Singularities: The Heart of Black Holes and the Big Bang

Singularities are fascinating objects and places, yet entirely ‘inaccessible’ in the sense that you can’t actually go there on vacation and send back a postcard, or travel to one on a government grant as a scientific expedition and report back via a peer-reviewed article in a technical scientific journal about the local environment, geography, inhabitants, etc. In a sense singularities are like Heaven in terms of accessibility. You have to rely on intuition or theory or second-hand observations as to what’s what and who’s who.  

Okay, for those readers I’ve already befuddled, I’d better tell you exactly what a singularity is! You’ve all heard of the phrase ‘Black Hole’ and not the one in Calcutta either! I refer to astronomical or cosmic Black Holes. Black Holes are ‘black’ because they have packed inside them so much stuff, so much mass, and hence so much gravity that not even particles of electromagnetic energy (photons) can escape their gravitational clutches. If photons, and that includes visible light photons, are jailed, can not pass go, can not collect $200, then they might as well as, as far as your perception of them is concerned, not exist. If what you don’t see exists, that existence is of no matter (well lots of matter actually). Translated, Black Holes are black because visible light can’t get from them to your eyeball! The absence of light is well, blackness.

So, is a Black Hole just a big lump of stuff, albeit stuff you can’t see? Well, ‘yes’ and ‘no’.  First off, we can ‘see’ Black Holes indirectly because of their gravitational influence on stellar objects we can see. I mean if you see a star whirling around something you can’t see, then the logical interpretation is that the star you can see is in orbit around something you can’t see – i.e. a Black Hole. Well ‘no’, you can’t ‘see’ a Black Hole because light from the Black Hole can’t get away from the crush of that Black Hole’s gravity.

What’s all this got to do with singularities? Well, the stuff composing a Black Hole, all that stuff that clumps together and is the centre of the massive all-encompassing gravity that prohibits the photons to escape the house (Hole) that Jack built is the Black Hole’s singularity. An analogy: The extent of the Black Hole is the extent of the Earth’s outer atmosphere; the singularity is the solid Earth proper. So think of a nebulous outer edge with a solid core of stuff in the middle. The stuff in the middle generates the intense gravity; the nebulous outer edge marks the boundary between gravity below the threshold of light escaping and light not escaping. That boundary is referred to as the ‘event horizon’; the stuff in the middle is the singularity.

Now the idea of a singularity doesn’t stop with the idea behind an astronomical Black Hole. No, a singularity is any concentration of stuff or mass that has such a massive amount of gravity as to prevent photons from leaving the gravitational well or prison so created. What’s the ultimate Black Hole – the Mother of all Black Holes? Well, if bits of our Universe can clump together to form astronomical Black Holes, then our entire Universe, when clumped together and in a relativity tiny state, would have been the Mother of all Black Holes and hence the Mother of all singularities. When was our Universe in such a state? Well, in the beginning!

Our Universe is expanding. That’s verified by direct cosmological observation. Every cluster of galaxies has such astronomically bad ‘body odour’ that every other cluster of galaxies is moving out of the vicinity quick-smart! Well actually you can’t have ‘body odour’ in space, so that’s not the real reason. The real reason is that in the beginning or once upon a time, there was some sort of explosive oomph event that started the expansion process. We call that the ‘Big Bang’ event. At the time of the Big Bang event, our entire Universe had a close encounter with, well, our entire Universe. Our entire Universe was roughly all in the same space at the same time. Translated, if you run the film of an expanding Universe backwards, you eventually get the entire contents of our Universe on collectively very intimate terms. Such a massive collection of stuff, matter, mass, hence gravity, all of the stuffs, matter or mass that the Universe possesses, well let’s just say you’d have the Mother of all singularities – in the Big Bang beginning; or anyway once upon a Big Bang time at least .  

Well surely one didn’t have this Mother of all singularities just sitting around for eons then for no apparent reason go ‘poof’ and thus have an explosive oomph moment which kick-started things off as far as our Universe is concerned. The intense gravity of the Mother of all singularities probably would have muted any oomph to begin with; the birth of our Universe stalled at the onset.

But, let’s throw some momentum into the mix. What’s the opposite of a Big Bang? It’s a Big Crunch! So let’s propose that we have this other universe which, the bits and pieces thereof, under all those mutual gravitational attractions, is slowly, ever so slowly, but ever so surely, coming together. And as it comes together, the contracting velocity gets faster, and faster, and faster. Eventually, you have this massive collection of stuff rushing together to meet at a single point in space and in time at a fantastic velocity. There is such momentum present that the contracting Big Crunch universe just can’t stop on a dime any more than an automobile going a hundred miles an hour can stop with inside of a foot of having the brakes applied. The Big Crunch at the omega point obviously forms the Mother of all Black Holes and singularities, but the sheer momentum of that contracting universe just tears the fabric of things (space and time) apart, and like a glove turning inside-out, the contraction passes through the omega point, spewing its gets out, becoming an alpha point, which is our Big Bang event and the start of our new expanding Universe.

Okay, so we have two sources that have singularities – singularities at the centre of astronomical Black Holes, and the Mother of all singularities residing inside the Mother of all Black Holes, the one that existed at the Big Bang beginning of the Universe.

We of course can’t see a singularity directly (unless you’re willing to take a one-way trip down a Black Hole, but even if you survived that and landed safely on the singularity, you couldn’t ever broadcast back your findings – that speed of light restriction that by definition a Black Hole imparts regarding sending stuff out). So, we have to rely 100% on what theoretical equations predict a singularity to be. Unfortunately, those equations, when pushed to the sorts of mass and gravitational extremes that a singularity would represent, well you get nonsense answers. Translated, if taken at face value, the equations note that the intense gravity crushes the stuff that itself is responsible for that gravity down to a point of zero dimensions and hence infinite density.

The essential problem behind this nonsense is that gravity is represented by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity which is a classical physics smooth continuum phenomenon. That is, you can have this gravitational value, and that gravitational value, and every possible value in-between. However, tiny objects, which is what a singularity is postulated to be, is in the realm of the quantum, which is a non-continuum phenomena. Think of a staircase. You can be on this step, or the next step, but there is no step in-between the two. That is, you can have this value, or that value, but only certain other values in-between. It’s also like money – you can have a five dollar bill, and a ten dollar bill, but not a six and a third dollar bill, or an eight and three-quarters dollar bill, or even a seven or a nine dollar bill. Money and staircases are non-continuum quantum-like; money and staircases are not a smooth continuum like gravity is.  

So, to adequately come to terms with the really real properties of singularities, you need a theory of quantum gravity. Alas, despite the best efforts of thousands of theoretical physicists over many, many decades, no quantum gravity theory to be had. There’s no quantum gravity dice.

So, let’s abandon that theoretical track and go back to common sense predictions.

Either Black Hole singularities, or the Big Bang singularity, are infinitely dense and have zero volume, or they do not. If they do not (and the alternative defies common sense and is IMHO ridiculous), then singularities have a finite volume and can grow in size as more stuff is added on. You have an original tiny singularity with extremely high, but not infinite density. You keep piling stuff onto it. For a while, the density keeps on increasing, but since it can’t become infinite, there will be a point reached where further increases cease. As more and more stuff continues to be piled on, the only other option is that the size of the singularity must grow. The volume increases, and increases and increases. The upshot is that singularities can reach a size where quantum effects become negligible. Or, in other words, singularities can grow to where they aren’t quantum objects anymore, and while theories of quantum gravity might be still be useful in explaining their properties, it’s probably no longer essential. Singularities have entered the realm of classical physics.

One property of singularities I find interesting is that the stuff that eventually forms the singularity isn’t the same sort of stuff that went down the Black Hole’s throat in the first place. There’s been a phase transition of one kind of stuff to another kind of stuff. You’re quite familiar with phase transitions in your day-to-day life. There’s nothing mysterious about the concept. The most common example is steam or water vapour condensing to liquid water condensing or freezing to ice; ice melting to liquid water hence boiling or evaporating into steam or water vapour.  Apart from your division into solid, liquid and gas, there’s also plasma. Now the sort of matter that composes a singularity is probably something else yet again, a phase transition that only extreme gravity can achieve. That such a new state of matter exists is predicted by the following: If you have an ordinary matter star, and if it should happen to collide with an antimatter star, what you get is one hell of a big Ka-Boom; the annihilation of matter/antimatter into pure energy.  However, say your matter star implodes into a Black Hole with singularity. And say your antimatter star implodes into a Black Hole with singularity. Now have these two Black Holes collide. No Ka-Boom results, just a larger Black Hole! 

