Are we living inside a black hole? (it might explain some things!)
14 days ago by JohnnyEnzyme to c/space_astronomy
This is probably my favorite Kurzgesagt video, and as usual, 99% of the science is way over my head. I must also admit that this is one of those rare series (hello podcasts, love ya, but...) that uses a professional narrator to communicate. 🥳
Anyway, I like this set of hypotheses for ~three reasons--
The fundamental idea that the more massive a black hole is, the thinner it's composite material, fascinates me. And that our own universe's density of known matter matches very well against that idea. (our own universe, materially-speaking, is largely a soup of nothingness)
Suddenly the 'multi-verse' idea of parallel universes (a beloved sci-fi notion) gains legs, but in an adjusted way-- that it ranges vertically so to speak, rather than horizontally. (and of course it could always be both, or neither!)
Simply put-- hierarchy. We see hierarchy all across nature in the simple, direct sense of 'there's always something a little smaller, and always something a little larger.' Or much smaller / larger. And that's only in the dimension of physical size, of course.
Anyway, I'm quite sure we'll never get to the bottom of this hypothesis before we asplode ourselves (as we're already doing, thanks Billionaires!), but something about me really loves this idea.
Yeah... I would agree.
But also-- it's just an idea...
and by no means do I push it too hard,
and for sure we naked apes are absolutely filled to the brim with existential dread, inventing as we do all major variety of belief...
And... well, you get the picture at some point?
I just listened to The Space Between podcast about this the other day, and it had my mind spinning. One of the theories they mentioned was this idea of a dimensional hierarchy in black-hole cosmology: that our universe could have originated from a higher-dimensional reality where time didn't necessarily behave as a one-directional thing in the way we experience it.
It made me wonder if that could explain something about the way time behaves in our own universe. As if there's a kind of “spaghettification” of space-time at the other end of our universe's black hole that has a mechanism similar to what gravity does with matter, but to space-time. Obviously, I'm a layperson here, so I'm probably mangling the physics. I make no apologies. I enjoy the thought experiment of it all.
Then there's the temporal mechanics of these theories. Those are what really get me thinking.
If black holes can actually contain or give birth to new universes, then there's a really strange implication. From the perspective of the parent universe, the formation of a black hole could seem frozen or stuck. But inside that black hole, there could potentially be an entirely new spacetime unfolding, a universe beginning its own expansion from what would look like a primordial state. So, like inside a black hole from our perspective time is frozen but if we somehow got there time would move. (maybe even in a unique way as you move away from the big-bang moment and that universe expands over time.) And I think that if you actually managed to ENTER one of these universes you would have to accept that you can't return to our universe without some kind of ability to navigate time because, just by entering the new universe, from your perspective, time in the prime universe has continued on eons and potentially 'ended'.
And then you get into some really weird territory: maybe our universe didn't simply begin at the Big Bang, but emerged from some kind of collapse or bounce in a parent universe. Maybe every black hole is potentially the seed of another universe, and every universe is potentially the interior of a black hole in some larger reality.
The really mind-bending part is the relationship between the two timelines. It's probably not accurate to say they're simply experiencing different “layers” of the same time, because there may not be a shared clock between them at all. But conceptually, it feels like the same event could have radically different temporal meanings depending on which universe you're looking at it from.
It's very Rick and Morty with its “universe boxes” episode. But if any version of this turns out to be true, the structure of the multiverse would be absolutely wild.
sorry if this all sounds like nonsense or even just IS nonsense, but I think it's hard to ramble about even if I knew what I was talking about.
Black holes just get cooler and cooler to think about.
Edit:
Sorry I just needed somewhere to tailspin on this for a minute. It's very fresh for me.
Speaking of time, there was a recent experiment performed that implies time may just be an emergent property of entropy. Meaning that if entropy does not occur, then no time passes basically. So without entropy time stands still until entropy occurs again.
Of course this is one experiment and we can't draw conclusions from it, but with more studies we may find this is how time works, or something close to that.
And there's the new religion!
(we been waitin' for ya, mate)
Yeap... it's all those ideas, and more.
Not necessarily in terms of direct plausability, but... it's all something to consider, right?
For sure. Just a thought experiment at this point.
But at least it's based on science, facts & reality...
Every black hole contains another universe.
Every universe contains black holes.
We'll never know, so why not?
I mean... at least it's somewhat plausible?
Other than... well, let's not go there, right?
As always, take Kurzgesagt with a hefty measure of salt. ☝🏼
You mean beyond their clear disclaimer that this video is speculative but based on real theories and real math by real physicists?
Let's not be obtuse. I didn't specify this video, but the channel. Thanks for playing, though! 😉
Care to be more specific then? Afaict they always do this?
Just a few of the accusations over the years of oversimplification, corporate funding, and the intentional use of misleading narratives to explain complex topics:
Financial Transparency (~25% corporate)
etc.
"Shut up, baby, I know it!"
--Bender Rodriguez
Well, I guess you could make your own nutshell, but with hookers & blackjack. 🤷🏼♂️
The idea that in regular space, we have infinite time, and limited space.... and then in a black hole, we have finite time, and limitless space is... doin me a confuse. Especially when they say you could walk in a direction and end up back where you started... like inside a black hole is like an inverted plane, or a planet in reverse... where I guess you'd be able to navigate time periods through physically moving yourself through them at will?
And if time is just another dimension to travel in, maybe like a traditional X vs. Y graph for us, where Y is height... We, flightless humans, need assistance to travel upwards in the Y dimension... so I guess we could also need assistance inside a black hole to travel in the T for Time dimension... but there also would probably exist creatures, much like birds easily traversing the Y dimension on our regular space planet, that could easily maneuver through time... I guess with natural abilities akin to hollow bones but like... a form in which time didn't have an impact? Like, functionally immortal things that don't change with time, could more easily inhabit themselves in different times, because they don't change? Like a tardigrade?
So, could time travel be physically possible within our realm, but just for small functionally immortal beings? Could we transcribe RNA messages into tardigrades, and send them back in time to be read? Or would that change in RNA preclude them from being able to travel backwards?
Tardigrades are hardy but far from functionally immortal. And I don't think anything in this shows that time travel could be possible within our universe. If it is possible inside a black hole it wouldn't ever be able to affect anything outside the black hole anyway.
How you gonna go against Readers Digest?? Nah but I bet those flatworms could easily traverse time within a black hole
They can only last a long time while in a state of total stasis. If they are actually moving around they have a lifespan of a few weeks to a few years depending on the species. They're hardy, but we've recently found bacteria in the lithosphere that seems to live for hundreds of years, going dormant for long periods until adequate conditions arise for them to get nutrients.
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Oddly this was my least favorite Kurz video with the exception of the black hole density observation which you commented on.
The rest was filled with maybes.
IMO any discussion of the inside of black holes is philosophy, not science. Our current theories break down at the event horizon which implies an incomplete theory. So current discussions of the interior of Black holes is like Plato debating about the properties of a vacuum when his math didn't even have the number zero.
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