Large Hardon Collider

[Woozie]

Wow, that is awesome.

[Max™]

Nice, I'm taking the woman out to check out Saturn and Orion in early March once we get a clear night, shame a telescope can't produce the same richness as a photo exposure.

[Cruzizzle]

That's why I'm addicted, all I can see through the scope is a fuzzy spot, but image that fuzzy spot and it turns into this magnificent structure with form and color.

[Plow]

something something it's on orion's belt


so, I have a random question that's been bugging me lately...


It seems like the big bang, and the buildup to it, looks kind of like what you might expect to happen if basically all of the black holes in a given universe grew together. Or possibly even just like... being what happens on the "other side" of a black hole.

How realistic is that possibility, and where might I find extensive discussion on it?

[Woozie]

I can't see any reason for anyone to say that the big bang is what you would/could/may expect to happen if all the black holes in the universe grew together. What's your reasoning behind this?

The truth is, we don't know what happens in a black hole. Our laws of physics don't work inside them. They also don't work on the big bang (our big bang theory doesn't start at the bang. It starts 10^-42 seconds after the bang).

Edit: But in response to your second sentence "Or possibly even just like... being what happens on the "other side" of a black hole.", there actually has been some theoretical work done on this subject. I can't remember where I read this (probably in a Stephen Hawking book, SciAm, or History Channel). If I can remember where I saw this I'll post it. Most scientist don't really pay much attention to these theories because we have no way to really analyize the physics of a black hole and no good reason to think they lead to other universes. Of course, we also can't rule it out either, but that usually isn't (by itself) a good enough reason to consider something.

My personal opinion is "I have no idea what happens in a black hole or if they can give birth to other universes."

Edit 2: I'm just guessing, but maybe it was Hawking's "Black Holes And Baby Universes"? That was the first book I read by him, and I have read theories about black holes giving birth to universes before. It would make sense, based on the title, that this book is where I read such theories. But honestly, I don't remember if that's actually where I read it or not. You can probably google for a free pdf file of the book if you want. Miz knows a lot more about astrophysics and cosmology than I do, so he can probably give you a better answer/discussion than I can.

[Max™]

*points to his crotch*

You wanna revisit the big bang?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0406172648.htm

In studying the radial motion through the event horizon (a black hole's boundary) of two different types of black holes -- Schwarzschild and Einstein-Rosen, both of which are mathematically legitimate solutions of general relativity -- Poplawski admits that only experiment or observation can reveal the motion of a particle falling into an actual black hole. But he also notes that since observers can only see the outside of the black hole, the interior cannot be observed unless an observer enters or resides within.
"This condition would be satisfied if our universe were the interior of a black hole existing in a bigger universe," he said. "Because Einstein's general theory of relativity does not choose a time orientation, if a black hole can form from the gravitational collapse of matter through an event horizon in the future then the reverse process is also possible. Such a process would describe an exploding white hole: matter emerging from an event horizon in the past, like the expanding universe."
A white hole is connected to a black hole by an Einstein-Rosen bridge (wormhole) and is hypothetically the time reversal of a black hole. Poplawski's paper suggests that all astrophysical black holes, not just Schwarzschild and Einstein-Rosen black holes, may have Einstein-Rosen bridges, each with a new universe inside that formed simultaneously with the black hole.
"From that it follows that our universe could have itself formed from inside a black hole existing inside another universe," he said.

It's an exact solution of the field equations, which is kinda a big deal, we know black holes exist because there were exact solutions which required they exist, and now we've observed the stars orbiting Sag A at velocities which require a multi-million solar mass object be there, yet there is nothing visible.
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~ghezgroup...s_animfull.gif

There are models like LQC which predict a big bounce as the actual "origin" point of a universe, with no singularity, but as Woozie said, we can't get much closer than about 10^-42 seconds before our models throw their hands up and tell us to fuck right off.

[zoobernut]

Anyone else watch the shuttle launch? Last mission for this shuttle.

I hope we do have plans to build a new shuttle with updated technology.

[Max™]

Didn't catch it, but I love the sig joke, what kind of pie was it?

[zoobernut]

Apple Pi of course.

And Shuttle launch seems to be going well they are still going. First two rockets just detached about 2 minutes ago. They are now traveling 9,800 mph and are 67 miles up. Watching live on cnn.com

Edit: I have to admit I teared up a little bit when Discovery detached from the external tank and was officially in space on its last flight ever.

[Max™]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sh...ain/index.html

Some more stuff on there, says they're in orbit officially.

[Plow]

the black hole > white hole thing isn't quite what I'm thinking

I can't see any reason for anyone to say that the big bang is what you would/could/may expect to happen if all the black holes in the universe grew together. What's your reasoning behind this?

I guess the best way I can put it is that it seems like the most logical way for everything in the universe to be compressed like the model of everything as an insanely small ball of, well, everything, would be if black holes swallowed everything, including each other.

Like, couldn't it be possible that it reached a point where all the mass became energy, or vice-versa, and at that point most of the physical laws would be out the window because everything is in one state, with either nothing to act on, or no ability to act on anything else?


I guess that leaves a question of what happens then, something something african frogs?

[Woozie]

I guess black holes are a good way to get enough matter/energy compressed to a single point (like the initial state of our universe) which may be why some theorist have worked on it. But to go from here to then say "It seems like the big bang, and the buildup to it, looks kind of like what you might expect to happen if basically all of the black holes in a given universe grew together" still seems like a huge leap to me.

Also, even if black holes can give birth to universes, it would seem unlikely that our universe in particular came about in such a way. I say this because of conservation of energy. I wouldn't expect energy to be conserved in such a universe because the black hole can keep capturing more matter (thus adding more energy to the universe). Our laws of physics imply that the total energy of the universe cannot be changed. If this is true, we would need some explanation as to why it is no longer possible for the black hole creating our universe to ever have a change in its energy. In our universe, the energy of a black hole changes all the time (evaporation, capturing matter, etc).

But, for all I know, the theorist who have worked on this may have already resolved these issues somehow. I don't really know much about this particular subject. Like I said, Miz or Kaylia would probably know this better, so they may be able to say more than I can.

[Max™]

Well, it would take intelligence to merge all the mass in the universe into black holes and merge them all together, but they might evaporate before you could do it.

Stephen Baxter had a future civilization doing that, The Downstreamers in the Manifold series.

[Plow]

Well, it would take intelligence to merge all the mass in the universe into black holes and merge them all together

er, why? It's not conceivable that black holes eventually suck everything in on their own including each other?

[Max™]

The universe is expanding too fast, eventually we won't be able to see any galaxies besides the local group probably.

http://209.85.62.24/17/153/0/p7728/hubblea.jpg

[Kaylia]

Except Miz. He wants to do astrology and cosmetology.

He should, he will make more money than the rest of us...combined.

Crux gotchu!

Reposting from photography thread so you guys don't miss out. This is my first attempt at imaging Orion. Spoiler for size.

Spoiler: show

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/8246/img0890ew.jpg
http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/1185/img0890d.jpg

It looks like a giant pokeball that is about to catch a star.

[Kaylia]

so, I have a random question that's been bugging me lately...


It seems like the big bang, and the buildup to it, looks kind of like what you might expect to happen if basically all of the black holes in a given universe grew together. Or possibly even just like... being what happens on the "other side" of a black hole.

How realistic is that possibility, and where might I find extensive discussion on it?

Woozie said it better, but w/e

The idea of a black hole giving birth to smaller universe isn't completely stupid, but right now, there is no result that point in that direction (or any directiona). We simply don't know. It's not impossible that once we get a better understanding of our universe geometry and blackhole, we will be able to link certain properties (hawking's radiation with time within that universe, or inflation), but stuff like this will not be verifiable anytime soon.


With our physics falling apart (both relativity and Quantum mechanics), trying to imagine what could give birth to our world is closer to science-fiction than real science. Solving Einstein's equation for stuff like this is mathematical masturbation more than anything, because our equation aren't true at that range. We just don't know enough to make any educated guesses, so until we get a better theory, there really isnt much to say.

[Woozie]

er, why? It's not conceivable that black holes eventually suck everything in on their own including each other?

As Max pointed out, there's absolutely no way that could happen in our universe. You have to realize that the gravity of a black hole is really no different than that of a star. If the sun was replaced by a black hole with the same mass as the sun, the Earth wouldn't even notice (well...we would notice the lack of heat and light, but gravitationally, the entire solar system would remain unchanged. Earth would still revolve with the same speed like nothing ever happened. The same is true of everything else in our solar system). The geometry of a black hole allows much stronger gravity than you would see from stars if you're very very close to it. But from a distance, there's absolutely no difference.

So, for the same reason you would be surprised if all the matter in the universe was going towards some huge star, it would be surprising if all the matter in the universe was going towards some black hole. In fact, we practically never see any two stars collide, and for that same reason, black holes probably wont do so either since their orbital dynamics are the same.

Gravity decays big time with distance. In fact, distance matters more than mass when it comes to gravity. Because of this (and for other reasons), you will never see our entire galaxy collapse into the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. So all the black holes in our own galaxy will never come together. Then, as Max pointed out, the black holes in different galaxies will never come together because of the expanding universe. If two galaxies are close enough, then they may collide and their super massive black holes may join (in fact, this is going to happen to our own galaxy in a few billion years). But most are galaxies out there so far away that the gravity between them and almost every other galaxy is negligible. In addition, those galaxies are moving away from almost every other galaxy with high speeds because of the expanding universe.

But, theoretically, someone may suggest that there is some universe where this could all happen. The point I'm trying to make is that although most of your ideas cannot work in our universe, there's no reason to rule out them happening in some other universes, so it's still worth considering. Of course, we don't have the tools (yet) to really consider it, but it's one of those things that is really fun to think about and could be something we can actually study in depth in the future.

[Mizango]

^ Perfectly stated. Damn, thats the gospel right there.

[Max™]

With our physics falling apart (both relativity and Quantum mechanics), trying to imagine what could give birth to our world is closer to science-fiction than real science.

String theory is falling apart, GR and QM are just fine, correspondence principle, remember?

Solving Einstein's equation for stuff like this is mathematical masturbation more than anything, because our equation aren't true at that range. We just don't know enough to make any educated guesses, so until we get a better theory, there really isnt much to say.

No, the equations break down at the singularity, they're just fine on the other side of an event horizon, which is where this particular solution suggests a connection between the outside of a universe and the interior of a black hole.