Our Universe in a Cosmic Fish Tank: Part One

The Big Bang origin-of-our-Universe event was not the be-all-and-end-all of things. The Big Bang event was but a minor event in the larger cosmic scheme of things. If the elementary particles that comprise your mind and body could talk, what a tale of eternity they would tell!

THE SETTINGS

Setting Number One - Time is infinite in scope. ‘Once upon a time’; ‘in the beginning’, are two standard openings to the stage setting where ultimately, our Universe, plays its part. Alas, although there was an ‘in the beginning’ to our Universe, ultimately, IMHO there was no such thing as an ultimate ‘in the beginning’ in the broader cosmic context. In the broadest of broadest viewpoints, time stretches infinitely from cosmic horizon to cosmic horizon. Unlike all we know of regarding beginnings or creations, from our Universe, to our Solar System; to Earth; to terrestrial life, down through the ages to us, there is no ultimate beginning; there is no ultimate ending to the broader cosmic setting we find ourselves in. ‘Once upon a time’, should really read, ‘once upon an eternity’.

Setting Number Two – Space is infinite in scope. In the broadest or broadest viewpoints, there’s no such thing as an edge or a border or a boundary. Space stretches infinitely from horizon to horizon. Again, that’s not the case when just considering our Universe, our Solar System, our home planet. But, this infinite space is again part of the overall stage where our Universe acts out a role – along with probably lots of other universe actors.

Let’s call this larger context an infinite cosmic fish tank, and our Universe a fish.

Setting Number Three – There is no shape to the infinite cosmos. Why propose an infinite in space and infinite in time fish tank cosmos or cosmic setting in which to plunk our Universe - where our Universe is one of the fish? Because it does away with those awkward questions of what came before; what comes after; what lies at the farthest reaches? There is no before in the fish tank. There is no after either. There is no farthest away, only something even farther away, ad nauseam. It also does away with the need to define an overall shape to our fish tank cosmos. An infinite volume has no shape!

That said, it must be repeated and made clear that our Universe (a fish in the infinite tank) did have a beginning, and therefore one can legitimately ask what came before. Our Universe does have a finite size and therefore a shape – probably spherical. What defines the (ever expanding) size and shape of our Universe is how far out light (the speediest thing we know of) has been able to travel since our Universe’s creation, some 13.7 billion years ago. That’s the boundary to our Universe. Again, our Universe is probably a sphere, with a radius of 13.7 billion light years (a light year being the distance light travels in one year – which, at 300,000 km per second, is a long way). Or, a diameter of 27.4 billion light years.

Setting Number Four – The laws, relationships, and principles of physics (and ultimately chemistry, etc.) are universal throughout the fish tank cosmos. All the fish may not be of the same species and even those that are of the same species may have differing ages, sizes, sexes, etc. but they are ultimately all fish, subject to the universals that govern all things fish; the cosmic ‘water’ is uniform throughout.

Setting Number Five – Those fishy laws suggest that fish universes, each and every one (assuming more than just our Universe fish is in the infinite tank) are unstable – which real fish are – unstable that is. The same fish on two separate days is not the same fish, any more than you are the same you from one day to the next. You grow, you age, your cells and their components get replaced, etc. Translating to real universes, universes are unstable in that they must evolve; either expand, or contract. If there is one thing they can not be is static and unchanging. So, our infinite cosmic fish tank is a dynamic one.  Fish come and go, but the tank is forever.

BEFORE THE BIG BANG: THE BIG CRUNCH

Once upon a time there was this universe, but not our Universe. This universe existed way before our Universe existed. For some reason(s) this universe had sufficient matter/mass and thus gravity to slow down its expansion rate, halt same, and reverse the flow. Slowly, but ever so surely, this universe contracted, grew ever hotter and denser, until, like thousands of cars converging at an ever higher rate of speed, came together at an intersection. You have, in effect, the Big Crunch!

What happens when all the stuff that comprises a universe comes together? Well, what happens when you concentrate a lot of stuff into a small space? You get a Black Hole. There are probably going to be already in existence a lot of Black Holes in this collapsing universe, if our Universe is any guide. So, existing Black Holes will have a feeding frenzy as matter around them gets confined into a smaller and smaller space; Black Holes themselves can merge creating a bigger Black Hole, until finally, all mass will be inside a super Black Hole, the product of smaller Black Holes gobbling up matter and ultimately combining until a super Black Hole is all that remains of that universe. But wait, there’s more!

Think of the mass of an entire universe, all coming together at a single point in space and in time, at velocities that make Formula One racetrack driving look like a snail ploughing through molasses on a frozen winter’s night! This is going to be the Mother of the Mother of the Mother of all collisions. No Hollywood special effects team could want for more! The upshot is going to be, just prior to the finale, the existence, as noted above, of the Mother of all Black Holes. There’s going to be one hell of a massive distortion of space and time, or, space-time. The sheer momentum of such a collision, a Big Crunch, will turn space, or space-time, inside out. All that momentum can’t just come to a screeching halt in a nanosecond. What’s the result of a super collapsing Black Hole? A super massive explosion – a White Hole – a Big Bang.

BETWEEN THE BIG CRUNCH AND THE BIG BANG

Once upon a time there was this brief, but extremely intense transition between another universe’s Big Crunch and our ‘in the beginning’ Big Bang event. I’ve already suggested that pure momentum of this runaway freight train will be, as an analogy, a sock turning inside out. That ‘inside out’ event will be a pretty quick-smart happening. What happens in that brief interval of time has to do with several parameters. One is of course time - how quick – well, quick – probably several seconds to minutes. The other is space – how small – well small. But is small classically small or quantum small? Classically small refers to the minimum size of the Big Crunch vs. the original size of that universe. Classically small could still be a ‘point’ many light seconds/minutes/hours in diameter. Quantum small means a ‘point’ that is within the realm of the quantum – say atomic sized, probably way less. Logic: can you squeeze the contents of an entire universe down to the size of an atom, or elementary particle? Or, perhaps it is more logical to suggest that the ultimate squeeze is somewhat larger. Now ‘larger’ may still be tiny relative to the universe’s original size, but still one hell of a lot bigger than what’s implied by the word ‘quantum’. Yet, cosmologists would have one believe that our Universe started out as ‘quantum small’, not ‘classically small’; that quantum small somehow ruled the roost when our Universe went the way of the Big Bang event – the origin of our Universe. To me, that’s too big an ask to ask.

Any standard cosmology text will tell you about the conditions that existed within nanoseconds of the Big Bang event when the Universe was less than the size of your common cold bacterium. It was very, very super hot. It was very, very super dense. That’s what the equations say (no cosmologist was around at the time to actually observe and measure), but equations are abstractions and Mother Nature doesn’t deal with abstractions. Now both hot and dense are two logical Big Bang environmental parameters just nanoseconds past that event - but what of volume?

One can of course take any contracting object and extrapolate down to where it shrinks to a point of zero dimensions and thus have an infinite density (which therefore would be a Black Hole). But, does that reflect reality? IMHO: not on your Nellie. There must be (well, should be) some ultimate state of matter that when compressed, can’t be compressed any further. It would take an infinite amount of gravitational force to do it and the Universe, any universe, doesn’t possess infinite gravity.

What’s the minimum size our Universe (or any universe in general) could be squeezed down to? If you asked that question to any reasonably educated adult, even a kid, while you’d get a range of answers, gut feeling tells me that – unless they were well versed in cosmology – that that volume wouldn’t be within the range that couldn’t be seen with the naked eye. Now, it is dangerous to apply common sense when it comes to sussing out nature’s hidden secrets, but I’m now going to throw caution to the wind and applying this common sense dictum – The Universe, any universe, was never, repeat never ever the size that we would describe as microscopic!

