Does the universe reside within a black hole?
17 March 2025
Good morning, welcome to the new week, and mind-blown Monday. Today we’re discussing life, the universe, the rotation of galaxies, black holes, and everything.
Data collected by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has concluded about two-thirds of galaxies in the universe rotate in one direction, while the remaining third rotate the opposite way. In a supposedly normal course of events, the balance would be more even. Apparently.
But there is any such thing as normal in the cosmos? You know what they say. Truth is stranger than fiction. The universe is not only stranger than we can imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine. Two-thirds of galaxies might spin in one direction, because, you know, just because.
But there’s no just because in this universe. The imbalance in the rotational direction of the galaxies suggests to some astronomers that the universe was born inside a black hole. Since the black hole hosting our universe rotates in one direction, it follows that the majority of galaxies will spin in the same direction. Nikodem Poplawski, a theoretical physicist at the University of New Haven, describes this as the “simplest explanation” of the phenomenon:
“I think that the simplest explanation of the rotating universe is the universe was born in a rotating black hole. Spacetime torsion provides the most natural mechanism that avoids a singularity in a black hole and instead creates a new, closed universe,” Poplawski continued. “A preferred axis in our universe, inherited by the axis of rotation of its parent black hole, might have influenced the rotation dynamics of galaxies, creating the observed clockwise-counterclockwise asymmetry.”
I wonder how far up and down the “levels” of universes residing inside black holes goes then? If our universe is indeed located within a black hole, it follows that other universes must reside within the plentiful black holes that populate our universe. And inside those universes will be yet more black holes, that will be home to further universes. And so on.
But where does our black hole universe sit in such a hierarchy? Near the top? In the middle somewhere. Or near the bottom? If such a thing exists, as there may be no limit to how how far down the progression can go. The same applies going up the other way of course, in theory.
It’s mind blowing stuff for sure. If, that is, you accept this two-thirds versus one-thirds split of galaxy rotation represents a significant imbalance in the first place. There might still be room for just because here. After all, weird things just happen in this wondrous universe of ours.
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