Black Holes & Baby Universes

There are numerous ways of theoretically generating a collection of separate and apart universes, commonly called a Multiverse. One such novel approach uses two accepted entities, a universe and a Black Hole to generate each other in turn in either a linear or a cyclic fashion. While the linear approach runs out of puff, the cyclic version doesn’t, but only if you postulate a form of time travel!

You exist somewhere on Planet Earth, which orbits a rather average star we call the Sun, which in turn orbits around the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy which is but one of billions and billions of galaxies within our observable Universe. That’s what you’d include in any description of your reality.

However, perhaps the observable Universe itself exists within a Black Hole. That’s an alternative reality, or at least an extension of your reality. Just what rationale might lead one to suggest that our observable Universe and a Black Hole could be in parallel?

Since you cannot escape from the prison we call the Universe; and since you could not escape from the inside of a Black Hole – another type prison – perhaps they are one and the same sort of prison. Perhaps not only do Black Holes exist inside our Universe but the Universe itself resides inside a Black Hole with perhaps no end of the inside-the-inside-the-inside in either direction. In a manner of speaking, that’s a Multiverse!

Actually you can in theory escape this Universe by hopping down into a Black Hole, but if, and it’s a very big ‘but if’, you survive, you’ve just traded in one maximum security prison for another.

Let’s explore this concept a little further and see where, if anywhere, it leads us.

Our Universe and Black Holes certainly share some things in common.

A Black Hole can expand and surprisingly contract (due to Hawking radiation; the technicalities need not concern us here). Our Universe is expanding, but in theory could also contract if there was enough stuff, matter, hence gravity to slow down the expansion to an eventual halt hence reverse direction and start to shrink.

A Black Hole has temperature (that Hawking radiation); our Universe has a temperature (the cosmic background microwave radiation).

A Black Hole has mass (hence gravity); our Universe has mass (hence gravity).

A Black Hole could have a net charge; our Universe could have an excess of one kind of charge over another, but to the best of our knowledge our Universe is electrically neutral, and we suspect, so might an average Black Hole be too.

A Black Hole may be spinning; our Universe maybe rotating but the only way of knowing if you are rotating is if something else in your line of sight isn’t rotating or rotating at a different rate. If everything in our Universe is rotating together at the same rate, then there’s no way of telling since there isn’t anything else to relate that rotation to. 

Now the question arises was there a prime cause; a first universe inside a Black Hole  that gave birth to millions more Black Holes each of which generated an interior universe each of which spawned million more Black Holes hence interior universes and so on and so on and so on. It’s all very circular in that Black Holes generate universes which generate more Black Holes which generate more universes, etc. But that is something circular in a very linear sort of way for what you end up with is like an ongoing (maybe infinite) series of funnels. Sooner or later all the stuff that existed in the first cause Black Hole universe will funnel down into the first generation of Black Hole universes and all the stuff there eventually finds its way down into the second generation of Black Hole universes, hence funnelled down to the third, and fourth and down unto infinity. Now the point here is that there was only a finite amount of stuff (matter/energy) in that first cause Black Hole universe. All that stuff is constantly being diluted as one passes from one generation to the next generation. The stuff of the prime cause first Black Hole universe is dispersed unto millions and eventually billions of later universes. Eventually every baby universe in some umpteenth generation of universes would be so dilute no further Black Holes could form and that’s then the end of that.

