AaS! 203: Is the Universe a Giant Black Hole?

Ask a Spaceman!

Paul M. Sutter

Astrophysics, Science, Cosmos, Holes, Black, Astronomy, Natural Sciences, Universe, Cosmology, Space, Physics

4.8 • 853 Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2023

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Why didn’t the big bang collapse in a singularity? What would a universe-sized black hole be like? Now that I think about it, do we live inside a giant black hole already? I discuss these questions and more in today’s Ask a Spaceman!

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Thanks to Cathy Rinella for editing.

Hosted by Paul M. Sutter.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Let's start by crushing you.
0:11.3	At first, not much, just a little pressure here and there.
0:15.4	But the pressure doesn't stop, and we compress your body into a volume no bigger than a centimeter on a side. We don't
0:24.6	stop. The molecules of your body break down into their component atoms, unable to remain
0:30.5	against the pressure. We keep going. Your body becoming incredibly unnaturally dense.
0:42.2	Eventually, electrons get squeezed out of atoms and then shoved back in by the extreme pressure.
0:45.6	Almost all the particles of your body convert into neutrons.
0:47.6	We keep going.
0:53.6	The neutrons are able to resist the crushing pressure due to a strange quirk of quantum mechanics,
0:54.7	but only for a while.
1:00.9	They, too, succumb to the constant squeezing. At some point, when the mass of your body is compressed into a volume roughly the size of an atomic nucleus, gravity takes over. The gravitational pull
1:07.5	at those densities is so high that no other known force can compete against it.
1:13.0	Once we reach that point, we don't have to keep the pressure up. Gravity takes over the work from
1:17.6	here on out. It continues pulling on the material that once made up your body into a singularity,
1:24.9	a point of infinite density. Surrounding that singularity is an event horizon, the mathematical edge of a nucleicized human mass
1:35.8	black hole.
1:37.4	If we were to repeat that process of never-ending squeezing on the mass of the earth, we
1:43.6	would reach the tipping point once
1:45.3	we compressed the earth's mass into a volume roughly the size of a bean.
1:51.1	Creating in the process a bean-sized black hole weighing nearly six times 10 to the 24 kilograms.
1:58.7	That's a big bean.
2:00.8	Giant stars are capable of creating black holes on their
	...

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