Okay, so here we have this universe contracting down, getting hotter and hotter; denser and denser, and smaller and smaller as it slides into the Mother of all Black Holes, and immediately, within nanoseconds (or close to nanoseconds as the actual size allows – maybe seconds, maybe minutes) spew its guts out via a White Hole. Those guts form the contents of our Big Bang Universe. That midpoint – what was the minimum size of that transitional post Black Hole / pre White Hole event? All I’m prepared to say is that it was visible to the naked eye – assuming naked eyes were around 13.7 billion years ago! It was certainly not microscopic!

However, the really real important bit here is that our Big Bang, the product of a previous Big Crunch, happened in pre-existing time and space. The Big Bang did not, repeat, did not, create time and space. The question, ‘what happened before the Big Bang?’ has now a perfectly logical answer. The Big Crunch happened before the Big Bang.

To be continued…

Cosmology 101: Part Two

The standard cosmological model, the standard origin of our Universe model, the Big Bang event, is an “in the beginning” model. The Big Bang marked the beginning of our Universe; what happened before that is akin to asking what’s south of the South Pole. However, I prefer a “once up a time” scenario, which implies there was a time before the Big Bang created our Universe, and ultimately, us.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

THE CENTER OF THINGS #1

The Black Hole is at the centre of things between the Big Crunch and the Big Bang. I’ll suggest it’s a frictionless place – there are those who suggest that the interior of a Black Hole, call it a singularity, is a transformation to a new state of matter totally outside our experience. What happens at the singularity is a pretty big unknown as one can’t look inside a Black Hole, explore a Black Hole (and live to tell the tale), and even the relevant physics equations break down when trying to describe the Black Hole’s singularity environment. However, whatever a Black Hole is, and whatever a singularity is, it’s not a fantasy realm where just anything goes. Firstly, I suggest that internal conditions will be quite suggestive of extreme temperatures and pressures (the two are related). All previous structure is totally broken down and recycled back to the most elementary, fundamental bits. No structure from the previous universe survives intact into ours. Secondly, the transition into, through, and exiting a Black Hole, from Big Crunch to Big Bang, I suggest won’t alter the laws, principles, and relationships of physics. They will be the same before and after. Thirdly, the total amount of matter/energy on either side of the transition via our Black Hole centre of things will be the same. However, the ratio of mass to energy could well be different. That coupled with the random nature of quantum fluctuations means the new universe, our Universe, won’t of 100% necessity, right down to the Nth detail, be an identical clone of the previous universe. You retain your uniqueness!  

Once the former universe (now our Universe) starts expanding again, other energy sources come into play to add to the oomph. A second source of energy is that in-between a Big Crunch and a Big Bang all matter gets reduced to the basics of fundamental elementary particles due to the resulting immense temperatures and pressures present. Molecules are torn apart to atoms; atoms to electrons (and positrons) and atomic nuclei; nuclei to protons and neutrons; protons and neutrons to quarks (and anti-quarks). Now, given that this transition phase produces or reduces everything to basic fundamental matter and antimatter particles, what’s the most efficient form of energy production known? Well, it’s matter-antimatter annihilation!

Matter-antimatter annihilation plus momentum from the Big Crunch to the Big bang – well, that’s energy enough to expand our Universe to the state of play we observe today.

But wait, there’s maybe more. There’s also the contribution from the vacuum energy (perhaps the cause of an extra postulated ‘inflation’ phase just after the Big Bang event itself), and/or ‘dark energy’*** which is a push or pseudo-antigravity force apparently causing our Universe’s expansion rate to ever increase – something quite contrary to common sense given that the mass, therefore gravity, of our Universe should be slowing things down.

THE CENTER OF THINGS #2

Traditional Big Bang cosmology states that the origin or our Universe created space and time as well as matter and energy (first there was nothing; then there was something) and that space is expanding carrying matter along for the ride. Thus, there is no centre within our Universe where the Big Bang happened. There’s no set of coordinates. The event happened everywhere because in the beginning everywhere was just that one tiny Big Bang point and nothing existed outside that tiny (but now rapidly expanding) point.

Well, my untraditional Big Bang cosmology has the Big Bang event taking place in existing space and time, so there is a set of coordinates in our Universe where the event took place, and that our matter is expanding through that pre-existing space. And by the way, there’s no observational technique available that can distinguish space expanding carrying matter along like an ocean current can carry a ship, and matter moving and expanding in space, like a ship under steam moving through the water.

Well, if we’re not the centre of things, how do you explain the observation that all but the closest of the galaxies are red-shifted and moving away from us? Doesn’t that imply we have bad breath? Well, at the time of the Big Bang, not everything gets hurled outwards at the same velocity. Something hurled out faster than us will be obviously moving away from us. But, something hurled out slower than us will have us moving away from them, but from our relative perspective, it will appear as if that slower moving bit of stuff is moving away from us. So, even though there is a centre where the Big Bang happened, we still get the illusion that all things are moving away from us.

Why can’t we see the remains where the Big Bang happened? No, I won’t copout and say there’s all this interstellar/intergalactic gas and dust in the way blocking the view. Don’t forget some 13.7 billion years have gone by the boards since that explosive event. Say you are watching a candle from several miles away, both in the visible and in the infra-red (since the candle is giving off heat as well as light). Now what can you detect once the candle burns down and will obviously go out? In fairly quick-smart order you will detect bugger-all. You can’t see it any more, and in short order the now totally consumed candle will assume the temperature of the local environment. Infra-red wouldn’t distinguish it (or the burning event) from all that’s nearby. Our Big Bang event happened so long ago that the residue has become part of the background common to everywhere else. So, we can’t pick up the specific location anymore. Too much time has elapsed. 

HOW DO YOU CREATE A BIG CRUNCH?

Well, the obvious way is that an expanding universe has enough stuff, enough gravity, so slow the expansion down until it ceases, then reverses direction and starts to contract under that gravity, very slowly at first, but over time as stuff gets closer together, faster and faster until like cars meeting at an intersection, everything comes together at one point in space and time. That’s your basic Big Crunch.

But, our Universe isn’t apparently going to do the Big Crunch boogie. However, there is an alternative way. If our Universe is ever expanding, and meets another universe that’s ever expanding, then the partial intersection of the two might increase the overall mass density sufficiently to cause that local intersected area to start contracting. And when that contraction reaches its logical conclusion, you have a – wait for it – a Big Crunch. 

The inhabitants of a doomed Big Crunching universe could in theory escape their fate because there is an outside (the wider infinite cosmos) to escape into.

ALTERNATIVES

Other island universes may have had other origins and/or fates compared to ours. Our Universe had a Big Bang origin and apparently will have a Heat Death final. Another universe may have a quantum fluctuation beginning and a Big Crunch ending. Maybe all universes, including ours, are cyclic as the result of (via string theory) two branes colliding (the Ekpyrotic universe theory).

As long as the origin of our Universe happened in pre-existing space and time, I’m a happy camper.

Not up for grabs in this essay, or in the context of the infinite cosmos including our Universe and all other universes within, is the Many Worlds theory of all things quantum, nor ideas central to the concept of a parallel/alternative/mirror/shadow, etc. universe(s) as they fall, assuming they exist at all, outside our space-time continuum.

***I’ve often wondered whether ‘dark energy’, a push or repulsive force, could be the result of our Universe having a slight excess of positive charge over negative charge (or vice versa) – although our Universe is supposed to be overall charge neutral. If it is not, and since like charges repel or push, a surplus of either positive or negative charge would give our Universe an overall repulsive force edge to it. 

Cosmology 101: Part One

The standard cosmological model, the standard origin of our Universe model, the Big Bang event, is an “in the beginning” model. The Big Bang marked the beginning of our Universe; what happened before that is akin to asking what’s south of the South Pole. However, I prefer a “once up a time” scenario, which implies there was a time before the Big Bang created our Universe, and ultimately, us.

THE COSMOS IS THE BE ALL AND END ALL OF ALL THAT IS OR EVER WILL BE

“The Cosmos”: That’s what I call all that is, and all that every will be. My cosmos is infinite in size and in time*. From the get-go I’m eliminating the philosophical issues of ‘what comes before time existed’; and ‘what exists beyond any existing space’? The answers are that nothing came before time existed because time has always existed; and nothing exists beyond existing space because existing space is ever endless. 