But, what if things were cyclic or really circular? All of these universes do not exist in separate and apart timeframes, just like great grandpa; grandpa; father and son do not of necessity exist in separate and apart timeframes but can co-exist at the same time. When you talk of Black Holes, you can also go the one yard further and talk wormholes, which I guess is really that passageway from a Black Hole to the baby universe it generated. But if that first Black Hole universe generates say a million Black Holes each generating a baby universe, what’s to say that a Black Hole created in that baby universe might not funnel back stuff, not to a newer next generation, but dump their contents back to the original first cause Black Hole universe. Wormholes can, in theory, under the right conditions, serve as time machines. So it’s almost akin as if the son travelled back in time and fathered what would ultimately become his great grandpa. Cyclic! If cyclic, the amount of stuff (matter/energy) is still fixed (that which existed in the original Black Hole universe), but never gets diluted enough to bring things to a halt. Now about those quasars, gamma ray bursts and related ultra-energetic astronomical enigmas – White Holes perhaps; the exit of the Black Hole entrance – impregnations by those baby universe Black Holes?  

Where actually do these new (and improved?) baby universes reside? I doubt that a Black Hole opens up a portal and creates a never-before-in-existence arena of space-time where stuff pouring into a Black Hole, hence exiting this portal, finds a ready made newly constructed house to live and evolve in. Rather, the baby universe IS the interior of a Black Hole. A Black Hole forms, a new baby universe forms inside that Black Hole, and that universe in turn produces new Black Holes that form new baby universes, etc. But everything takes place, generation after generation, inside that first Black Hole (which just might be our Universe). The baby universes spawned inside say Black Hole generation #3 in turn creates Black Hole generation #4 which also exist within the earlier Black Hole generation #3 as do the generation #4 baby universes. So instead of a series of dolls sitting all-in-a-row on a long shelf, it’s more akin to those Russian dolls, one inside the other inside the other inside the other. But, as suggested above, one of the smaller dolls can ultimately funnel stuff back up into one of the larger dolls. 

Aside #1: Now you may feel that any baby universe inside a Black Hole in our Universe is going to be a pretty small universe indeed. Well I’m not aware that the definition of a universe comes attached with a one size fits all clause. Universes might well come is small, medium, large and extra-large sizes. Maybe a baby universe inside a Black Hole is like Dr. Who’s TARDIS – bigger on the inside than on the outside. Truth is, nobody, and I do mean nobody has a clue what’s inside the event horizon of a Black Hole. Once inside the event horizon all the laws, principles and relationships of physics break down. Nobody and no measuring instrument have ever been inside to have a look at what’s what and report back. It’s akin to those maritime charts of the ancient seafarers – here be dragons! It’s the greatest of the great unknowns. If space is the final frontier, the inside of a Black Hole is the Absolutely Final Frontier. Now there’s no reason of necessity why any of these baby universes need be inhabited. Extraterrestrial intelligence isn’t part of the definition of a universe either. A universe is really a self-contained space where matter and energy interact; where things happen; where there is change from moment to moment. The interior of a Black Hole is self-contained. There’s matter and energy but whether there’s activity or not, well IMHO the answer is affirmative since the Black Hole isn’t static. It’s either expanding as matter and energy enters and passes the event horizon or contracting thanks to the abovementioned Hawking radiation. Actually both incoming and outgoing are going on simultaneously.

Aside #2: Something about this entire concept reminds me of the old sci-fi pulp magazine era. It was a staple plot of shrinking down to the atomic level only to discover a civilization on a ‘planetary’ electron orbiting a ‘stellar’ nucleus.

Aside #3: A Black Hole that might spew out another universe might have that universe stillborn in that that universe may not in turn be able to give rise to internally created Black Holes and thus another generation of baby universes. Not all universes will of necessity have the same physics, physics that allow the creation of Black Holes, and so some universes will be eternal bachelors or spinsters.

Aside #4: Yet another interesting question is what happens to the two baby universes when and if their parent Black Holes merge, as most certainly can happen. That would seem to be a rather nasty scenario for inhabitants of either of the baby universes!

Now clearly this is all speculation, but then speculation, that “what if” scenario, is the bread-and-butter staple of science fiction, and how often has science fiction evolved into science fact? It’s an oft quoted saying, attributed to J. B. S. Haldane (1924) that “The Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.”

