WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.020 You're not gonna expect this. Okay, I'm doing 00:00:02.020 --> 00:00:04.780 the mini, so I hope I'm not surprised by the 00:00:04.780 --> 00:00:07.639 mini. Anyhow, these ducks, they would really 00:00:07.639 --> 00:00:09.740 like this episode. They would be really impressed 00:00:09.740 --> 00:00:12.240 with what I'm about to tell you. Well, that makes 00:00:12.240 --> 00:00:15.880 me more excited. Yeah, I don't know, those ducks 00:00:15.880 --> 00:00:18.039 seem pretty impressed very easily. Anyhow, sorry 00:00:18.039 --> 00:00:20.019 guys, you're not involved with the eider ducks, 00:00:20.399 --> 00:00:23.800 so don't worry about them. Chelsea, not a source 00:00:23.800 --> 00:00:27.710 I use very often, sciencealert .com. Oh, that 00:00:27.710 --> 00:00:30.710 sounds official. Yeah, it's written by Enrique 00:00:30.710 --> 00:00:35.429 Gastinaga on June 5th, 2025, article title. Big 00:00:35.429 --> 00:00:37.969 Bang may not be the beginning of everything, 00:00:38.189 --> 00:00:41.350 new theory suggests. Oh, what is it? The Big 00:00:41.350 --> 00:00:43.450 Bang is often described as an explosive birth 00:00:43.450 --> 00:00:46.250 of the universe, a singular moment when space, 00:00:46.289 --> 00:00:49.289 time and matter spring into existence. But what 00:00:49.289 --> 00:00:52.250 if this was not the beginning at all? What if 00:00:52.250 --> 00:00:54.770 our universe emerged from something else? something 00:00:54.770 --> 00:00:57.270 more similar and radical at the same time. In 00:00:57.270 --> 00:01:01.210 a new paper published in Physical Review, D, 00:01:01.530 --> 00:01:04.909 my colleagues and I propose a striking alternative. 00:01:05.150 --> 00:01:08.150 Our calculations suggest the Big Bang was not 00:01:08.150 --> 00:01:10.709 the start of everything, but rather the outcome 00:01:10.709 --> 00:01:13.489 of a gravitational crunch or collapse that formed 00:01:13.489 --> 00:01:16.370 a very massive black hole, followed by a bounce 00:01:16.370 --> 00:01:19.390 inside. The idea, which we call the Black Hole 00:01:19.390 --> 00:01:22.489 Universe, offers a radically different view of 00:01:22.489 --> 00:01:26.000 cosmic origins. yet it is grounded entirely in 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:29.599 known physics and observations. Today's standard 00:01:29.599 --> 00:01:33.060 cosmological model, based on the Big Bang and 00:01:33.060 --> 00:01:35.980 cosmic inflation, has been remarkably successful 00:01:35.980 --> 00:01:38.159 in explaining the structure and evolution of 00:01:38.159 --> 00:01:40.299 the universe, but it comes at a price it leaves 00:01:40.299 --> 00:01:42.599 some of the most fundamental questions unanswered. 00:01:42.700 --> 00:01:45.579 For one, the Big Bang model begins with the singularity, 00:01:45.760 --> 00:01:48.000 a point of infinite density where the laws of 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:50.739 physics break down. This is not a technical glitch, 00:01:50.939 --> 00:01:52.920 it's a deep theoretical problem that suggests 00:01:52.920 --> 00:01:55.040 we don't really understand the beginning at all. 00:01:55.420 --> 00:01:57.719 To explain the universe's large -scale structure, 00:01:58.219 --> 00:02:00.719 physicists introduced a brief phase of rapid 00:02:00.719 --> 00:02:03.280 expansion into the early universe called cosmic 00:02:03.280 --> 00:02:06.560 inflation, powered by an unknown field with strange 00:02:06.560 --> 00:02:09.159 properties. Later, to explain the acceleration 00:02:09.159 --> 00:02:12.719 observed today, they added another quote mysterious 00:02:12.719 --> 00:02:15.870 unquote component, dark energy. In short, the 00:02:15.870 --> 00:02:18.430 standard model of cosmology works well, but only 00:02:18.430 --> 00:02:20.569 by introducing new ingredients we have never 00:02:20.569 --> 00:02:22.810 observed directly. Meanwhile, the most basic 00:02:22.810 --> 00:02:24.949 questions remain open. Where did everything come 00:02:24.949 --> 00:02:27.789 from? Why did it begin this way? And why is the 00:02:27.789 --> 00:02:30.710 universe so flat, smooth, and large? Our new 00:02:30.710 --> 00:02:33.629 model tackles these questions from a different 00:02:33.629 --> 00:02:37.360 angle by looking inward instead of outward. Instead 00:02:37.360 --> 00:02:40.039 of starting with an expanded universe and trying 00:02:40.039 --> 00:02:42.939 to trace back how it began, we consider what 00:02:42.939 --> 00:02:45.379 happens when an overly dense collection of matter 00:02:45.379 --> 00:02:48.460 collapses under gravity. This is a familiar process. 