About the origin of the universe? big bang cause?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the origins of the universe, specifically the Big Bang and its potential causes. Participants explore various hypotheses regarding whether the universe's matter and energy originated from a singularity or if it could be linked to black holes from other universes. The conversation touches on concepts of time, the expansion of the universe, and the nature of singularities.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Technical explanation

Main Points Raised

  • One participant questions whether the universe's matter and energy could be spewing from a black hole in another universe, suggesting this might explain the universe's expansion and the matter-antimatter asymmetry.
  • Another participant mentions that the physical state of the universe at the Big Bang is paradoxical due to infinities and references Fuzzballs in Superstring Theory as a potential framework for understanding the universe at Planck density.
  • Some participants assert that the universe's expansion is attributed to Dark Energy and that inflation was likely caused by an inflation field and particle, the Inflaton.
  • There is a discussion about the ill-defined nature of causality before the Big Bang, with one participant suggesting that a black hole's formation could mark the beginning of time.
  • Another participant challenges this notion, arguing that declaring a moment as the "beginning of time" is problematic due to events that would precede it.
  • Concerns are raised about the sustainability of energy if universes were to form from black holes, with skepticism about the properties of such black holes.
  • Speculation is noted about the possibility of a collapsing black hole creating an inflationary bounce, referencing Leo Smolin's cosmological natural selection.
  • Participants express that many ideas about what happened before the Big Bang remain speculative, with a call for testable hypotheses in the future.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not reach a consensus on the origins of the universe or the validity of the proposed ideas. Multiple competing views and uncertainties remain regarding the nature of time, causality, and the implications of black holes.

Contextual Notes

Limitations include unresolved questions about the nature of singularities, the definitions of time before the Big Bang, and the speculative nature of many proposed theories. There is also a lack of clarity on how to test these ideas empirically.

jeebs
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Hi,
I'm a physics student but I have not done much astronomy/cosmology. I was sitting here thinking, and something struck me. This thought is only a couple of minutes old so it's not much more than half-arsed musings at this stage. However, I am curious about whether someone who knows what they are talking about thinks idea this sounds plausible or nonsense, or whether this is already a known theory I am just ignorant of.

It's about the big bang, and what caused it. Was all the matter/energy of the universe supposed to have been concentrated all at once in one point, just sitting there and then exploding? Or, does it sound reasonable to suspect that maybe all the stuff is actually spewing from the singularity of some black hole in some other universe? Maybe the dawn of our time coincided with the collapse of some neutron star or something in this other universe?

Could this explain the apparent acceleration of the expansion of the universe? What I mean is, if this black hole is growing in this other universe, surely it's sucking in more and more stuff from there and blowing it all out here?
Do we have any other explanations of why the universe seems to be expanding?
Is the big bang even considered as still happening today?
Also, could this explain the way that we seem to have more matter than antimatter - because this black hole just happens to have formed in a region with less of the latter?

Most importantly, if this all seems possible, is there any conceivable way to test if it is true?

Apologies if any of this sounds naive, but I'd love to know about this.
Thanks.
 
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Merely stating the physical state of the Universe at Big Bang is paradoxical because one encounters various infinities such as density infinities although I would find it interesting if Fuzzball's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzballs) in Superstring Theory could help describe a Universe when it is in a state of Planck density. Your idea about Black Holes appears to be similar to Lee Smolin's idea but I'm not sure. We already know why the Universe is expanding, it is because of the existence of Dark Energy and inflation was likely caused by the emergence of some inflation field and particle, the Inflaton.
 
Kevin_Axion said:
We already know why the Universe is expanding, it is because of the existence of Dark Energy and inflation was likely caused by the emergence of some inflation field and particle, the Inflaton.

oh, cool, I wasn't aware of this.
 
1. It was not an explosion. It is a common misconception. Please read FAQ.
2. As there was no time before the Big bang (or at least the notion of Time can't be used in a form we got used to), the cause (event preceding smth in time) becomes ill-defined concept.
 
Dmitry67 said:
2. As there was no time before the Big bang (or at least the notion of Time can't be used in a form we got used to), the cause (event preceding smth in time) becomes ill-defined concept.

Does this matter though? I mean, if a black hole suddenly formed and the first stuff started falling through, couldn't that be taken as the start of time? You wouldn't need to think of times earlier than that?
 
No of course.
What you are suggesting is 'beginning of time by ignorance' – like as events before were irrelevant you can declare some moment of time as ‘beginning of time’. Big bang has completely different nature – you can’t continue time, even theoretically, to the moment before the Big Bang (I don’t want to talk at the moment about superstring theories)

Your very sentence states at least 2 events before your 'beginning of time'
Formation of the Black hole
Stuff (created when?) starting to fall inside
How can you can some moment 'the beginning of time' if there are events before it?
 
Dmitry67 said:
Your very sentence states at least 2 events before your 'beginning of time'
Formation of the Black hole
Stuff (created when?) starting to fall inside
How can you can some moment 'the beginning of time' if there are events before it?

Sorry, what I meant was, this black hole forms in this other universe, which has plenty of previous time.

Or, let's say somewhere in our universe, a black hole has just formed right now. On the other side of that black hole, that new universe's time starts from zero?
Does this make any more sense?
 
Black holes are super-dense objects that form a "singularity". Although the notion of a singularity is rather mundane because infinities are unreasonable and aren't very intuitive. I'm not sure what makes you posit that Universes form from Black Holes I'm quite certain the energy wouldn't be sustainable and Black Holes would have very distinct properties if this were true.
 
jeebs said:
Sorry, what I meant was, this black hole forms in this other universe, which has plenty of previous time.

Or, let's say somewhere in our universe, a black hole has just formed right now. On the other side of that black hole, that new universe's time starts from zero?
Does this make any more sense?

While Schwarzschild solution is time symmetric (white hole and black hole + 'another side'), that solution is not realistic, because it is possible only with unrealistic boundary conditions - flat eternal universe. Realistic black holes don't have 'white hole' part and 'the other side' (negative radius space).
 
  • #10
well that's kicked my little theory into touch, lol.
 
  • #11
jeebs said:
It's about the big bang, and what caused it. Was all the matter/energy of the universe supposed to have been concentrated all at once in one point, just sitting there and then exploding?

No one really knows. There are several ideas for what happened "before" the big bang, but right now it's mostly speculation. It's interesting speculation, but it's speculation at this point.

Do we have any other explanations of why the universe seems to be expanding?

It turns out that a universe that obeys anything like general relativity just can't be static. So either the universe is expanding or it's contracting, and if it were contracting then the blue-shifted light from distant galaxies would fry us all.
 
  • #12
jeebs said:
well that's kicked my little theory into touch, lol.

On the other hand you can wave your hands and say that something weird happens in quantum gravity and that a collapsing black hole will create an inflationary bounce. Leo Smolin's cosmological natural selection is based on that idea.

It turns out that the hard part is not coming up with weird ideas. It's making weird ideas testable. One thing that we'll likely be able to do in the next decade is to have enough information about the cosmic microwave background to rule out some ideas.
 
  • #13

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