A Trip Inside A Black Hole: Part Two

Suicide missions are hardly unknown happenings, so presumably it wouldn’t be too hard to find a volunteer to take a long walk off a short pier and dive into the heart of a Black Hole. Well, let’s trade in the walk and the pier for a spaceship, with our suicidal pilot crewmember willing to boldly go. What might she expect? For that matter what might a chickenhearted outside observer expect to see?

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Now for the speculation: Let us suppose that our suicidal voyager survives her voyage (curses, foiled again) and gets to play tourist. What will she see or will she see anything at all? Well, yes, she will – see that is. The event horizon is like a one-way mirror. Light can pass through the event horizon into the interior of the Black Hole, but light cannot pass from the interior of the Black Hole through the event horizon to be witnessed by an outside observer. Okay, let there be light, and there was light. Light is energy, so there’s energy inside a Black Hole. It’s also been shown that a Black Hole has entropy, or in other words a temperature. That too is energy. 

There’s matter (mass) inside a Black Hole – obviously, since there’s gravity. Now the big unknown is what kind of matter is that matter? We don’t know. Outside of a Black Hole matter exists in four states – solid, liquid, gas and plasma. The transition from one state of matter to another is called a phase change, as in ice to water to steam. One speculation is that the matter inside a Black Hole undergoes a phase change to something even more solid and denser than, well a dense solid.

We sort of observe this in a Neutron Star, a star extremely massive with extreme gravity, but just short of enough gravity to form an event horizon and turn into a Black Hole. Why is it called a Neutron Star? Well, the gravity is so great that the bits and pieces of the atom, electrons, neutrons and protons are squashed together into one big glob. The positive protons fuse with the negative electrons – these electric charges thus cancelling out – to make neutrons, hence join with the already neutral neutrons, so everything forms into just one huge glob of neutron soup, or a Neutron Star. Rapidly spinning Neutron Stars are also known as Pulsars.

Now if atoms lose all sense of identity, there is no atomic structure, no isotopes, no molecules, no elements, no compounds, no electrons and no protons, then I’d have to define that as a phase transition, but one we don’t witness on Earth. Given the even more extreme gravity inside a Black Hole, would that same phase transition to a neutron soup hold sway, or might there be another beyond that found in Neutron Stars? 

Neutrons are not fundamental particles. A glob of neutron soup is ultimately a glob of quark soup, as quark trios comprise the identity we call a neutron. Neutrons are actually composite particles. However, as quarks are fundamental particles, it’s unlikely they can be crushed or fused together. Electrons too are fundamental, but it is well known – to particle physicists at least – that an isolated neutron will in fairly quick-smart order decay to a proton, an electron and an antineutrino. Reactions are reversible so it is straightforward to create a neutron if the ingredients are brought together with sufficient energy.

Since a Neutron Star is just one coin short of a Black Hole dollar, the inside of a Black Hole could well be akin to a Neutron Star, only slightly more massive. One thing is certain IMHO, the interior will not be matter crushed down to the infinitely small (i.e. – zero volume); the interior will not be infinitely dense.

What lies at the heart of a Black Hole? The traditional answer is a ‘singularity’ – a point of (near) infinite density and (close to) zero volume, matter crushed down to the final, ultimate limit – or maybe not.

Start with a hunk of matter. Keep on keeping on adding more and more and more matter (mass) to it. Your original hunk grows larger, ever denser; its gravity swells in proportion. Finally it’s just a fraction away from achieving Black Hole status – meaning its gravity is so strong not even light can escape from its grasp. It’s that Neutron Star entity.

So you are a thimbleful of salt away from crossing the not-quite-yet a Black Hole to an actual Black Hole boundary. You can (barely) still see your now super-sized hunk of Neutron Star stuff. Now toss in that final thimbleful of stuff onto the hunk. No light now reaches you – you’ve crossed the threshold or boundary and have got a Black Hole. But do you doubt that lurking on the other side of the not-quite-yet a Black Hole to an actual Black Hole boundary, though unseen, you still have that super-sized hunk of stuff, not a singularity, but a really real solid 3-D hunk of stuff? Or, in other words, if the escape velocity of your hunk is 185,999 miles per second, no Black Hole and no singularity, but if it climbs to 186,001 miles per second you have a Black Hole and your hunk morphs into a singularity? A two mile a second difference makes that much difference? I don’t think so.