Into this infinite sea of time and space resides an infinite (or even finite if you prefer – that’s not the critical bit) amount of matter and energy. One can put an infinite amount of stuff into an infinite amount of space and still have lots of room left over for the matter/energy to move about and interact in.

Now that matter/energy can be infinitely old because matter, in the form of elementary particles like electrons and quarks do not age (like humans do) and energy particles, like photons (and thus far hypothetical gravitons) don’t age either. A billion years is to an electron or a photon as a nanosecond is to a human.

This cosmos is overall in a ‘steady state’, even though there’s lots of activity going on, from transitions (beginnings and endings) and evolutions (interactions) constantly taking place. This is much like a box full of water molecules, where, depending on local conditions, some molecules are disassociating into hydrogen and oxygen atoms; oxygen and hydrogen atoms are combining to form water molecules; some molecules are travelling at rapid rate and the local state is gaseous; some are travelling at a somewhat slower rate and are in a liquid state; some are really sluggish and are in a solid state. There are lots of things happening, but overall, the box is in a relatively steady state. 

Within this infinite cosmic sea, pockets of matter and energy have now and then clumped together to form what we would term a universe (like interstellar gas and dust can clump together to form a star). Actually in this infinite sea there are many universes, like raisins in a loaf of raisin bread. One could call this set of island universes The Multiverse and indeed many have, but The Multiverse could equally include all those multi-trillions of theoretical Many World universes (the common alternative to the Copenhagen interpretation of all things quantum) or the set of often proposed parallel universes or even the proposed set of computer-generated and simulated universes. Since I’m not dealing with those sorts of universes in this scenario, I’ll refrain from using the term Multiverse and stick with cosmos. 

OUR ISLAND UNIVERSE

Now our Universe is but one tiny island in this infinite sea. And while the infinite cosmos, all that is and every will be, didn’t have any origin, our Universe did. And, as things appear now, will have a predictable end.

And there are lots of other universe islands too, some or all of which may or may not have origins and endings similar to ours. Some of those other island universes may have destinies linked with ours, not so much in space (although that’s possible), but in time.

Because our Universe resides in an infinite sea of space, our Universe, since it had an origin and is expanding through that sea, must have a boundary. That boundary however isn’t how far matter has expanded into that sea; rather it is how far the light from our Universe has expanded, at the speed of light. Thus, if we assume our Universe is spherical, the outermost boundary is one of the maximum extent to which light has travelled, and so observers outside our Universe will see us way before they can touch us, as our light is obviously travelling at a higher velocity, and has expanded further, than our matter.

In such a scenario as I have proposed, our Universe could rotate. Why not? Motion is the rule, not the exception in the Universe. Everything inside our Universe seems to rotate or revolve. Earth rotates on its axis; the Sun rotates on its axis; the Solar System rotates and the planets revolve around the Sun. Our Milky Way Galaxy rotates; entire clusters of galaxies revolve around a common centre of gravity. If our Universe is all there is, it’s pretty meaningless to talk of its rotation or revolution, for with respect to what is it rotating or revolving? But, if there is a larger existence outside, then it is meaningful to talk about our Universe having motion relative to that larger outside.

THE ORIGIN OF OUR UNIVERSE: A BIG BANG

So, what is the origin of our Universe? Well, cosmologists tell us it was the Big Bang** event. Somehow, some 13.7 billion years ago, our Universe came into being from something relatively tiny (not ‘big’ at all), which ‘exploded’ (‘banged’), spewing its matter/energy guts out thus spreading the contents of said matter/energy ever outwards resulted in the expanding Universe (of matter/energy) we see all around us today.

Now there’s one hell of a lot of stuff in our Universe, all of which is in motion – expanding, ever expanding outward. Now it takes energy to put matter into motion, so given the lot of stuff present at the origin of our Universe, there had better be a lot of energy available to give all that stuff a bit (and then some) of a push. Now where, did all, that required energy come from?

If time and space; matter and energy, have always existed, it’s illogical to suggest that the origin or our Universe can be explained somehow as ‘in the beginning there was nothing; then there was something – our Universe’.  It’s more logical to propose a ‘in the beginning there was something; then there was something else – our Universe’.  That previous something I suggest was a previous universe.

HOW DO YOU CREATE A BIG BANG?

If our Universe is expanding, then it’s logical to propose that a universe can also contract. In fact, given the force of gravity, it’s very logical that a universe chock full of matter will contract under the combined force of all that gravity – which is a pull force. If a universe contracts, it must of necessity get smaller and smaller, the opposite of a Big Bang. We call that sort of contracting universe experiencing a Big Crunch event.

Now, can a Big Crunch universe give rise to our Big Bang Universe? The end product of a Big Crunch is the mother of all Black Holes. So how do you get out of a Black Hole? Well, any Black Hole, even the mother of them all, has extreme gravity, even to the extent of preventing light photons from reaching escape velocity, but that’s not the same as infinite gravity, so, given enough oomph – in this case momentum – a Black Hole can be a very quickie sometime thing. So, what’s this momentum thing? Well, it’s just the product of mass multiplied by velocity. A high mass at a low velocity can have the same momentum as a low mass travelling at a high velocity; obviously a high mass travelling at a high velocity must have a very high momentum, one that’s hard to stop. The mass of an entire universe travelling at near light speed is about as close to an infinite runaway freight train as it gets. 

I asked about the energy supply. Well, a Big Crunch universe has massive kinetic energy. As it crunches, the velocity of all its bits and pieces ever increases, until, as close to Big Crunch time as makes no odds, everything is coming together at pretty close to light speed as suggested above. It’s hard to stop massive amounts of matter, travelling at such a velocity, dead in its tracks! It is much like a swinging pendulum which has mass and velocity and so the pendulum travels from one side, through the bottom of its arc due to its momentum, and up the other side. A contracting (Big Crunch) universe will pass though its minimum (the point of least volume) and via pure momentum, start expanding (call this a Big Bang) again. That’s one source of energy oomph. The Black Hole in-between is a sometime thing.

To be continued…

*Our expanding Universe is, in terms of space, a three dimensional structure (and not by analogy so beloved by traditional cosmologists something represented as a two dimensional expanding balloon’s surface). You, as a smaller three spatial dimensional object, reside inside the Universe (like your liver resides inside you). And just as you have an inside and outside (your skin separates the two), and your liver has an inside-the-liver and an outside-the-liver, so too must our Universe have an inside (where you reside) and an outside, but if, and only if our Universe has a specific shape, and therefore a finite internal volume.

I can think of no three dimensional geometric shape of any kind, which if finite in surface area, doesn’t also contain within a finite volume. To have an infinite volume would imply this shape has no boundary, border, edge, or membrane; whatever. If it has no shape, it can’t be a geometrical structure, like that of a sphere, ellipsoid, cylinder, cube, funnel, or pyramid, or even something totally irregular in structure (possessing no overall symmetry at all) like that of an amoeba. If our Universe has no overall shape, then no boundary, border, edge, or membrane – whatever - is possible. There’s actually only one ‘shape’ that can contain an infinite volume, and that’s a ‘shape’ that’s infinite in extent in all three dimensions, which is to say no shape at all.

One could go off the deeper end and imagine a ‘shape’ that’s finite in two dimensions but infinite in the third, like a cylinder whose length extends infinitely. Perhaps there’s a ‘shape’ to the Universe that’s finite in one dimension but infinite in two, say like a cube but with the left – right and back – forward dimensions just going on, and on, and on, and on forever. Both these ‘shapes’ have infinite volumes, but there’s no reason to suggest, no observational, even theoretical evidence, that any direction, any dimension is preferred or is unique vis-à-vis any other. It’s said that our Universe is both isotropic and isometric in that it tends to look the same in any direction and has no preferred directionality to it. That’s one reason the Universe is assumed to be of spherical shape, if it has to have any shape at all.

So, get into a rocket ship and head off in a constant straight line direction of your own choosing, making any course corrections necessary when gravitational forces from within the Universe, like from stellar or galactic objects, Black Holes, etc. deviate you from your one true path. Because this is a thought experiment, you can imagine yourself travelling as fast as you want to and ignore general relativity and speed limits. If you’d rather not do that, confer upon yourself immortality and live to see the end of your journey. Sooner or later, if the Universe has finite volume, you’ll encounter that border, boundary, edge, or membrane – whatever. You now have an awkward question to face. What’s on the other side?

By proposing from the get-go, a Universe with an infinite volume, a no shape Universe, there can not ever be that border, boundary, edge, or membrane – whatever – that you eventually run into. And therefore, there’s no awkward question to ever have to face and answer.    

I’m just changing the word ‘Universe’ to ‘cosmos’ and placing our Universe within that larger infinite ‘shape’.

Oh, you hit that same brick wall, that awkward question, with our fourth dimension, time. What comes before, whatever; what comes after, whatever?

**I could use the synonymous (to my way of thinking) phrase “White Hole” event, since the Big Crunch resulted in a Black Hole which immediately upon rebounding (expanding) became the opposite of a Black Hole – a White Hole which we have named the Big Bang.

Cosmology: In the Beginning, and Afterwards Too

Gravity rules the cosmos. You can’t come to terms with the origins, evolutions and ultimate fates associated with cosmology or astrophysics without understanding gravity and the theory of relativity. Quantum theory also has to apply to cosmology (and astrophysics) anytime you run across micro phenomena where quantum effects need to be considered and where they apply. Unfortunately, there are circumstances where both gravity and quantum physics need to be simultaneously considered - singularities. Unfortunately gravity and quantum physics aren’t compatible.

The Alpha: In the beginning was the Big Bang event origin of our Universe – 13.7 billion years ago. The origin of the Universe (the Big Bang) was a quantum event because the initial size of our Universe was such that quantum effects dominated. At least that’s what the standard model dictates. It was also a time of extreme gravity, since all the mass of the cosmos was situated at the same time and place. But the relevant and separate equations of relativity and quantum mechanics break down as one approachs such extremes as would of applied at the Big Bang Alpha, giving rise for the necessity of a new theory of quantum gravity in order to come to terms with the Alpha object.

There are two main pillars of modern physics – relativity (part of classical physics) and quantum mechanics or quantum physics. Alas, the two pillars aren’t compatible, and thus, a Holy Grail for physicists is to find a ‘Theory of Everything’ (TOE) that merges the two. Now in the day-to-day life of physicists, a TOE isn’t essential, because relativity deals with the very big (the macro-universe) and quantum mechanics the very small (the micro-universe), and rarely do the twains meet. But, meet the two do in exceptional circumstances. Relativity deals with gravity (in the main), and on quantum scales, gravity is so weak that gravity can safely be ignored. But, there are objects that are very small, yet very dense – that is, tiny objects that have high gravity. There are basically two such objects – the Alpha Big Bang object or singularity and Black Hole singularities, or, to be honest, singularities in general regardless of where or when. And thus, to come to terms with the physics of singularities (immense gravity; micro size), the relativity and quantum worlds need to combine. So, TOE is basically a search for a theory of quantum gravity, and there are various highly complex and theoretical scenarios that fit the bill (though not yet even remotely experimentally confirmed).

Now while theories of everything or theories of quantum gravity are, in the final analysis, necessary (it just doesn’t wash that relativity and quantum mechanics can’t be made compatible – you can’t have two separate software packages governing the overall Universe), it is my opinion that they aren’t necessary to come to terms with singularities, which are usually described as an object of zero (point) dimensions and infinite density.

However, it is my opinion that it is absurd, in the extreme; to even slightly entertain the idea that a (Big Bang or Black Hole) singularity even remotely approaches such limits, far less acquires them. One cannot have a zero (point) dimensional object; one cannot have an object of infinite density. A singularity must have some sort of volume, and must have a finite density, even if the volume is very tiny, and the density is extremely extreme.

The basic logic is that a singularity has a finite volume and finite density. As you add more stuff to the singularity, the volume might remain the same but the density increases. However, as more and more stuff gets added, ultimately the density reaches the maximum possible, and from that point onwards, the volume of the singularity increases, finally increasing beyond the point where quantum mechanics can play any useful role, and gravity alone is the lone player left standing in the game.

Thus, a singularity could be large enough in volume that relativity theory alone can deal with the extreme gravitational conditions. The Big Bang object, containing the mass of the entire Universe, would be (the ultimate as) such a singularity. Massive (Galactic) Black Hole singularities, ditto. Singularities aren’t quantum objects. If you continue to add mass to a Black Hole, it gets bigger; the singularity at the centre gets bigger. To believe otherwise is, IMHO, entering the realm of scientific fantasy.

The upshot off all this is that the Big Bang was not a quantum event, nor would a future Omega Big Crunch be, and likewise, Black Holes are not quantum objects.

The Omega: In the beginning was the Big Bang event origin of our Universe – 13.7 billion years ago. Now what? It’s taken 13.7 billion years to get to ‘now’; what’s the state of play in another 13.7 billion years, or even 137 billion years hence?

What’s the ultimate fate of our Universe? Our Universe is currently expanding post Big Bang – ever increasing in volume like a balloon blowing up and up. Now either our expanding Universe will one day cease to expand as gravity slows things down to a crawl, then a stop, then a reversal – a contracting Universe, or our Universe will keep on expanding forever and ever and a day, ultimately terminating in a Heat Death. A Heat Death is when the temperature of the entire Universe becomes uniform. Everyplace has the same temperature, and that’s going to be cold – as close to absolute zero as makes no odds. Thus the Heat Death is the death of heat. That’s the Universe ending not with a bang (or even a very Big Crunch) but with a whimper. I really don’t like that ending at all.

Assuming that the Universe will ultimately contract into a Big Crunch, what will happen? Well, as one gets ever closer to the Big Crunch, density increases (but will not, can not, become infinite) and temperature increases (but again, not infinitely so) and the volume of space decreases (but will never become infinitely tiny) and time just keeps ticking on. Further, we know there are lots of Black Holes out in the cosmos; both small and massive (such as exists at the centre of our own galaxy). As the Universe contracts, these Black Holes will get closer and closer, not only to each other, but to the rest of non-Black Hole stuff as well. Ultimately, all the non-Black Hole stuff will get sucked into existing Black Holes as the Universe shrinks and matter’s density increases. Of course large Black Holes will also suck in smaller Black Holes, until ultimately, at the time approaching Big Crunch; there will be one ultimate/universal Black Hole left containing all that was.

Then what happens? The conditions inside a Black Hole are still unknown, beyond the equations of current physics, but whatever parameters are present, infinities aren’t among them (which might put me at odds with most astrophysicists). My reasoning is that no matter what, there’s only a finite amount of stuff comprising the universal Black Hole. Squeezed into a tiny area, the density will be extreme, but not infinitely so. The volume will be tiny, but not infinitely so. That is because there is an ultimate limit to how small length (hence volume) can get. The smallest possible length is known as Planck length and anything less than that space ceases to exist. Planck length is 1.6 x 10 to the minus 35 meters. Gravity might be so intense that not even light can escape, but it doesn’t take an infinite amount of gravity to do that. And there can’t be a time equals zero, either at the beginning (Big Bang) or at the end (Big Crunch). Because time exists in discrete quantum units (Planck-Wheeler time units), one must go from a minus one (contracting phase) time unit directly to a plus one (expanding) time unit, as there can be no time unit where time equals zero.  In other words, you go from a Big Crunch directly to a Big Bang, contraction to expansion, endlessly cycling or recycling. Or, the universal Black Hole sucking in all matter and energy (approaching the Big Crunch) turns inside out and becomes a universal White Hole (the Big Bang) spewing out stuff (matter and energy).

That’s sort of akin to having four cars approach an intersection, on each from the north, south, east and west. If each car is one kilometre from the intersection, and each car is travelling at say 50 kilometres per hour, then it is clear this contraction of automobiles will result in a Big Crunch. However, it might be difficult to then go to an automobile expansion as the cars will be a wreck and in no condition to go anywhere! That’s one possibility.

The other possibility is that it might be unrealistic to expect in a contracting Universe that each and every bit and piece will meet at exactly the same point in time and space. Using our car analogy, what if each car was one kilometre away from the intersection, but say the north car was going 46 kilometres per hour, the east car 48 kilometres per hour, the south car 50 kilometres per hour, and the west car 52 kilometres per hour. Then, we can go directly from automobile contraction to automobile expansion as each car passes through the intersection while only having near misses with the other vehicles.