00:02:49.039 --> 00:02:51.560 Stars collapse into black holes, which are among 00:02:51.560 --> 00:02:54.139 the most well understood objects in physics. 00:02:54.639 --> 00:02:57.039 But what happens inside a black hole, beyond 00:02:57.039 --> 00:02:59.259 the vent horizon from which nothing can escape 00:02:59.259 --> 00:03:02.819 remains a mystery. In 1965, the physicist Roger 00:03:02.819 --> 00:03:05.879 Penrose proved that under very general conditions, 00:03:06.340 --> 00:03:08.960 gravitational collapse must lead to a singularity. 00:03:09.340 --> 00:03:12.699 This result, extended by the late British physicist 00:03:12.699 --> 00:03:15.400 Stephen Hawking and others, underpins the idea 00:03:15.400 --> 00:03:17.520 that singularities like one and the Big Bang 00:03:17.520 --> 00:03:20.419 are unavoidable. The idea helped win Penrose 00:03:20.419 --> 00:03:23.219 a share of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics and 00:03:23.219 --> 00:03:25.199 inspired Stephen Hawking's global bestseller 00:03:25.199 --> 00:03:27.159 Brief History of Time from Big Bang to Black 00:03:27.159 --> 00:03:30.800 Holes. But there's a caveat. Their, quote, singularity 00:03:30.800 --> 00:03:33.159 theorems, end quote, rely on, quote, classical 00:03:33.159 --> 00:03:35.479 physics, end quote, which describes ordinary 00:03:35.479 --> 00:03:39.169 macroscopic objects. If we include the effects 00:03:39.169 --> 00:03:43.250 of quantum mechanics, which rules the tiny microcosmos 00:03:43.250 --> 00:03:46.409 of atoms and particles, as we must at extreme 00:03:46.409 --> 00:03:49.490 densities, the story may change. In our new paper, 00:03:49.830 --> 00:03:52.509 we show the gravitational collapse does not have 00:03:52.509 --> 00:03:56.030 to end in a singularity. We find an exact analytical 00:03:56.030 --> 00:03:59.469 solution, a mathematical no approximations. Our 00:03:59.469 --> 00:04:01.710 maths show that as we approach the potential 00:04:01.710 --> 00:04:03.889 singularity, the size of the universe changes 00:04:03.889 --> 00:04:06.729 as a hyperbolic function of cosmic time. The 00:04:06.729 --> 00:04:09.490 simple mathematical solution describes how collapsing 00:04:09.490 --> 00:04:11.870 clouded matter can reach a high density state 00:04:11.870 --> 00:04:14.409 and then bounce, rebounding outward into a new 00:04:14.409 --> 00:04:17.290 expanding phase. But how come Penrose's theorem 00:04:17.290 --> 00:04:21.069 forbid such outcomes? It all comes down to a 00:04:21.069 --> 00:04:23.269 rule called the quantum exclusion principle, 00:04:23.310 --> 00:04:25.589 which states that no two identical particles 00:04:25.589 --> 00:04:28.290 known as fermions can occupy the same quantum 00:04:28.290 --> 00:04:31.490 state, such as angular momentum or spin. And 00:04:31.490 --> 00:04:33.889 we show that this rule prevents the particles 00:04:33.889 --> 00:04:36.110 in the collapsing matter from being squeezed 00:04:36.110 --> 00:04:38.769 indefinitely. As a result, the collapse halts 00:04:38.769 --> 00:04:41.490 and reverses. The bounce is not only possible, 00:04:41.750 --> 00:04:44.610 it's inevitable under the right conditions. Crucially, 00:04:44.990 --> 00:04:46.810 this bounce occurs entirely within the framework 00:04:46.810 --> 00:04:49.470 of general relativity, which applies to large 00:04:49.470 --> 00:04:52.350 scales such as stars and galaxies, combined with 00:04:52.350 --> 00:04:54.949 the basic principles of quantum mechanics. No 00:04:54.949 --> 00:04:57.410 exotic fields, extra dimensions, or speculative 00:04:57.410 --> 00:05:01.009 physics required. What emerges on the other side 00:05:01.009 --> 00:05:03.750 of the bounce is a person really like our own. 00:05:04.009 --> 00:05:06.509 Even more surprisingly, the rebound naturally 00:05:06.509 --> 00:05:09.129 produces the two separate phases of accelerated 00:05:09.129 --> 00:05:11.430 expansion, the inflation and dark energy, driven 00:05:11.430 --> 00:05:14.449 not by a hypothetical field, but by the physics 00:05:14.449 --> 00:05:17.410 on the bounce itself. That's probably as far 00:05:17.410 --> 00:05:21.629 as I need to go. There's a bit more, but it's 00:05:21.629 --> 00:05:23.730 it's a little too sciency so we can end it there. 