The other issue though is this really going to be a one-way trip for our boldly going voyager, dead or alive? One of the 64,000 $64,000 questions: Can you pour stuff down a Black Hole indefinitely, or does the Black Hole have a finite capacity and ultimately or eventually will have to spew stuff out the ‘other side’ (i.e. – producing a White Hole) as you keep pouring in more and more and more? I’d wager the conservation relationships and principles of physics and chemistry hold sway here. What goes in ultimately comes out. That doesn’t mean there’s not a temporary holding vessel. Or, in more human terms, you fill what’s empty; you empty what’s full, but in-between those two there’s storage in the stomach and the intestines; the lungs and the bladder.

Let’s adopt that point of view that what goes in, ultimately has to come out.

And so, our intrepid voyager might well exit elsewhere, maybe even elsewhen. The exit could be deemed the opposite of a Black Hole, or a White Hole; the passageway from Black Hole entrance to White Hole exit is that staple of sci-fi, albeit based in the realm of theoretical physics, the Wormhole. That the exit could be elsewhen is based on the theoretical ‘fact’ that a wormhole could be manipulated in such a manner as to allow for time travel. If that’s too far out for you, then a Wormhole elsewhere shouldn’t be. The apt analogy is with an apple. Mr. Worm can crawl around the outside of the apple to get from one side to the other, or Mr. Worm could take a shortcut and worm his way through the apple to get to the other side, or elsewhere.

Now the question arises, is there any observational evidence that White Holes and associated exits exist? Astronomers and cosmologists would argue in the negative, but I’m not convinced. What would be the signature of a White Hole? Well, it would be roughly stellar-sized, not planetary or galactic. It would be vomiting out one heck of a lot of stuff including lots of energy. Does the cosmos contain such beasties? Obvious candidates are quasars – quasi-stellar objects. Quasars are roughly stellar in size, but violently emitting the froth and bubble of nearly an entire galaxy worth of stuff and energy. The other high-energy astrophysical anomaly is gamma ray bursts. They occur way out back of beyond, in the outer fringes of the cosmos, which is all to the good for if a gamma ray burst happened in our stellar neck of the woods, the results would be akin to Kentucky Fried Humans! Still, we don’t know enough squat about them to be able to predict exactly where and when one will happen. So, astronomers who are into studying these cosmic critters are akin to sleeping fireman who never knows when they will be rudely awakened to respond to that rare five-alarm event.

So, in short, we have Black Holes that are your ultimate in garbage disposals; Quasars and gamma ray bursts that are your ultimate in, IMHO, recycling that garbage back into useful cosmic stuff – matter and energy. In other words, they are the exit to the Black Hole’s entrance. 

No matter. Either our boldly going voyager has snuffed it going into a Black Hole; is forever trapped in a Black Hole; or has been turned into a Kentucky Fried Human and vomited back out again via a White Hole quasar or gamma ray burst to become as one with the cosmos. We all started out as starstuff – and so shall we (or what’s left of our remains) all ultimately return to become starstuff again a millennia of millennia from now. 

Cosmology: In the Beginning vs. Once Upon A Time: Part One

The standard cosmological model, the standard origin of our Universe model, the Big Bang event, is an “in the beginning” model. The Big Bang marked the beginning of our Universe; what happened before that is akin to asking what’s south of the South Pole. However, I prefer a “once up a time” scenario, which implies there was a time before the Big Bang created our Universe, and ultimately, us.

