What’s our position in the
universe? Some astronomers believe that the relative emptiness in our location
in space may be why we haven’t found other intelligent life yet. It may even go
beyond that. One theory states that our universe is actually trapped inside a
giant black hole, which itself is part of a much larger cosmos.
It all centers on a very different theory of what exactly a black hole is. The usual general understanding is
nothing can escape a black hole’s intense gravity, not even light. Called the
black hole information paradox, it’s thought that even the information about an
object that gets sucked in vanishes into oblivion. But therein lies a problem.
This understanding violates
a certain rule in quantum mechanics known as “unitarity,” which states that
information can never be completely lost. Some trace of it will always remain.
So how can scientists get over the hump? One way, according to a small, plucky
group of scientists, is that our universe sits in the center of a black hole.
This is known as the ER = EPR conjecture. How does that make sense?
Before the Big Bang, there
was what was called the singularity, an infinitely hot, immeasurably dense
point containing all the matter in the universe. This exploded and spread out
in all directions, creating the expanding cosmos we see today. One problem
though, many physicists see this as impossible.
Starting in the 1960s, a
small band of physicists have been considering a Big Bounce rather than a Big
Bang. In addition to curved space-time, there’s a thing called torsion, which
takes into consideration the spin of particles. On the macroscale, this results
in a twisting of the fabric of space. Some scientists believe torsion might
even be able to counteract gravity. As the universe spreads out, in this view,
more energy is used up and more matter enters into the universe, which is
distributed evenly.
The more matter created the
greater the force of gravity, which at some point begins to compress the
universe. The force of torsion however prevents total collapse at a certain
point, causing the cosmos to bounce back. It’s like a rubber ball that’s been
compressed and released. This is what physicists call the Big Bounce. There may
have even been more than one. Each bounce would create a new black hole,
actually a wormhole, which acts as a gateway into another universe or another
part of our own. This means there’s an even greater universe must exist, which
is inside ours.
The larger universe could be checked with black holes stretching on and on, or even have layers of them--like Russian dolls, depending how many times this has occurred, making for a very strange multiverse indeed.
That’s a far different
theory than the "space-time singularities" Einstein predicted inhabit
the center of black holes. Besides resolving the issue of the singularity, this
theory can also help us understand why there’s so little antimatter in our
universe. There should’ve been equal amounts of matter and antimatter created
after the Big Bang. But despite a multitude of careful observations, antimatter
is surprisingly rare.
One theory is that slightly
more matter was created than antimatter. The matter and antimatter atoms were
attracted to one another, cancelling each other out, leaving only this minority
of matter left over. Trouble is, no one can account for why there’d be more
matter than antimatter.
With the ER = EPR
conjecture, while matter decays into electrons and quarks, which are abundant
in our universe, antimatter decays into the mysterious force known as dark energy,
which is thought to push galaxies on, accounting for the ever-accelerating rate
of cosmic expansion.
So black holes would be
wormhole systems, according to the conjecture. A black hole would suck things
in at one end, while a white hole would push them out the other, and into a new
universe or another point in our own. Juan Maldacena of Princeton and Leonard
Susskind of Stanford first proposed the conjecture in 2013. The theory marries
quantum teleportation with wormholes. Such teleportation occurs when two
particles become entangled. This occurs when two particles interact and develop
the same spin. Their interaction somehow mysteriously connects them.
Even if one is on the other
side of the universe, they’re still inter-related, and that particle can travel
to its brethren across the entire expanse faster than the speed of light. How
does it work? This surprisingly simple ER=EPR conjecture could be the answer,
and as such, help heal the rift between quantum mechanics and general
relativity, leading to the much sought after unified theory of everything.
The tunnel between a black
and a white hole is called the throat. In a 2017 paper published in the journal
High Energy Physics-Theory, Ping Gao and Daniel Jafferis of Harvard and Aron
Wall of Stanford, built upon the ER = EPR conjecture. They’ve proven
mathematically that if two black holes were lined up in just the right way,
their unique connection, down to the quantum level, would sustain the throat of
the wormhole and keep it open.
To learn more about black
holes and white holes, click here: