Could Black Holes Be Portals to Other Universes? 277
David Shiga writes "Astronomers have identified many objects out there that they think are black holes. But could they be portals to other universes called wormholes, instead? According to a new study by a pair of physicists, we wouldn't be able to tell the difference. They have discovered that wormholes with the right shape would look identical to black holes from the outside. But while a trip into a black hole would mean certain death, a wormhole might spit you out into a parallel universe with its own stars and planets. Exotic effects from quantum physics might produce wormholes naturally from collapsing stars, one of the physicist says, and they might even be produced in future particle accelerator experiments."
Into the Unknown: The Circle (Score:5, Interesting)
Wasn't this an episode of the original The Tomorrow People [tv.com], except that transit time felt like it took much longer than it really did, whereas the reality of time dilation would likely be the reverse?
Space cowboys (Score:1, Interesting)
What happens if after-life is a fact, and while all black holes cause death, some of the "faithful" ones are taken to the after-life paradise, and they thought they are in a parallel universe?
Universal gravity (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, his twist at the end resembled this article. He said that everything in the universe has gravity. Well, if everything has gravity, then the universe itself has a gravitational pull. Eventually the mass of the universe would be such that any light trying to escape it would be pulled back inside, which would make the universe appear to be black hole from anyone on the outside looking in...
what would happen on the other side? (Score:5, Interesting)
We have to assume that if blackholes can form in our universe, then they can form in the "other" universe. So we would be seeing the spontaneous formation of black holes occurring here that are the result of collapsing stars on the other side.
So my question is, what does this event look like from the perspective of the other side, and have we observed it happening here?
Re:Into the Unknown: The Circle (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Universal gravity (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not how Big Bang cosmology works, however. In that theory, all of space is filled with matter, and space itself expands, carrying the matter with it. There is no "edge".
Consequently, it doesn't make much sense to speak of light trying to "escape" the universe, since the universe has no boundary. That's why it's problematic to speak of the whole universe as a "black hole".
For a related FAQ, see here [ucr.edu].
Too exotic (Score:3, Interesting)
Who knows, maybe a black hole is just an area approaching infinity, shrinking all that comes to the area with it. Why not? And Hawking's Radiation naturally permeates all of the universe but remains unobservable as it's particles are so large that it would fit many solar systems in it's space, but shrinks down at a black hole to a (weakly) observable radiation. It's not as if something that large would be identifiable; it would be discounted to an observation of the basic state of the universe. Our universe is only our observable universe; all this multi-verse and worm-hole stuff isn't any more real science than my silly-sized particle, just imaginative speculation.
Re:what would happen on the other side? (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's just be clear that without more details, the claim that wormholes open in some "other" universe appear quite random. The original theory of wormholes doesn't claim any other universes, just different points in the same (and only) mother universe we know.
There are two types of "other" universes currently science theorizes about: parallel universes as found in quantum theory (all possibilities of a super-state), and the universes formed by the additional dimensions suggested by the string theory (where "sliding" along the additional dimensions may create alternative universes where laws of physics change and even Pi might change as a constant).
Again, maybe just the article is written poorly, but it seems they're talking about some kind of Star Trek -style "other" universe, and we should expect lots of aliens with rubber foreheads. It's hard to take any of this seriously when all of the substance and coherence was sucked out (if it ever existed) in the process of turning it into an article.
Falling into a black hole is not certain death. (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's my idea on what a black hole is (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I can only imagine (Score:3, Interesting)
You first.
You misunderstand (Score:3, Interesting)
Wormhole theory is different. The theory of a wormhole is that under certain conditions, the warping of space-time can be so extreme that two massive distortions can connect to one another. Essentially, that the singularities of 2 black holes touch, and open up a tunnel through space-time, which is shorter than the trip through normal space-time. These connections can last for a single instant or longer, but they are not considered to be permanent, and are, hypothetically, rarely stable last I read.
Whether they connect to other points (black holes) within our own Universe, or within other Universes depends largely on the shape of the Universe and if multi-verse theory is even real. The shape being the major determining factor in a great deal of such very theoretical physics.
Finally, a wormhole looping back on itself would not longer join spans of space, but instead, spans of time. It would connect to it's past or future self, because doing so would involve looping, and a common theory is that the more a wormhole loops, the more it displaces itself within time.
Who knew reading a Brief History of Time so many years ago would eventually pay off?