THE COSMOS IS THE BE ALL AND END ALL OF ALL THAT IS OR EVER WILL BE

“The Cosmos”: That’s what I call all that is, and all that every will be. My cosmos is infinite in size and in time*. From the get-go I’m eliminating the philosophical issues of ‘what comes before time existed’; and ‘what exists beyond any existing space’? The answers are that nothing came before time existed because time has always existed; and nothing exists beyond existing space because existing space is ever endless. 

Into this infinite sea of time and space resides an infinite (or even finite if you prefer – that’s not the critical bit) amount of matter and energy. One can put an infinite amount of stuff into an infinite amount of space and still have lots of room left over for the matter/energy to move about and interact in.

Now that matter/energy can be infinitely old because matter, in the form of elementary particles like electrons and quarks do not age (like humans do) and energy particles, like photons (and thus far hypothetical gravitons) don’t age either. A billion years is to an electron or a photon as a nanosecond is to a human.

This cosmos is overall in a ‘steady state’, even though there’s lots of activity going on, from transitions (beginnings and endings) and evolutions (interactions) constantly taking place. This is much like a box full of water molecules, where, depending on local conditions, some molecules are disassociating into hydrogen and oxygen atoms; oxygen and hydrogen atoms are combining to form water molecules; some molecules are travelling at rapid rate and the local state is gaseous; some are travelling at a somewhat slower rate and are in a liquid state; some are really sluggish and are in a solid state. There are lots of things happening, but overall, the box is in a relatively steady state. 

Within this infinite cosmic sea, pockets of matter and energy have now and then clumped together to form what we would term a universe (like interstellar gas and dust can clump together to form a star). Actually in this infinite sea there are many universes, like raisins in a loaf of raisin bread. One could call this set of island universes The Multiverse and indeed many have, but The Multiverse could equally include all those multi-trillions of theoretical Many World universes (the common alternative to the Copenhagen interpretation of all things quantum) or the set of often proposed parallel universes or even the proposed set of computer-generated and simulated universes. Since I’m not dealing with those sorts of universes in this scenario, I’ll refrain from using the term Multiverse and stick with cosmos. 

OUR ISLAND UNIVERSE

Now our Universe is but one tiny island in this infinite sea. And while the infinite cosmos, all that is and every will be, didn’t have any origin, our Universe did. And, as things appear now, will have a predictable end.

And there are lots of other universe islands too, some or all of which may or may not have origins and endings similar to ours. Some of those other island universes may have destinies linked with ours, not so much in space (although that’s possible), but in time.

Because our Universe resides in an infinite sea of space, our Universe, since it had an origin and is expanding through that sea, must have a boundary. That boundary however isn’t how far matter has expanded into that sea; rather it is how far the light from our Universe has expanded, at the speed of light. Thus, if we assume our Universe is spherical, the outermost boundary is one of the maximum extent to which light has travelled, and so observers outside our Universe will see us way before they can touch us, as our light is obviously travelling at a higher velocity, and has expanded further, than our matter.

In such a scenario as I have proposed, our Universe could rotate. Why not? Motion is the rule, not the exception in the Universe. Everything inside our Universe seems to rotate or revolve. Earth rotates on its axis; the Sun rotates on its axis; the Solar System rotates and the planets revolve around the Sun. Our Milky Way Galaxy rotates; entire clusters of galaxies revolve around a common centre of gravity. If our Universe is all there is, it’s pretty meaningless to talk of its rotation or revolution, for with respect to what is it rotating or revolving? But, if there is a larger existence outside, then it is meaningful to talk about our Universe having motion relative to that larger outside.

THE ORIGIN OF OUR UNIVERSE: A BIG BANG

So, what is the origin of our Universe? Well, cosmologists tell us it was the Big Bang** event. Somehow, some 13.7 billion years ago, our Universe came into being from something relatively tiny (not ‘big’ at all), which ‘exploded’ (‘banged’), spewing its matter/energy guts out thus spreading the contents of said matter/energy ever outwards resulted in the expanding Universe (of matter/energy) we see all around us today.

Now there’s one hell of a lot of stuff in our Universe, all of which is in motion – expanding, ever expanding outward. Now it takes energy to put matter into motion, so given the lot of stuff present at the origin of our Universe, there had better be a lot of energy available to give all that stuff a bit (and then some) of a push. Now where, did all, that required energy come from?

If time and space; matter and energy, have always existed, it’s illogical to suggest that the origin or our Universe can be explained somehow as ‘in the beginning there was nothing; then there was something – our Universe’.  It’s more logical to propose a ‘in the beginning there was something; then there was something else – our Universe’.  That previous something I suggest was a previous universe.

To be continued…

*Our expanding Universe is, in terms of space, a three dimensional structure (and not by analogy so beloved by traditional cosmologists something represented as a two dimensional expanding balloon’s surface). You, as a smaller three spatial dimensional object, reside inside the Universe (like your liver resides inside you). And just as you have an inside and outside (your skin separates the two), and your liver has an inside-the-liver and an outside-the-liver, so too must our Universe have an inside (where you reside) and an outside, but if, and only if our Universe has a specific shape, and therefore a finite internal volume.

I can think of no three dimensional geometric shape of any kind, which if finite in surface area, doesn’t also contain within a finite volume. To have an infinite volume would imply this shape has no boundary, border, edge, or membrane; whatever. If it has no shape, it can’t be a geometrical structure, like that of a sphere, ellipsoid, cylinder, cube, funnel, or pyramid, or even something totally irregular in structure (possessing no overall symmetry at all) like that of an amoeba. If our Universe has no overall shape, then no boundary, border, edge, or membrane – whatever - is possible. There’s actually only one ‘shape’ that can contain an infinite volume, and that’s a ‘shape’ that’s infinite in extent in all three dimensions, which is to say no shape at all.

One could go off the deeper end and imagine a ‘shape’ that’s finite in two dimensions but infinite in the third, like a cylinder whose length extends infinitely. Perhaps there’s a ‘shape’ to the Universe that’s finite in one dimension but infinite in two, say like a cube but with the left – right and back – forward dimensions just going on, and on, and on, and on forever. Both these ‘shapes’ have infinite volumes, but there’s no reason to suggest, no observational, even theoretical evidence, that any direction, any dimension is preferred or is unique vis-à-vis any other. It’s said that our Universe is both isotropic and isometric in that it tends to look the same in any direction and has no preferred directionality to it. That’s one reason the Universe is assumed to be of spherical shape, if it has to have any shape at all.

So, get into a rocket ship and head off in a constant straight line direction of your own choosing, making any course corrections necessary when gravitational forces from within the Universe, like from stellar or galactic objects, Black Holes, etc. deviate you from your one true path. Because this is a thought experiment, you can imagine yourself travelling as fast as you want to and ignore general relativity and speed limits. If you’d rather not do that, confer upon yourself immortality and live to see the end of your journey. Sooner or later, if the Universe has finite volume, you’ll encounter that border, boundary, edge, or membrane – whatever. You now have an awkward question to face. What’s on the other side?

By proposing from the get-go, a Universe with an infinite volume, a no shape Universe, there can not ever be that border, boundary, edge, or membrane – whatever – that you eventually run into. And therefore, there’s no awkward question to ever have to face and answer.    

I’m just changing the word ‘Universe’ to ‘cosmos’ and placing our Universe within that larger infinite ‘shape’.

Oh, you hit that same brick wall, that awkward question, with our fourth dimension, time. What comes before, whatever; what comes after, whatever?

**I could use the synonymous (to my way of thinking) phrase “White Hole” event, since the Big Crunch resulted in a Black Hole which immediately upon rebounding (expanding) became the opposite of a Black Hole – a White Hole which we have named the Big Bang.

Variations on a Theme Cosmological: Part Two

Continued from yesterday's blog...

The question arises that if our Universe originated from another universe’s singularity, and that in our Universe singularities form the centre of Black Holes (of all sizes), then could these singularities, if they became large enough and unstable enough (via the extreme warping of space-time), ultimately form new baby universes in their own right?

Where all this differs from the standard cosmological (Big Bang) model is: 1) The Big Bang wasn’t a micro (quantum realm) event; 2) the Big Bang event occurred in existing space and time instead of creating space and time; and 3) there was therefore a ‘before the Big Bang’, but alas, a ‘before’ probably forever beyond our capabilities of directly knowing the fine print.  With respect to 2) immediately above, is there any observation that has been, or can be made, that can distinguish between space expanding (as a result of the Big Bang having created space in the first instance) and expanding space carrying matter/energy along for the ride (the standard spiel), vis-à-vis matter/energy moving through space as the result of a Big Bang explosion (or spewing event) in preexisting space? The answer is “no”.

How is this process maintained indefinitely, such that there not only was no beginning, but no end either? I mean if all universes expand forever, things ultimately come to an apparent sticky end. Well, assuming a universe doesn’t have a sufficient mass/energy density to cause the expansion to slow down, stop, reverse, and collapse back to a Big Crunch (like ours), then sooner or later, part of an ever expanding universe will intersect with part of another ever expanding universe (if Mother Nature can produce one universe, she can produce more than one universe). The resulting local increase in mass/energy density due to that intersection could be enough to trigger that area to undergo a gravitational collapse with a local Big Crunch the ultimate result, resulting in the production of a new universe – which may, or may itself expand indefinitely or may collapse into another Big Crunch scenario.

An Analogy: All analogies are a bit suspect, but this one I hope will illustrate my general idea immediately above. I’m going to substitute a supernova for the Big Bang.

Interstellar gas and dust slowly come together, contracting under their mutual gravitational attraction, ultimately forming a massive star which ignites (via thermonuclear fusion). One could think of the process as a mini Big Crunch.

The star, being massive, rapidly exhausts its fuel supply, and the resulting imbalance between gravity (inward pressure) and radiation pressure (outward pressure), a balance of pressures that normally keeps a star’s size constant, results in a massive implosion hence explosion – a supernova. The supernova spews its stuff, most of it anyway, back into interstellar space. That’s a mini Big Bang.

Now supernovae occur in existing space-time; they don’t create space-time. They don’t create matter/energy; rather recycle it – from interstellar gas and dust, back to interstellar gas and dust. However, the intense energies and pressures can create new forms of matter (heavier elements) from their supply of lighter elements. This is ultimately necessary for the origin and development of carbon-based life.

So we have a micro system of mini Big Crunches (stellar formation) leading to mini Big Bangs (supernovae – stellar death) - a sort of cyclic universe in miniature.

Now we note that supernovae happen at specific coordinates. They happen at a point in space and time, like I suspect the real Big Bang did. A supernova is also not a quantum event, much like I suspect the actual Big Bang wasn’t.

It is claimed that our Big Bang had no point of origin, no specific coordinates in space-time. The Big Bang happened everywhere, since it created space-time in the first place. Thus, our telescopes can’t find or pinpoint where it happened.  In our supernova explosion, all the bits and pieces will, over the eons, become so spread out, and/or incorporated into other stellar/planetary bodies, as to be no longer detectable or associated with the supernova event. The core of the supernova might remain for a while as a neutron star or Black Hole, but they too will eventually radiate away – in the latter case via Hawking radiation. Thus, exactly where the supernova event happened, ultimately, over the eons, will no longer be identifiable on the cosmic map. I suspect the same for the real Big Bang.