Cosmology: The State of the Universe

The answer to life, the Universe and everything isn’t really “42”. Okay, so here are the real answers (well, my answers anyway) to life, the Universe and everything cosmic!  Over the past 2000+ years, three undeniable trends have emerged in our on-going studies of life, the Universe and everything. It’s probably worth while keeping these in mind when pondering the cosmos and what future discoveries are likely to reveal.

Firstly, our place in the central scheme of things has gone from be-all-and-end-all uniqueness, a unique life form created in God’s image, the cream of all there is and ever will be, to, well, just another life form in the Darwinian scheme of things. Detection of extraterrestrial life, especially extraterrestrial intelligence will be the final straw (nail) in that scenario (coffin).

Secondly, we’ve shrunk in potential significance because the size of the Universe keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger as instrumentation and observations get better and better. We’ve become displaced as well. Earth is no longer all there is (the be-all-and-end-all of real estate) and the centre of everything (we’ve been moved from the CBD to the boonies several times over) as well. We’re not located at the centre of things and as our visions of the size of the Universe has ever increased over time, will there ever be an end to it?

Thirdly, cosmological common sense has decreased, given way to weirdness. Or, depending on your point of view (POV), weirdness has increased over time in all things cosmological. The well ordered and common sense cosmology of Genesis or the ancient Greeks was pretty straight forward.  Even up through the life and times of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Brahe and Newton that was still pretty much the case, albeit with the invention of the telescope things did get a little weirder (and more unsettling) with respect to Genesis (and the Church) and the ancient Greeks (and other ancient societies like the Chinese). Then, ever accelerating, the weirdness quotient, the scientific fertilizer, really hit the fan! In fairly short order, uncommon sense descriptions of the cosmos and the stuff in it. Concepts like relativity, space-time, quantum mechanics, black holes, wormholes, dark matter, dark energy, antimatter, atomic structure, and string/superstring theory. Nothing made much common sense anymore. I suspect that’s a trend that’s also likely to continue. In fact, you can probably bet on it.

Now on to the Big Questions (and little answers):

Q: Did God or Nature Create the Universe or Multiverse?

A:  Here I opt for nature. If God can create one universe, God can create more than one universe (but what would be the point of doing so?).  If nature can create one universe, then nature can create more than one universe. Since nature isn’t intelligent, creation of multi-universes (the Multiverse) is more like to be a natural than a supernatural event. That is, it’s probably illogical to create more than one universe where one will do – so that eliminates the God hypothesis since we assume that a God would be logical. Nature however tends to be prolific. Since nature, that is the laws of physics as we understand them, can adequately explain the creation of a universe(s), there is no need to appeal to a supernatural being or higher authority or universal designer, or whatever.

Q: Is There A Universe or A Multiverse?

A: Here I opt for the Multiverse. But the background to the Multiverse, that which contains the Multiverse, is something I call the “Superverse”. There is, always has been and always will be a super vast expanse (call it the all being “Superverse”) of nothing – that is, the vacuum (lowest possible) energy (state) which seethes with quantum activity and pervades everything. That’s the bottom line. I don’t know how big the Superverse of vacuum energy is, maybe it’s infinite (but cosmologists, physicists and I too like to steer clear of the can-of-worms that is infinity), but when I consider the following progression, logic suggests ‘pretty damn big’. Just as an atomic nucleus is tiny relative to an atom; an atom is tiny relative to you; you are tiny relative to Planet Earth; Planet Earth is tiny relative to our solar system; the solar system is tiny relative to the Milky Way Galaxy; our galaxy is tiny relative to the super-cluster of galaxies of which it is a part; our super-cluster of galaxies is tiny relative to the observable universe. That’s as far as knowledge can take us, but if the progression continues, then our observable universe will be tiny relative to our Universe; our Universe is tiny compared to the Multiverse, all of which resides with the Superverse energy vacuum!

Q: What is the Origin and Fate of Our Universe? Is the Universe Open or Closed? Will There Be A Heat Death or A Big Crunch? How Can A Universe Be Created?

A: I opt for death by Big Crunch despite all the evidence currently against it! I reason as follows – we know matter can create energy. The reverse is also possible – energy can create matter. That’s because, as per Einstein’s famous equation, matter and energy are opposite sides of the same coin. And thus the all pervasive, all surrounding, vacuum energy, seething with quantum uncertainty (albeit certain quantum activity), will now and again produce particles, thus reducing the overall energy of the vacuum. This energy debt must eventually be repaid, so said particles usually decay (annihilate actually) back into pure energy and rejoin the vacuum pretty quick-smart.  But, it’s possible that those particles, could, by chance, evolve into an entire universe. Particles, if they exist long enough, will be subjected to all manner of quantum effects and thus evolve into a universe instead of being immediately reabsorbed back into the energy vacuum. The energy debt however still must be eventually repaid, but who’s to say how quickly that is required? So, ultimately, in order to repay that energy debt, our Universe will need to ultimately collapse (undergo Big Crunch) back into the Superverse energy vacuum from which it originally came and pay the energy debt. The Universe (our Universe) begins and ends as pure energy – energy borrowed from the vacuum; energy returned to the vacuum. How exactly that Big Crunch is going to come about I know not, I’m just convinced it will happen.

So, why aren’t new universes being created from scratch in our backyards (where the energy vacuum holds sway as it does everywhere)? Because, for any given tiny area (like your backyard), under the relatively low probabilities of the exact circumstances coming together just so, it’s going to take trillions of years for it to happen. But, given the vast acreage of the Superverse, new universes probably pop into (and out of) existence on a fairly regular basis. It’s like you are fairly unlikely to have a meteor land in your backyard tomorrow, but somewhere tomorrow a meteor is likely to hit our planet. 

Now, what if the vacuum energy (Superverse) can not produce a universe? Well, the next best (second) option I suggest is the black hole as a universal motherhood idea. That is, the extreme conditions that produce a black hole in one universe ends up producing a new universe in a different place (obviously), maybe in a different time. Our black hole connects us to that new universe, but no physicist would advise you to make the trip! At least this origin-of-a-baby-universe doesn’t rely on a Big Crunch ending.

The third best option is the Big Crunch of one universe producing the Big Bang of the next, but from observations, the prospect of a Big Crunch is dicey at best. But, I like to give the prospect of a Big Crunch the benefit of the doubt. Further, there’s nothing to say that option two, black holes, couldn’t produce a baby universe that would end up cyclic – Big Bang – expansion – contraction – Big Crunch – Big Bang, etc.  Reproduction and reincarnation!

Lastly, albeit unlikely in the extreme yet I’ve sure sci-fi writers have a ball with this idea, is that advanced E.T. could manufacture a universe using the laws of physics, especially quantum physics, to do so. If nature can manufacture a universe, could not intelligence also manufacture a universe? Call it the mother of all engineering achievements. Now this differs from God creating universes, in that presumably God knows He/She/It can do so and knows the outcome to the Nth degree, but to E.T., this is just a scientific experiment. Whether an E.T. created universe would take on a life and evolution of its own, who knows? Now you’d think that creating a rapidly expanding universe in the laboratory would end up destroying said lab and surroundings. Of course maybe the physics of baby universe creation dictates that the universe forms elsewhere and/or elsewhen! One other scenario is that once universe creation becomes so routine as to end up being part and parcel of the science lab curricula at E.T. Junior High School, then it’s going to be universes galore – maybe that why we have a Multiverse!

Q: Does Our Universe or Multiverse Have an Existence that’s Finite or Infinite in Time?

A: The philosophical answer here is ‘infinite’. One can never get away from the question “Well that’s fine, but what happened before that?” Even if our specific Universe had a beginning, there was a before the Big Bang that extends the timeline back, and back, and back. If our Universe continues to expand forever, well forever equals infinity. If our Universe ends in a Big Crunch that kick-starts off the existence of another universe, then the timeline of the cosmos continues onward, ever onward.

Q: To Quantum or Not to Quantum the Big Bang?

A: Here I opt for the Big Bang as a non-quantum event. I just can’t figure out how you can cram the entire contents of our Universe into a space smaller than an atom at the point of origin. In any event, if the point of origin of the Big Bang were a singularity, then because singularities can’t have zero dimensions and infinite density – that just makes no sense at all – then said singularity could have been large enough to exceed the volumes commonly associated with quantum physics.

Q: Are the Laws of Physics the Same or Different in Various Universes?

A:  The answer here is unknown and probably unknowable. However, I suspect that there is only one type of physics possible – as Einstein is quoted, ‘did God have any choice in the matter?’ – or maybe not. Anyway, my reasoning is that assuming that all universes arise from a common cause, say the Superverse vacuum energy or via Lee Smolin’s black holes as universe generators, or the budding off of universes via chaotic/eternal inflation, with no evidence to the contrary, it’s probably more logical to suspect that only one type of physics exists, and each universe will be the same – physics wise.  But, what if you introduce extraterrestrial intelligence into the picture? Maybe, just maybe, intelligence advanced enough to create universes, may be intelligent enough to tweak the laws of physics and alter them. That certainly would be easy enough to do if you created computer software that simulated universes, each software package having different physics programmed in! So, maybe it’s just as well to fence sit on this issue. 

Q: Is our Universe (Hence Ourselves) Really Real or Simulated?

A: The odds overwhelmingly favor our reality as being a simulated one. If that could be proved, it would also be likely proof of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. If all terrestrial life is simulated, who else is left to simulate us but extraterrestrials? I just bet we’re some alien’s Ph D thesis. The possibility of course exists that humans from what we would term the future have simulated us and the running simulation has only reached a simulated early 21^st Century. Of course this is a fairly unpalatable theory, so I’ll just conclude here that the odds are overwhelmingly in favour of my being wrong. 

Variations on a Theme Cosmological: Part Two

The standard model explaining the origin of our Universe basically attributes no causality to that origin. First there was nothing, and then there was something. The transition was the Big Bang event; the something was the creation of matter, energy, time and space. However, to my mind, any something must have a cause, and thus my variation on the standard model postulates that there was a cause; a before the Big Bang. The before recycled previous matter and energy to become our matter and energy; the Big Bang event itself happened within existing space and time.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

An Analogy: All analogies are a bit suspect, but this one I hope will illustrate my general idea from yesterday’s blog. I’m going to substitute a supernova for the Big Bang.

Interstellar gas and dust slowly come together, contracting under their mutual gravitational attraction, ultimately forming a massive star which ignites (via thermonuclear fusion). One could think of the process as a mini Big Crunch.

The star, being massive, rapidly exhausts its fuel supply, and the resulting imbalance between gravity (inward pressure) and radiation pressure (outward pressure), a balance of pressures that normally keeps a star’s size constant, results in a massive implosion hence explosion – a supernova. The supernova spews its stuff, most of it anyway, back into interstellar space. That’s a mini Big Bang.

Now supernovae occur in existing space-time; they don’t create space-time. They don’t create matter/energy; rather recycle it – from interstellar gas and dust, back to interstellar gas and dust. However, the intense energies and pressures can create new forms of matter (heavier elements) from their supply of lighter elements. This is ultimately necessary for the origin and development of carbon-based life.

So we have a micro system of mini Big Crunches (stellar formation) leading to mini Big Bangs (supernovae – stellar death) - a sort of cyclic universe in miniature.

Now we note that supernovae happen at specific coordinates. They happen at a point in space and time, like I suspect the real Big Bang did. A supernova is also not a quantum event, much like I suspect the actual Big Bang wasn’t.

It is claimed that our Big Bang had no point of origin, no specific coordinates in space-time. The Big Bang happened everywhere, since it created space-time in the first place. Thus, our telescopes can’t find or pinpoint where it happened.  In our supernova explosion, all the bits and pieces will, over the eons, become so spread out, and/or incorporated into other stellar/planetary bodies, as to be no longer detectable or associated with the supernova event. The core of the supernova might remain for a while as a neutron star or Black Hole, but they too will eventually radiate away – in the latter case via Hawking radiation. Thus, exactly where the supernova event happened, ultimately, over the eons, will no longer be identifiable on the cosmic map. I suspect the same for the real Big Bang.

Using another analogy, imaging a closed room with a fireplace and light the fireplace for, say an hour. Then put out the fire, and leave the room for a half hour. When reentering the room, it should be obvious, especially using an infrared detector, the exact point of origin for the heat – the fireplace. Now instead of reentering the room after a half an hour, delay reentry for a half year. By that time the fireplace will be equal in temperature to the rest of the room, and thus won’t stand out, infrared detector or no. Substitute the Big Bang for the fireplace; the Universe for the room. Too much time has elapsed for the Big Bang’s coordinates to be located. 

We note that the bits and pieces that are explosively emitted by supernovae are expanding throughout existing space, just like a mini Big Bang event and mirroring the real Big Bang event. Further, every bit ‘sees’ every other bit moving away from it at a velocity proportional to its distance away. The further away, the faster it’s going, just like a real Big Bang.

We note that a supernova has a cause. Supernovae don’t happen for no reason at all. That also mirrors what I feel must be the case for our own actual Big Bang.

One other word to make the analogy more complete – our Universe may have originated in a Big Bang, but it's unlikely to end in a Big Crunch. Well, that’s okay in our supernova analogy. A star doesn’t go supernova, spew out gas and dust, which then contracts in total to reform the star when then eventually explodes as a supernova, etc. Its explosive oomph is greater than the gravity needed to gather the gas and dust back together again.

So in our Universe we have local areas of gas and dust contraction – mini Big Crunches – stellar formation; local areas of expansion – mini Big Bangs – supernovae. Now expand the picture to the level of real large scale Big Crunches and real large scale Big Bangs, all inside a super-sized universe. This super-sized universe really is super-sized. It’s infinite in time and in space. It’s not a closed system in that there’s nothing outside of it. You can’t get any bigger than infinite volume.

This infinite cosmos contains lots of embedded universes, maybe even an infinite number of them. Some universes are expanding then contracting; some universes (like ours) are expanding, forever and ever expanding; some areas of ever expanding expansion can intersect with other universe’s ever expanding expansions, as in the case of two or more supernovae, causing local pockets of contraction, or Big Crunches.

As I said, analogies are not the actual same as what they are meant to represent, but, I think the supernova substitute for the Big Bang more exactly illustrates reality than some of the claptrap offered up by the professionals. 

Postscript: Can one however now logically ask whether or not our Universe arose directly from the vacuum energy 13.7 billion years ago and bypass all this Big Crunch, Singularity, space warping nonsense? While that’s of course a possibility - see references below - that specific scenario, as opposed to universes in general being so formed, hasn’t been considered as serious an option vis-à-vis the death of one universe giving rise, Phoenix-like, to the birth of another, as in ours. My gut feeling says that you wouldn’t have the same sort of observational evidence that we have to currently account for (i.e. – cosmic microwave background radiation, etc.) in an origin via the vacuum energy. Regardless, a vacuum energy origin still differs from the standard Big Bang model in that the vacuum energy, (time and space, matter and energy), preexisted the Big Bang – and that’s not on according to traditionalists.

References

Cole, K.C.; ‘The ultimate free lunch’ (in) The Hole in the Universe; Harcourt, San Diego; 2001; p.168-171:

Tryon, E.P.; ‘Is the universe a vacuum fluctuation?’ (in) Nature, Vol.246, 1973; p.396-397:

Vilenkin, A.; ‘The universe as a quantum fluctuation’ (in) Many Worlds in One: The Search for other Universes; Hill and Wang, New York; 2006; p.183-186:

John’s Cosmology - Supernovae Analogy

1) Contraction of a universe                                          1) Contraction of interstellar gas/dust

2) Big Crunch   (Black Hole)                                        2) Massive star forms

3) Transition to                                                             3) Stellar life span

4) Big Bang (White Hole)                                             4) Supernovae

5) Expanding Universe                                                 5) Expulsion of gas/dust

6) Intersection with another expanding universe             6) Interaction with other gas/dust

7) Gravity rules                                                            7) Gravity rules

8) Contraction of new universe                                     8) Contraction of interstellar gas/dust

Variations on a Theme Cosmological: Part One

The standard model explaining the origin of our Universe basically attributes no causality to that origin. First there was nothing, and then there was something. The transition was the Big Bang event; the something was the creation of matter, energy, time and space. However, to my mind, any something must have a cause, and thus my variation on the standard model postulates that there was a cause; a before the Big Bang. The before recycled previous matter and energy to become our matter and energy; the Big Bang event itself happened within existing space and time.

