Showing posts with label singularity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label singularity. Show all posts

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Black holes may hold universes, not singularities

A recent paper published by Nikodem J. Poplawski of Indiana University theorizes that black holes might not contain singularities after all but instead spawn the creation of another universe. Theoretically, a singularity is a point where the curvature of spacetime is infinite. In other words, it is a point of zero volume and infinite density that contains the total mass of the black hole. According to Poplawski, the gravitational collapse toward a singularity is not the end result of a black hole; instead, it triggers a chain of events that ultimately generates an incredible amount of mass and energy in another universe.

The current theory concerning empty space is that particle and anti-particle pairs are consistently popping into and out of existence, constantly annihilating one another (For more on this concept, check out these recent article describing scientific efforts to build the largest laser on Earth.) According to Poplawski, the conditions near the center of a black hole disrupt this mutual annihilation of particles, spawning the generation of an enormous amount of mass and energy which manifests itself as the big bang of another universe. 

For those of you willing to brave the scientific jargon (including gems such as "Parker-Zel'dovich-Starobinskii quantum particle production in strong, anisotropic gravitational fields"), I encourage you to check out the paper.