Black Holes: Key to the beginning and end of the universe?

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by Electro522, Nov 2, 2011.

  1. Electro522 Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    52
    Do I have a question for all you astronomy buffs out there. I am just a normal high schooler that has taken an interest in astronomy and cosmology. Over the years, I have done my research, and I have found an eerie similarity between Stephen Hawking's theory of the beginning of the universe and other theories related to the end of the universe. Stephen Hawking believes that the Big Bang came from an infinitely small and infinitely massive black hole. I partly disagree with this because if it is infinitely small, than it is non existent. However, I do not want to ignore his theory of a black hole creating the Big Bang. If you look at the "Big Chill" theory for the end of the universe, it states that all matter will eventually break down and "dissolve" and literally nothing will be left in the universe. However, before we enter this "Dark Era", we enter a "Black Hole Era", a time of the universe where black holes reign supreme, feeding on nothing but themselves. I also read an article stating that, supposedly, if a black hole is deprived of all "fuel" sources, it literally explodes. So my question to you is, what if the universe can recycle itself just like stars do, but by using black holes at the end of its life that are so far apart, they can not interact with each other and explode to create "universal nebulas"? If this is true, we might even have current evidence of this. There is a theory that some parts of the universe are expanding faster than other parts. I would truly appreciate your input on this, and possibly physicist recommendations that I can e-mail and not have to wait five years for a reply. Thank You.
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    33,264
    But the point of the beginning of a black hole is called a singularity and it is defined as:

    a singularity is a zero dimensional geometric point. it has no volume. no length, width, or height. but that is speculation, since no mathematical models can verify that the object is that small. see, our physics break down at a length called planck length (1.61625281 x10^-35 meters). so you can plug the dimensions and properties of an object smaller than planck length into our mathematical equations, but youll always get answers that make no sense.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. Electro522 Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    52
    thank you for your reply cosmictraveler, however, your response only fixes my confusion on black holes being infinitely small. It does not answer my main question of black holes exploding when deprived of all of their fuel.
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. OnlyMe Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,914
    Reference the article. It is difficult to comment on something for which the basis is unclear.

    There are BHs that appear dormant now. That is they do not appear to be consuming significant material from their local environment. There is no way without the reference to compare this with whatever conditions the reference might involve.
     
  8. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,493
    I also like to speculate about black holes. Like many things in reality when we don't know the answer we rely heavily on math and theoretical physics to help us visualize what might be true. However, we don't know what really happens to matter on the other side of an event horizon. We can tell how massive they are by measuring the diameter of the event horizon. But, what if the black hole mass has a surface just one inch from the event horizon. We would never know, but the math would have to change wouldn't it?

    About your speculation that black holes might explode. If that were possible then Einstein was wrong about everything. The escape velocity from a black hole is greater than the speed of light. So in order for it to explode, the mass would have to exceed the speed of light to escape the gravity well of the black hole. At our current level of knowledge this is not possible.
     
  9. Mrbroke2005 Registered Member

    Messages:
    3
    When a black hole has no more (fuel) it would lay dormant so to speak until another object came incontact with its event horizon. The accumalation of all the material which made it a black hole in the first place would be to great for anything to escape including light. Just because there is no more material to be taken in doesnt change the laws of physics.

    Before a star collapses to create a black hole it had its own solar system most likely. Which very slowly moved closer and closer to its center and if it proceded long enough would have devoured it just as it a black hole just in a different manner. But the overall outcome would have been the same, an accumulation of material at its center. So whether you move foward in the time line or back, physics still act just the way they always do in a mostly predictable way.
     
  10. Boris2 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,106
    it was a naked singularity. a black hole need existing space to exist in by definition.

    no it will just go dormant. black hole do evaporate though through a process known as Hawking radiation.

    GR breaks down at the singularity so we do know what happens to matter inside the EH.

    no, the EH defines the escape velocity at the speed of light.
     
  11. Electro522 Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    52
    Thank you for all of your replies, I truly appreciate it. I have now found out that my theory can not work. But now, I have another question. I have just recently learned that energy can not be created nor destroyed, it is only transformed. And, according to Einstein, matter is energy, and from what we know, there is ALOT of energy in the universe. So, that means the Big Bang had to get its energy from something. What was that something?
     
  12. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,635
    The issue here might be that black holes, while infinitely small, are not insignificant. They are so small because they are massive enough to have have warped space around themselves thus "hiding" themselves. If you reduce the mass enough, they can re-expand as their mass decreases. This can happen due to Hawking radiation; this process is called "evaporation." Indeed, small black holes can evaporate so much mass that they eventually can no longer maintain their singularity; at that point they expand back into normal space and disappear in a burst of gamma radiation.

    Currently there's no way we know of for a large black hole to re-expand.
     
  13. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    33,264
    That "something" might have been another parallel universe somehow making an opening into this other dimension. That would have taken allot of power to generate the energy needed to break through the division between universes or dimensions.
     
  14. OnlyMe Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,914
    Both GR and QM breakdown within the event horizon. QM even has some difficulty with neutron stars, i.e. there are a number of theoretical solutions as to what happens in the core of a neutron star. BHs are really a mathematically predicted physical mystery.

    So what does happen to the matter inside the event horizon of a BH? A neutron star has a core of neutrons. There are theoretical quark stars that fall short of a BH. What is at the core of a BH?
     
  15. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,493
    As much as I like GR, it is not reality. It's just damn good theory. As a realest I don't believe in singularities as anything but mathematical concepts. The matter in a black hole is just highly compressed matter that is out of our reach to see or test. If you don't agree with that, then we can agree to disagree.

    If that was true then light would be able to escape from a black hole wouldn't it?
     
  16. OnlyMe Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,914
    Not exactly. The escape velocity at the event horizon is c. Inside the event horizon, it either exceeds c or the conditions prevent the emission of photons in the first place.
     
  17. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,493
    Okay I can live with that explanation.
     
  18. Electro522 Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    52
    Again, thank you all. I think billvon answered it all for me. THe article did say that black holes explode, but it didnt say how. I now understand now that they can explode, but they explode in a gamma ray burst. I first thought that gamma ray bursts came from the birth of a black hole, not the death of one.
     
  19. AlphaNumeric Fully ionized Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,702
    The singularity is an issue, not the event horizon. GR doesn't break down immediately on crossing the horizon, only once you get close enough to the singularity that quantum gravity corrections become important.
     
  20. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,493
    Could you supply a link to that article. I'd like to read it for myself.
     
  21. OnlyMe Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,914
    This is an accurate correction. It is not crossing the event horizon that marks the failure of GR.

    Alpha, has anyone actually published a Quantum Gravity model that works? I admit the math involved is over my head, but it has been my impression that there has not been any real success, yet.
     
  22. Pincho Paxton Banned Banned

    Messages:
    2,387
    You don't have to have Gravity in the middle of a black hole, and it seems to me that most material gets blasted out there anyway.
     
  23. river

    Messages:
    17,307
    KilljoyKlown

    agreed

    very good
     
    Last edited: Nov 3, 2011

Share This Page