In the infinite beginning was the vacuum energy (a quantum state of energy and matter, even if the matter is virtual). The vacuum energy resided in space and time (or space-time, post relativity theory). Now why ‘in the infinite beginning’? It eliminates the awkward, nagging and very annoying philosophical question of ‘what came before that?’ Its neigh near impossible to avoid asking that because one just can’t come to terms with a finite beginning to everything. It’s obvious in a common sense sort of way that no matter how far back you go, something came before that.

From the vacuum energy (which again is a quantum phenomenon often termed vacuum or quantum fluctuations, the quantum jitters or quantum foam), at least one macro universe arose. This is theoretically possible (see references at the end) although I strongly suspect it has an awful lot to do with the quantum mantra that ‘if it’s not forbidden, it’s compulsory’ – at least if you’re willing to wait long enough. Of course maybe more than one universe arose from the vacuum energy. The more the merrier!

Once formed, a macro universe is inherently unstable and will have to either expand (under at least the influence of ‘dark energy’) or contract (under the influence of gravity).

Roughly 13.7 billion years ago, one such macro universe experienced a runaway contraction, which terminated in a Big Crunch. All the matter and energy of that universe converged and contracted into a smaller and smaller volume, eventually forming the Mother of all Black Holes via the merging of existing smaller Black Holes and other matter and energy being sucked in to same – eventually there would be no escape; a single massive Black Hole is the end product of a Big Crunch.

That also means that the Mother of all Black Holes contained the Mother of all Singularities – the heart and centre of all Black Holes.

The Mother of all Singularities was a macro object, contrary to popular perception. As it’s impossible to have any object with zero volume and infinite density, a Singularity must have finite volume and finite density. As more and more stuffs get added to the Black Hole, and thus to its Singularity, the density keeps rising. But, it eventually hits its finite limit and as stuffs continue to be added, the density remains at its limit, and volume increases instead. Eventually that volume exceeds the size of the quantum realm. Because this Big Crunch Mother of all Singularities contained the contents of, the sum total of, an entire universe, it was of necessity of monster size. I don’t know how large, but I’ll guesstimate somewhere in the range of a stellar to galactic sized object

Because matter/energy influence space-time, and vice versa (matter ‘tells’ space how to warp; space ‘tells’ matter how to move – i.e. General Relativity), such a massive macro monster of a Singularity would warp space-time, and in such a brief time, to such an extent that all space-time in the region would be unstable, as would be the Singularity (think radioactive particle decay here as an analogy).  The volatile and unstable distortion of space, time, matter and energy resulted in the dead guts of the former universe, contents residing in the Mother of all Singularities, ‘decaying’ or ‘exploding’ or just plain spewing the content of its guts back out again, in a reverse of the Big Crunch. That event we of course now call the Big Bang; the ‘object’ doing the spewing we can call, for lack of a better phrase, a ‘White Hole’. Thus we have the previous universe’s Big Crunch, which created the ultimate Black Hole, massive distortion or warping of space-time, hence a spewing White Hole, and our Big Bang. General Relativity allows for or permits such a scenario.

If anything unfortunately finds itself on a one-way journey down a Black Hole, ultimately ending up as part of that Hole’s Singularity, then apart from the property of mass, all other distinguishing features, colour, texture, chemical composition, shape, hardness, physical state (solid, liquid, gas or plasma), etc. will be crushed out of it and lost forever. What remains wouldn’t look anything like what went in. What remains of a TV set would look the same as the remains of a human being! A Singularity is the ultimate crusher!

Thus, a Singularity (not than anyone has ever seen one) would have to be nearly featureless, a uniform a blob of stuff as you can imagine. A Singularity certainly has mass, volume, and would have a perfectly spherical shape, temperature, perhaps electric charge, maybe rotation as well, but otherwise would just be a homogenous sameness through and through. In fact, there are those who suggest that a Singularity represents a new state of matter – a phase transition from the states we know to something else entirely. For example, if you had a star made of matter, and another identical star in every way except it was composed of antimatter, and the two stars merged, you’d have one big Ka-Boom! You’d end up with the total annihilation of matter into pure energy. Now, say the matter star, once its fuel ran out, collapsed under gravity into a Black Hole. Now say the antimatter star, once its fuel ran out, collapsed under gravity into a Black Hole. Now merge the matter Black Hole with the antimatter Black Hole. What do you get? Not a Ka-Boom, but a much larger Black Hole with twice the mass! Be that as it may, I notice that a homogenous Singularity mirrors our homogenous Universe.

Our observable universe appears to be both isotropic (it pretty much looks the same from any given point) and homogeneous (the universe is uniform no matter where you go). Collectively, these facets are known as the Cosmological Principle. In actual fact however, the observable universe isn’t really ultra homogeneous – it’s really sort of lumpy, what with all those planets, stars, galaxies, clusters of galaxies, etc. However, the lumpiness is on a pretty small scale relative to the size of the observable universe. It’s akin to a smooth beach of sand. Only on close examination, on the micro scale is the beach lumpy, in that you’re likely to find shells and pebbles that also comprise the beach and which are lumpy.

Currently, the concept of ‘inflation’ is used to explain why the Universe is so smooth and uniform, akin to blowing up a balloon smoothes out its wrinkles. Quantum fluctuations at the time of inflation, which would have occurred with micro-seconds of the Big Bang, accounts for the tiny variations in the Universe’s properties – a slight lumpiness in the distribution of matter, slight (and I do mean slight) differences in background temperature (the cosmic microwave background radiation), and so on.

But, if our overall bland, homogenous, isotropic Universe arose from an overall bland, homogenous, isotropic, one-kind-of-stuff parent Singularity, then who needs inflation to account for the overall smooth appearance of our Universe?  Of course, again, it’s not 100% smooth because random quantum fluctuations operated even back then (13.7 billion years ago) and in those first few micro-seconds of the Big Bang event. So the Universe is indeed a little bit variable and a little bit lumpy, which is just as well, otherwise we wouldn’t be here.

One final bit, probably only part of our parent Singularity accounts for our observable universe. The rest of said Singularity accounts for that part of our entire Universe that we can’t observe. What the ratio between observable and total is, I know not, but why do I have this feeling that what we observe is only a tiny fraction of all that’s out there!

The question arises that if our Universe originated from another universe’s singularity, and that in our Universe singularities form the centre of Black Holes (of all sizes), then could these singularities, if they became large enough and unstable enough (via the extreme warping of space-time), ultimately form new baby universes in their own right?

Where all this differs from the standard cosmological (Big Bang) model is: 1) The Big Bang wasn’t a micro (quantum realm) event; 2) the Big Bang event occurred in existing space and time instead of creating space and time; and 3) there was therefore a ‘before the Big Bang’, but alas, a ‘before’ probably forever beyond our capabilities of directly knowing the fine print.  With respect to 2) immediately above, is there any observation that has been, or can be made, that can distinguish between space expanding (as a result of the Big Bang having created space in the first instance) and expanding space carrying matter/energy along for the ride (the standard spiel), vis-à-vis matter/energy moving through space as the result of a Big Bang explosion (or spewing event) in pre-existing space? The answer is “no”.

How is this process maintained indefinitely, such that there not only was no beginning, but no end either? I mean if all universes expand forever, things ultimately come to an apparent sticky end. Well, assuming a universe doesn’t have a sufficient mass/energy density to cause the expansion to slow down, stop, reverse, and collapse back to a Big Crunch (like ours), then sooner or later, part of an ever expanding universe will intersect with part of another ever expanding universe (if Mother Nature can produce one universe, she can produce more than one universe). The resulting local increase in mass/energy density due to that intersection could be enough to trigger that area to undergo a gravitational collapse with a local Big Crunch the ultimate result, resulting in the production of a new universe – which may, or may itself expand indefinitely or may collapse into another Big Crunch scenario.

An Analogy: All analogies are a bit suspect, but this one I hope will illustrate my general idea immediately above. I’m going to substitute a supernova for the Big Bang.

To be continued…