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Simon Singh is stumped

  1. Jan 24, 2006 #1
    At the end of his Big Bang lecture, Simon Singh gets a question from an audience member to which he didn't have the answer. He asked if anyone in the audience (other physicists) had the answer, but no one did.

    Here's the question,

    "When you go back in time, all matter comes close together, why wasn't it in or why wasn't there a black hole?"

    Anyone care to help?

    Here's the link, its the Big Bang talk --

  2. jcsd
  3. Jan 24, 2006 #2


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    No surprise there. Physics, as we know it, comes to a screeching halt about 1E-43 seconds after the big bang.
  4. Jan 24, 2006 #3
    Hawking originally argued in favor of the idea of a Big Bang singularity, but later rejected it.

    Inflation theory suggests something quite different altogether, a sort of high energy density vacuum that decays into a normal vacuum with matter, rapidly expanding.
  5. Jan 24, 2006 #4
    From your answers I'm still not able to understand how the black hole question has been resolved?
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2006
  6. Jan 24, 2006 #5


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    This section of the physics FAQ on John Baez's site gives the answer according to general relativity:
  7. Feb 3, 2006 #6

    I would offer the idea that a Black hole is a singularity in space, whereas the Big bang 'singularity' created space and therefore was not embedded in it. In other words, since no space exisited before the big bang (10*-43s) it would be impossible to call the singularity a Black hole. Also, its widely believed that Gravity broke symetry with the Unified 4 fields at 10*-42s, so if there was no Gravity at the point of creation, the definition of a black hole which is intrinsically defined by Gravity's force, clearly could not exist.

    Still you ask a very interesting question that cannot foreseeably be known, perhaps the best kind of question to ponder:smile:

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