from the if-aware-of-us-it-is-as-little-more-than-ants dept.
The big bang poses a big question: if it was indeed the cataclysm that blasted our universe into existence 13.7 billion years ago, what sparked it?
Three Perimeter Institute researchers have a new idea about what might have come before the big bang. It’s a bit perplexing, but it is grounded in sound mathematics, testable, and enticing enough to earn the cover story in Scientific American (pay-walled), called "The Black Hole at the Beginning of Time".
What we perceive as the big bang, they argue, could be the three-dimensional "mirage" of a collapsing star in a universe profoundly different than our own. SciTechDaily has a decent article about the theory. If you are interested in the math, you can download a PDF of the study from Cornell University Library.
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Monday August 18 2014, @02:28PM
I saw this article before, but I honor the editor for quoting G'Kar for the dept.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday August 18 2014, @02:30PM
A claim like that is currently a conjecture. If they find a way to test it, it will become a hypothesis. Only once you actually have really convincing evidence that the idea consistently explains a whole lot of observable phenomena will it become a theory.
The reason this matters is because of those who like to say that certain scientific theories are "just a theory". Let's use the right words here.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by weeds on Monday August 18 2014, @03:13PM
Indeed. Just because we can write algebras that invoke higher dimensions and can show that the manipulations end up looking like this universe, there isn't any reason to think this is any better or worse than any other conjecture on the matter. In fact, E=iR but that doesn't mean you can get 5000 amps down a copper wire.
Get money out of politics! [mayday.us]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @05:09PM
Of course you can. You just have to make the copper wire thick enough.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:43AM
Or the duration short enough.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Funny) by Horse With Stripes on Monday August 18 2014, @04:30PM
Sheldon: Penny, while I subscribe to the many worlds theory which posits the existence of an infinite number of Sheldons in an infinite number of universes, I assure you that in none of them am I dancing.
Penny: Are you fun in any of them?
Sheldon: The math would suggest that in a few I’m a clown made of candy. But I don’t dance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:03PM
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday August 18 2014, @02:32PM
Does anybody else find it ironic that this article makes big claims about being testable, yet we can't see it because it's behind a paywall?
Or is just the entire idea of having paywalled scientific journals ironic. I mean, aren't they supposed to promote the spread of scientific knowledge?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Informative) by EvilSS on Monday August 18 2014, @02:51PM
The article in SA that discusses the paper is paywalled, the paper itself is freely available at the link provided in the summary. It should also be noted that it was submitted to Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, not Scientific American, for formal publication. I don't think Scientific American is even considered a journal is it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @02:53PM
NO!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Monday August 18 2014, @02:46PM
Do not link to paywalled articles. If people want to wall up their content in a ghetto, let them. Link only to open content people can read. Then paywalls will die.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Adamsjas on Monday August 18 2014, @04:40PM
If it were the only link, i would agree.
But there are enough people on the list that are in universities that have subscriptions who can get these for free.
Its useful to have the paywalled link, because they can check it out for the rest of us, and point out any errors in the summary.
As long as those links are labeled "paywall" and don't waste my time, I'm ok with having a paywalled link as one of many links. My daughter can get just about any paywalled article through here university. She has smuggeled me more than one print-to-pdf copy. Not this one.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday August 18 2014, @09:31PM
Exactly, don't give them free advertising oppertunities.
(Score: 2) by strattitarius on Monday August 18 2014, @03:05PM
I might just be in a bad mood dealing with people not meeting deadlines and full of excuses this morning, but isn't that a convenient argument used by these scientist: "I know it's absurd, but since nobody can actually know what happened, don't dismiss my conjecture, no matter how out there it might be." It's almost a "No True Scotsman" argument; it can't be not possible because anything is possible in the 4th dimension. It's almost like a religious claim; "You can't touch faith, but when God speaks you know it."
I suppose the Allegory of the Cave can be called upon anytime you have an outrageous claim...
Slashdot Beta Sucks. Soylent Alpha Rules. News at 11.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Monday August 18 2014, @03:10PM
It sounds more like a CYA to me. "I know this sounds crazy, guys, but don't make fun of me!"
No. Science is all about ideas that are considered crazy when they first are proposed. Write your paper and stand by the damn thing (at least until someone might publish and disprove it).
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @04:08PM
Multiverse has always seemed more like religion to me than science.
With Multiverse we can explain away the creation of this universe with the anthropic principle and just say there are infinite universes, thus one was bound to look like this one.
With stellar systems it is testable (we can see LOTS of exoplants), with universes, while it may be just as valid a conjecture, there have been no tests that could be performed (that didn't count on conditions that may well not exist, but still wouldn't invalidate the theory). Multiverse just feels like the 'God' of the atheist mathematician to me.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday August 18 2014, @07:47PM
I'm glad you used the word "seemed". That makes it a plausibly true statement.
FWIW, every interpretation of Quantum Mechanics that I've run into has ideas that I consider equally counter-intuitive. As long as the interpretation is consistent with the math, I'm willing to consider it as reasonable. The ALL demand that you accept things that can't be proven. The "default", or Copenhagen interpretation, basically says "You can't understand the universe, all you can do is calculate probable results." But the actual predictions made are the same as those made by the Multi-World interpretation. In fact the "sum over histories" approach to calculation created by Feynman essentially explicitly uses the Multi-World interpretation to simplify the calculations.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday August 18 2014, @09:27PM
I think the problem is when it comes to the very large like galaxies and the very small like quantum we are REALLY in the dark here as there is so much we just don't know or haven't detected. We are like the scientists working with flight at the start of the 20th century or the rocket men of the 20s and 30s, with a LOT of the math having to deal with a bunch of question marks because there is just so much on the subject we just can't explain yet with our current level of technology.
