You're not gonna expect this. Okay, I'm doing
the mini, so I hope I'm not surprised by the
mini. Anyhow, these ducks, they would really
like this episode. They would be really impressed
with what I'm about to tell you. Well, that makes
me more excited. Yeah, I don't know, those ducks
seem pretty impressed very easily. Anyhow, sorry
guys, you're not involved with the eider ducks,
so don't worry about them. Chelsea, not a source
I use very often, sciencealert .com. Oh, that
sounds official. Yeah, it's written by Enrique
Gastinaga on June 5th, 2025, article title. Big
Bang may not be the beginning of everything,
new theory suggests. Oh, what is it? The Big
Bang is often described as an explosive birth
of the universe, a singular moment when space,
time and matter spring into existence. But what
if this was not the beginning at all? What if
our universe emerged from something else? something
more similar and radical at the same time. In
a new paper published in Physical Review, D,
my colleagues and I propose a striking alternative.
Our calculations suggest the Big Bang was not
the start of everything, but rather the outcome
of a gravitational crunch or collapse that formed
a very massive black hole, followed by a bounce
inside. The idea, which we call the Black Hole
Universe, offers a radically different view of
cosmic origins. yet it is grounded entirely in
known physics and observations. Today's standard
cosmological model, based on the Big Bang and
cosmic inflation, has been remarkably successful
in explaining the structure and evolution of
the universe, but it comes at a price it leaves
some of the most fundamental questions unanswered.
For one, the Big Bang model begins with the singularity,
a point of infinite density where the laws of
physics break down. This is not a technical glitch,
it's a deep theoretical problem that suggests
we don't really understand the beginning at all.
To explain the universe's large -scale structure,
physicists introduced a brief phase of rapid
expansion into the early universe called cosmic
inflation, powered by an unknown field with strange
properties. Later, to explain the acceleration
observed today, they added another quote mysterious
unquote component, dark energy. In short, the
standard model of cosmology works well, but only
by introducing new ingredients we have never
observed directly. Meanwhile, the most basic
questions remain open. Where did everything come
from? Why did it begin this way? And why is the
universe so flat, smooth, and large? Our new
model tackles these questions from a different
angle by looking inward instead of outward. Instead
of starting with an expanded universe and trying
to trace back how it began, we consider what
happens when an overly dense collection of matter
collapses under gravity. This is a familiar process.
Stars collapse into black holes, which are among
the most well understood objects in physics.
But what happens inside a black hole, beyond
the vent horizon from which nothing can escape
remains a mystery. In 1965, the physicist Roger
Penrose proved that under very general conditions,
gravitational collapse must lead to a singularity.
This result, extended by the late British physicist
Stephen Hawking and others, underpins the idea
that singularities like one and the Big Bang
are unavoidable. The idea helped win Penrose
a share of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics and
inspired Stephen Hawking's global bestseller
Brief History of Time from Big Bang to Black
Holes. But there's a caveat. Their, quote, singularity
theorems, end quote, rely on, quote, classical
physics, end quote, which describes ordinary
macroscopic objects. If we include the effects
of quantum mechanics, which rules the tiny microcosmos
of atoms and particles, as we must at extreme
densities, the story may change. In our new paper,
we show the gravitational collapse does not have
to end in a singularity. We find an exact analytical
solution, a mathematical no approximations. Our
maths show that as we approach the potential
singularity, the size of the universe changes
as a hyperbolic function of cosmic time. The
simple mathematical solution describes how collapsing
clouded matter can reach a high density state
and then bounce, rebounding outward into a new
expanding phase. But how come Penrose's theorem
forbid such outcomes? It all comes down to a
rule called the quantum exclusion principle,
which states that no two identical particles
known as fermions can occupy the same quantum
state, such as angular momentum or spin. And
we show that this rule prevents the particles
in the collapsing matter from being squeezed
indefinitely. As a result, the collapse halts
and reverses. The bounce is not only possible,
it's inevitable under the right conditions. Crucially,
this bounce occurs entirely within the framework
of general relativity, which applies to large
scales such as stars and galaxies, combined with
the basic principles of quantum mechanics. No
exotic fields, extra dimensions, or speculative
physics required. What emerges on the other side
of the bounce is a person really like our own.
Even more surprisingly, the rebound naturally
produces the two separate phases of accelerated
expansion, the inflation and dark energy, driven
not by a hypothetical field, but by the physics
on the bounce itself. That's probably as far
as I need to go. There's a bit more, but it's
it's a little too sciency so we can end it there.
It was pretty sciency. Yeah. Anyhow, I just This
is somehow weirdly what I've always kind of understood
the Big Bang to be is basically our universe
came from the creation of a black hole in a bigger
universe and that's where the Big Bang comes
from. So it's another kind of what would you
call that like a mirror? What a universe with
an indie universe created by a black hole creating
yeah. Yeah it's it's hard to picture something
coming from nothing to be honest but With that,
I will counter you with, whales come from wolves.
They do, but black holes do not. I understand
now. They actually might come from wolves. I
don't think they do. Am I not understanding the
whole concept? I just don't think Evolution of
the Lion comes to that. Correctly. It might be
wolves the whole way down, I don't know for sure.
I feel like it's wolves the whole way down. I
heard it was turtles, but it may be wolves the
whole way down. I feel like it's wolves. But
does that not make it infinitely easier to envision
the Big Bang as like, oh yeah, it's just the
creation of a black hole. I feel like whatever
it is is not gonna make sense to our... mind,
whatever it is. Well, you have to remember too,
it would be the creation of a black hole in a
universe above us, which would have different
physics rules, because our rules of physics will
only apply within our event horizon. What is
the theory of the nine different universes? What
is that again, where we're like bubbles within?
That's not string theory. Is that string theory?
I thought there was like 15 different levels.
Maybe it's 15. I think it is string theory, but
maybe it exists within that, but it's just so
hard. I'm not a physicist. I can barely wrap
my head around how big space is, and I don't
know. Nobody can. You just don't know how to
ignore that. I welcome other theories other than
the Big Bang Theory. But this isn't really a
different one. It's just saying that the Big
Bang was a black hole created. Yeah. Which doesn't
mean we can forget about that point in time.
It just means that that point in time was a black
hole created. Yeah. Anyhow, that's probably enough
math and or physics and or space talk. I don't
know if I'm going to be able to do the episode
this week. Give me 48 hours. Yeah, you guys got
48 hours to get better. I need 48 hours. Chelsea
does not. Oh, she does, but too bad. She's got
to do it. Anyhow, bye. Bye.