Do Black Holes Create New Universes?

What if every single black hole that formed in our universe sparked the big bang of a new universe? Cosmological natural selection proposes exactly this - but even better, it claims to be able to test the hypothesis.

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Physicists have been struggling for some time to figure out why our universe is so comfy. Why, for example, are the fundamental constants - like the mass of the electron or the strength of the forces - just right for the emergence of life? Tweak them too much and life, stars, galaxies, the universe as we know it wouldn’t exist. In recent episodes we explored one possible explanation for this - the anthropic principle and the idea of the multiverse. If there are countless universes with different fundamental constants, then it’s not surprising that a few exist with the right numbers for life - and certainly not surprising that we find ourselves in one of those good ones. But if you don’t like the anthropic principle - and many scientists don’t - then rest assured, there’s an alternative. You only need to accept two things: that our universe formed inside a black hole, and that universes can evolve.

Hosted by Matt O'Dowd
Written by Matt O'Dowd
Graphics by Leonardo Scholzer & Adriano Leal
Directed by: Andrew Kornhaber
Executive Producers: Eric Brown & Andrew Kornhaber

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[mhauser]

Dude I never understand a thing he talks about but I still watch

[ibeetellingya]

In the course of watching this video, my mind reached its limit, burned out, and collapsed. Now all input I take in disappears, I'm denser than before, and nobody can get anything out of me.

[xzayler]

But if a black hole is a universe, what happens when a black hole is absorbed by another black hole? Do the universes collide? Do the constants average out?

[mr.maccaman]

A puddle finds himself in a ditch on the side of a road. One day he realizes the hole fits him quite nicely, perfectly, in fact. He says to himself, "My, this hole is perfect! It has that lump over there for me, and even has a crack right there. Why, this must've been made for me!"

[jeffandhisdogs]

Finally, an explanation on how my experience with DMT went.

[gnomebanta]

I’ve been interested in this idea for a few years now and having it all laid out like this by PBS is SUPER satisfying!Thank you PBS!!

[thomas]

"Is it anymore than a cool story, bro?"
Take this thumb. You earned it.

[phantom]

I don't know what happens to me after 2am, but somehow I end up watching these videos from 2-4 am

[LongformJaunt]

This is literally all I've been thinking about the last two days, crazy timing

[scottryals]

The big bang can just as easily be a local event in a much larger universe. Once we reach the cosmological horizon we have no idea what lies beyond.

[NewMessage]

So.. even whole universes can be a disappointment to their parents...


Makes me feel a bit better, I guess.

[ketheric]

"Is it better than a cool story.... bro?" 😂

[blackmage-]

I'm sure Darwin had _no_ idea his idea would have been pushed to the very edges of SpaceTime :D

[the_venomous_viper]

Probably my favourite topic in Astrophysics and Cosmology - this is such a simple and beautiful idea that has such huge consequences

[radar]

I've always thought this concept feels intuitive and I love it. At the same time this kind of just delays the inevitable question ; if universes are formed by black holes how did the "first universe" and "first black hole" form? I'm pretty sure that's unfalsifiable. If we can somehow discover black holes make new universes don't we have to admit we can never understand our overall existence?

[vincentherrell]

I have been waiting 11 years for a video like this to come out

[jamescotter]

Some days I get so excited about how much humans know but then I realize that we don’t really know anything. It makes me want to jump forward a thousand years in the future.

[chrismf]

It's taken me over ten years of watching these sort of videos starting with David Attenborough and Brian Coxs series but finally now with in the past few months I'm starting to enjoy maths videos breaking down physics. I look forward to a deeper understanding.

[steffeeH]

Doesn't this theory rely on there being a "mother universe" that came first, and by chance had the perfect parameters to support the creation of black holes, to then launch this cosmological evolutionary tree of natural selection?

[benmcreynolds]

I have been living with this hypothetical idea of how the universe works for ever now. I look at ecosystems and I see that they recycle energy and find ways to keep a balance. So I can very easily imagine the greater universe ecosystem following in that manner. Black holes are the perfect candidate for a galactic recycler. The other end of a black hole could be a white hole that is a singularity point of unimaginable forces and states of matter that connect a tube between 2 bubbles that represent universes. Then the cycle can continue. Each universe has the ability to recycle energy and matter from itself to feed another universe, creating a ecosystem that is not wasting matter but reusing the matter from old to feed the new. Just like how forest's exist on our planet. It's symbiotic and destructive and creative all at the same time.