I think the only thing we can say for certain is that many of the theories we have now will probably be blown to shit when the next detection breakthrough comes along.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @05:32PM
It is an interesting claim though. One that makes some sense.
If you can get get a black hole in the 3rd dimension. If there are higher dimensions why wouldnt you get them there? If you can get them there what does the event horizon look like is it a 3d construct? Also can we get black holes in 2d and 1d as well? Which would be interesting as a 2d plane should be infinitely thin otherwise it would belong to the 3rd dimension.
The claim that we are part of 4d black hole though would need some sort of test (which they have?).
I suppose the Allegory of the Cave can be called upon anytime you have an outrageous claim
In this case it makes some sense to use it though. As neither you or I can see what the 4th dimension looks like, if it exists at all. We think it does but are not totally sure if it is time or something else. The problem is we are dimension locked. I can not as a 3d entity manipulate 2d space without turning it into 3d space. A 2d space can not interact properly with 3d as it simply can not even 'see' it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:47AM
I had a strange interaction with some aliens one time and when I asked them to take me on their ship, they said that I would not be able to survive being in a 4 dimensional space as a 3 dimensional being. It would be like forcing a plane to touch the complete surface of a sphere. Impossible, even if you could tear or flatten the surface of the sphere, and meet half way, you create another side which then cannot touch as well. The sphere is destroyed, and still not completely touching the plane.
At least that's the excuse they explained simultaneously into my thoughts.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday August 18 2014, @03:12PM
I have always thought this theory makes the most sense. If Hawking Radiation is a real principal and the BH is constantly pulling half of an antiparticle pair into the event horizon, then there is a chance that the observable mass the BH pulls in is only part of what it ingests. A BH pulls in a lot of matter ripping it apart and compressing it down to a tiny dense mass of matter. Kinda sounds like the theory of the big bang, an infinitely small and hot ball of matter which exploded. Somehow the BH creates a new bubble of space and when it pops, we cease to see it but the pop is expanding in a new bubble of space. Perhaps this is the end of a black holes life cycle. What we predict as them evaporating might be only on the "outside", the part we see. On the other side is a whole new universe.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by doublerot13 on Monday August 18 2014, @03:28PM
I always thought the universe was a perfectly elastic Cheeto. Seems equally as likely and provable anyways.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by VLM on Monday August 18 2014, @03:33PM
"The Black Hole at the Beginning of Time" aka "The goatse at the beginning of internet time"...
(Score: 1) by MrGuy on Monday August 18 2014, @03:42PM
http://xkcd.com/171/ [xkcd.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @10:47PM
Go back to Slashdot.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Ken_g6 on Monday August 18 2014, @04:13PM
If you combine this with the holographic principle [wikipedia.org], which:
Then couldn't we be in a black hole in a three-dimensional universe, and still have a "three-dimensional" universe? Black holes all the way down!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @04:47PM
So if we are a 3D event horizon, shouldn't we be seeing material disappear or at least drift away from our 3 dimensions (into the 4D mass that created the hole)? Maybe I should just read the damn paper and find the answer myself ..
(Score: 1) by pkrasimirov on Monday August 18 2014, @04:58PM
Where do you think the souls are going after death?
(Score: 1) by Refugee from beyond on Monday August 18 2014, @05:14PM
I heard Avalon is a nice place to visit.
Instantly better soylentnews: replace background on article and comment titles with #973131.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @07:41PM
Ah so the 4D mass that created the black hole is God? My next question then will be: is there a 5D mass with a event horizon that holds 4D mass (that is God, which we circle around in 3D) And ... is 2D circling around our event horizon? All the way down?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @10:57PM
God is the universe itself, and we are all that single consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Don't listen to those blasphemous fools who insult and belittle something that's by definition beyond their comprehension by anthropomorphising it.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday August 18 2014, @09:28PM
Could this conjecture be useful in understanding dark energy and dark matter that ought to be there, but are not observably present in our Universe? Could it be a 4D object that has immeasurably small 3D section?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday August 18 2014, @09:40PM
If our universe is the core or inside of a black hole in another dimension. Then shouldn't pieces get sucked in and magically appear that weren't here before? Not necessarily physical matter. It could be clouds of neutrinos, dark energy and other exotic forms. But the main point of it is that it would appear out of nothing. And stay put. Otoh, perhaps expansion of the universe is driven by particles from the outside trying to squeeze in? And which is why vacuum isn't really empty. Could also be that any sucked in stuff is of the wrong dimension to actually have any interaction we can currently measure.
Perhaps this also means that one can travel outside the visable universe but won't notice anything because the dimensions are different and there will be to little interaction?
(Score: 2) by metamonkey on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:31PM
This idea doesn't suggest that our universe is inside a 4D black hole. It's suggested that it may be the event horizon of a 4D black hole.
Consider the event horizon of a black hole in our universe. This is a firm limit beyond which events inside cannot effect events outside. There is no gradient; it is a hard line. This hard line is two dimensional. It has length and height but no width. It's closed in on itself like a sphere, but it's just the onion skin on the outside of the sphere.
So, the event horizon around a 3D black hole is 2 dimensional. The event horizon around a 4D black hole would be three dimensional. What would that look like in the 4 dimensional space? I have no idea. It's beyond my ability to comprehend. I can imagine it mathematically just fine, but physically? Beats me.
Okay 3, 2, 1, let's jam.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @11:06AM
Everyone knows that this entire universe is an electron orbitting a plutonium atom.
(Score: 1) by rheaghen on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:53PM
Given this effect is true, what happens when the black hole encapsulating the Local Area merges with another black hole? For example the Milky Way merging with Andromeda. Would this destroy us? Would this essentially re-initialize the space time here?