Using another analogy, imaging a closed room with a fireplace and light the fireplace for, say an hour. Then put out the fire, and leave the room for a half hour. When reentering the room, it should be obvious, especially using an infrared detector, the exact point of origin for the heat – the fireplace. Now instead of reentering the room after a half an hour, delay reentry for a half year. By that time the fireplace will be equal in temperature to the rest of the room, and thus won’t stand out, infrared detector or no. Substitute the Big Bang for the fireplace; the Universe for the room. Too much time has elapsed for the Big Bang’s coordinates to be located. 

We note that the bits and pieces that are explosively emitted by supernovae are expanding throughout existing space, just like a mini Big Bang event and mirroring the real Big Bang event. Further, every bit ‘sees’ every other bit moving away from it at a velocity proportional to its distance away. The further away, the faster it’s going, just like a real Big Bang.

We note that a supernova has a cause. Supernovae don’t happen for no reason at all. That also mirrors what I feel must be the case for our own actual Big Bang.

One other word to make the analogy more complete – our Universe may have originated in a Big Bang, but it's unlikely to end in a Big Crunch. Well, that’s okay in our supernova analogy. A star doesn’t go supernova, spew out gas and dust, which then contracts in total to reform the star when then eventually explodes as a supernova, etc. Its explosive oomph is greater than the gravity needed to gather the gas and dust back together again.

So in our Universe we have local areas of gas and dust contraction – mini Big Crunches – stellar formation; local areas of expansion – mini Big Bangs – supernovae. Now expand the picture to the level of real large scale Big Crunches and real large scale Big Bangs, all inside a super-sized universe. This super-sized universe really is super-sized. It’s infinite in time and in space. It’s not a closed system in that there’s nothing outside of it. You can’t get any bigger than infinite volume.

This infinite cosmos contains lots of embedded universes, maybe even an infinite number of them. Some universes are expanding then contracting; some universes (like ours) are expanding, forever and ever expanding; some areas of ever expanding expansion can intersect with other universe’s ever expanding expansions, as in the case of two or more supernovae, causing local pockets of contraction, or Big Crunches.

As I said, analogies are not the actual same as what they are meant to represent, but, I think the supernova substitute for the Big Bang more exactly illustrates reality than some of the claptrap offered up by the professionals. 

Postscript: Can one however now logically ask whether or not our Universe arose directly from the vacuum energy 13.7 billion years ago and bypass all this Big Crunch, Singularity, space warping nonsense? While that’s of course a possibility - see references below - that specific scenario, as opposed to universes in general being so formed, hasn’t been considered as serious an option vis-à-vis the death of one universe giving rise, Phoenix-like, to the birth of another, as in ours. My gut feeling says that you wouldn’t have the same sort of observational evidence that we have to currently account for (i.e. – cosmic microwave background radiation, etc.) in an origin via the vacuum energy. Regardless, a vacuum energy origin still differs from the standard Big Bang model in that the vacuum energy, (time and space, matter and energy), preexisted the Big Bang – and that’s not on according to traditionalists.

References

Cole, K.C.; ‘The ultimate free lunch’ (in) The Hole in the Universe; Harcourt, San Diego; 2001; p.168-171:

Tryon, E.P.; ‘Is the universe a vacuum fluctuation?’ (in) Nature, Vol.246, 1973; p.396-397:

Vilenkin, A.; ‘The universe as a quantum fluctuation’ (in) Many Worlds in One: The Search for other Universes; Hill and Wang, New York; 2006; p.183-186:

John’s Cosmology - Supernovae Analogy

1) Contraction of a universe                                1) Contraction of interstellar gas/dust

2) Big Crunch   (Black Hole)                              2) Massive star forms

3) Transition to                                                  3) Stellar life span

4) Big Bang (White Hole)                                  4) Supernovae

 

5) Expanding Universe                                      5) Expulsion of gas/dust

6) Intersection with another expanding universe 6) Interaction with other gas/dust

7) Gravity rules                                                 7) Gravity rules

8) Contraction of new universe                          8) Contraction of interstellar gas/dust