00:05:23.889 --> 00:05:28.160 It was pretty sciency. Yeah. Anyhow, I just This 00:05:28.160 --> 00:05:31.079 is somehow weirdly what I've always kind of understood 00:05:31.079 --> 00:05:34.560 the Big Bang to be is basically our universe 00:05:34.560 --> 00:05:37.199 came from the creation of a black hole in a bigger 00:05:37.199 --> 00:05:39.540 universe and that's where the Big Bang comes 00:05:39.540 --> 00:05:42.660 from. So it's another kind of what would you 00:05:42.660 --> 00:05:45.279 call that like a mirror? What a universe with 00:05:45.279 --> 00:05:47.379 an indie universe created by a black hole creating 00:05:47.379 --> 00:05:50.420 yeah. Yeah it's it's hard to picture something 00:05:50.420 --> 00:05:54.610 coming from nothing to be honest but With that, 00:05:54.889 --> 00:05:58.550 I will counter you with, whales come from wolves. 00:05:58.769 --> 00:06:01.930 They do, but black holes do not. I understand 00:06:01.930 --> 00:06:04.449 now. They actually might come from wolves. I 00:06:04.449 --> 00:06:06.750 don't think they do. Am I not understanding the 00:06:06.750 --> 00:06:07.930 whole concept? I just don't think Evolution of 00:06:07.930 --> 00:06:09.769 the Lion comes to that. Correctly. It might be 00:06:09.769 --> 00:06:11.490 wolves the whole way down, I don't know for sure. 00:06:12.240 --> 00:06:15.319 I feel like it's wolves the whole way down. I 00:06:15.319 --> 00:06:17.399 heard it was turtles, but it may be wolves the 00:06:17.399 --> 00:06:19.459 whole way down. I feel like it's wolves. But 00:06:19.459 --> 00:06:22.879 does that not make it infinitely easier to envision 00:06:22.879 --> 00:06:25.480 the Big Bang as like, oh yeah, it's just the 00:06:25.480 --> 00:06:28.480 creation of a black hole. I feel like whatever 00:06:28.480 --> 00:06:31.810 it is is not gonna make sense to our... mind, 00:06:31.949 --> 00:06:35.350 whatever it is. Well, you have to remember too, 00:06:35.589 --> 00:06:38.129 it would be the creation of a black hole in a 00:06:38.129 --> 00:06:40.189 universe above us, which would have different 00:06:40.189 --> 00:06:43.009 physics rules, because our rules of physics will 00:06:43.009 --> 00:06:46.629 only apply within our event horizon. What is 00:06:46.629 --> 00:06:50.769 the theory of the nine different universes? What 00:06:50.769 --> 00:06:53.290 is that again, where we're like bubbles within? 00:06:54.039 --> 00:06:56.680 That's not string theory. Is that string theory? 00:06:56.860 --> 00:06:59.040 I thought there was like 15 different levels. 00:06:59.100 --> 00:07:02.899 Maybe it's 15. I think it is string theory, but 00:07:02.899 --> 00:07:06.959 maybe it exists within that, but it's just so 00:07:06.959 --> 00:07:10.339 hard. I'm not a physicist. I can barely wrap 00:07:10.339 --> 00:07:14.120 my head around how big space is, and I don't 00:07:14.120 --> 00:07:17.040 know. Nobody can. You just don't know how to 00:07:17.040 --> 00:07:20.399 ignore that. I welcome other theories other than 00:07:20.399 --> 00:07:23.430 the Big Bang Theory. But this isn't really a 00:07:23.430 --> 00:07:24.870 different one. It's just saying that the Big 00:07:24.870 --> 00:07:28.449 Bang was a black hole created. Yeah. Which doesn't 00:07:28.449 --> 00:07:30.990 mean we can forget about that point in time. 00:07:31.009 --> 00:07:33.709 It just means that that point in time was a black 00:07:33.709 --> 00:07:36.769 hole created. Yeah. Anyhow, that's probably enough 00:07:36.769 --> 00:07:39.910 math and or physics and or space talk. I don't 00:07:39.910 --> 00:07:42.230 know if I'm going to be able to do the episode 00:07:42.230 --> 00:07:44.310 this week. Give me 48 hours. Yeah, you guys got 00:07:44.310 --> 00:07:46.589 48 hours to get better. I need 48 hours. Chelsea 00:07:46.589 --> 00:07:49.810 does not. Oh, she does, but too bad. She's got 00:07:49.810 --> 00:07:52.389 to do it. Anyhow, bye. Bye.