A cosmologist explains the mind-bending hypothesis that our universe could have branched off from a black hole singularity in another universe.
We do not live inside of a black hole, but that does not rule out the possibility that our universe was born from one.
Black holes are as famous as they are frightening—regions of infinite gravitational pull, where escape is impossible. Making a black hole is relatively straightforward: You just need to compress enough mass down below a certain threshold in size. Once you cross that threshold, gravity takes over and overwhelms all the other forces, creating a black hole. The threshold depends on the amount of mass you’re trying to cram together. For a typical human being, that threshold is around the size of an atomic nucleus. For the Earth, if you were to cram all of it into the volume of a chickpea, you would have a (chickpea-sized) black hole. For a typical star weighing several times the mass of the Sun, the resulting black hole is a few miles across—the size of an average city.
Oddly, if you were to take all the matter contents of the universe and cram them together, trying to make the biggest black hole possible, you would end up with a black hole… roughly the size of the universe.
Our Universe Has Something in Common With Black Holes
Here’s something else unexpected—the universe shares two other features in common with black holes. Perhaps the most recognizable part of a black hole is its surface, known as the event horizon. This is the region around a black hole that represents the ultimate point of no return. Within the event horizon, gravity is so strong that in order to escape, you must travel faster than the speed of light; since you can’t travel faster than the speed of light, you’re stuck. Literally.
Read More – Was Our Universe Formed Inside the Quantum Chaos of Another Universe’s Black Hole?
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