is that all the so-called universes are gradually moving towards their most effective and classic versions. These galaxies filled with stars are most likely to become black holes, giving birth to more universes. You may have heard that this is a dog-eating world, but now it's the universe that consumes the universe.
However, natural selection in cosmology is merely a view, and modern science's belief that information is not lost from black holes has led to doubts about whether the universe will mutate, so it has also been duly questioned. But in fact, anyway, we can say that this problem is not just another comical hypothetical scenario. We don't know what's inside a black hole, so there's no real way to prove that we're not inside a black hole. But if the universe really came into being that way, then all of a sudden, we're smaller than we thought before.
In a universe, in a star system, Earth is just an asteroid. We've heard it before, but now that universe could also be just one of many, just in a spiral network of infinite possibilities. That's a bit of a shock to you, doesn't it? But if we live in a black hole, that's what might happen, what do you think about that? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section. I'm a science pioneer, if you like my article, don't forget to click the follow button while liking the collection and retweeting, thank you!