Did Some Black Holes Survive the Big Bang? 188
astroengine writes "Could anything survive from one universe to the next, through a Big Crunch and resulting Big Bang? According to two researchers, a special class of pre-Big Bang black hole may have the ability to traverse the Big Bang singularity. The upshot is that there may be black holes that existed before the Big Bang knocking around in our modern universe. What's more, we might be able to detect them through the theorized gamma-ray burst produced when these pre-Big Bang black holes evaporate out of existence. But how would we distinguish between these black holes and the primordial black holes thought to be produced after the Big Bang? Well, that's just too confusing right now."
Re:Old old news (Score:2, Insightful)
1. Introduction to basic concepts
2. Overview of research to date
3. Novel result
4. Possible implications of result
The journalist then has to simplify it for "a general audience". #3 is very difficult to simplify, #2 is fairly difficult. #1 and #4 are easier to simplify. So after removing the "confusing bits" we have:
1. Simple overview of field
2. Brief mention of one previous result/theory
4. Wild speculation about possible meaning or technology
If the journalist needs to further condense, we get:
1. A few facts from the field
4. Wild speculation
So everytime you read a piece of science/tech journalism, you're basically only reading about what has previously happened in the field, and about what the implications of the result might be. You then have to infer what the actual research might be, since it's not mentioned in the actual article. If you're lucky, they will mention a name and you can go find a real publication to inform you.
All I'm saying is, don't assume there's nothing new/interesting there just because the writeup doesn't mention anything new/interesting. The mass-media level writeup will never discuss the actual result, only the stuff surrounding the result.