x371322
23rd July 2010, 19:39
Maybe? According to one scientist.
Scientists trying to explain the universe’s accelerating expansion usually point to dark energy, which seems to be pushing everything apart.
But an Indiana University professor has a new theory, reports New Scientist: We're inside a black hole that exists in another universe. Specifically, a black hole that rebounded, somewhat like a spring.
Some fairly mind-blowing physics is involved here, but the gist is that Nikodem Poplawski of IU-Bloomington used a modified version of Einstein’s general relativity equation set that takes particle spin into account.
Including this variable makes it possible to calculate torsion, part of the geometry of space-time. It also gets rid of the black hole singularity, a phenomenon that general relativity cannot explain.
In a study published earlier this year, Poplawski said when the density of matter reaches epic proportions, torsion counters gravity. This prevents matter from compressing indefinitely to a singularity of infinite density. Instead, matter rebounds like a spring, and starts expanding again.
In Poplawski's latest study, his calculations show that space-time inside the black hole expands to about 1.4 times its smallest size in as little as 10-46 seconds -- two orders of magnitude faster, for lack of a better word, than the Planck time. This brisk bounce-back could have been what led to the expanding universe that we see today.
But here's the real kicker: as Poplawski says, we may not be living in our universe at all; we might be living inside a rebounded black hole that exists in a different universe.
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-07/we-might-be-living-black-hole-scientist-says
Scientists trying to explain the universe’s accelerating expansion usually point to dark energy, which seems to be pushing everything apart.
But an Indiana University professor has a new theory, reports New Scientist: We're inside a black hole that exists in another universe. Specifically, a black hole that rebounded, somewhat like a spring.
Some fairly mind-blowing physics is involved here, but the gist is that Nikodem Poplawski of IU-Bloomington used a modified version of Einstein’s general relativity equation set that takes particle spin into account.
Including this variable makes it possible to calculate torsion, part of the geometry of space-time. It also gets rid of the black hole singularity, a phenomenon that general relativity cannot explain.
In a study published earlier this year, Poplawski said when the density of matter reaches epic proportions, torsion counters gravity. This prevents matter from compressing indefinitely to a singularity of infinite density. Instead, matter rebounds like a spring, and starts expanding again.
In Poplawski's latest study, his calculations show that space-time inside the black hole expands to about 1.4 times its smallest size in as little as 10-46 seconds -- two orders of magnitude faster, for lack of a better word, than the Planck time. This brisk bounce-back could have been what led to the expanding universe that we see today.
But here's the real kicker: as Poplawski says, we may not be living in our universe at all; we might be living inside a rebounded black hole that exists in a different universe.
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-07/we-might-be-living-black-hole-scientist-says