The Universe in a Nutshell 3.14159265358979323846264338327950...

Black holes are very mysterious things that we have pondered for many years. Why do black holes exist? Are there wormholes within black holes? What role do black holes play in the universe? All of these questions may or may not have answers, but nonetheless I will cover these topics with the help of Dr. Hawking and his book, The Universe in a Nutshell.

First of all, how come black holes exist? The most accepted theory is that a black hole occurs when a star of a very large size collapses (we consider some stars small even though most of these stars are much larger than our Earth.). A star constantly bonds atoms together in a process called fusion, which creates heat and light. Eventually, the star will no longer have enough energy to fuse any more atoms, so the star collapses. Because fusion creates heavier elements, the density of the star has increased. The star proceeds to collapse in on itself because of its own gravity. The gravity compacts the star into a very dense and heavy mass. This mass creates a gravity that is so powerful, that not even light can escape it! That is why a black hole is seen as black.

The black hole continues to pull in more and more mass, forever increasing its gravity. As the gravity increases, the black hole compacts more and more, making it denser and smaller. At what point does this process end? If it continues to get smaller, does it eventually disappear? I think that this can't be possible. According to the law of conservation of matter, matter cannot be created or destroyed. So, where does all that mass go?

I think that it only ends when the universe does. In other words, the black hole will get more and more dense forever finally the universe ends. Think for a moment. If the gravity is continually increasing, then eventually won't everything be sucked into the black hole? It is very possible that this is the case, that the gravity will become so great, that black holes will suck the universe back in on itself. If that happens, then all existence would be inside the center of a black hole. This would create such high temperatures that atoms would have all become a soup of quarks and gluons, which is what the beginning of the universe was like!

This leads to many more ideas. Perhaps our universe has had multiple existences. Each time, the universe was sucked back into its previous state until something set it off again. What sets off the universe we do not know, and perhaps we never will. However, this still leads to more questions. Are we the first big bang, the twentieth, the millionth? Why did the first one start? Where did our universe come from? Did it one day just appear? I guess there are still so many questions that we simply can't answer.

How about this one? What was the state of our universe at the beginning. Did it have time? According to the general theory of relativity, gravity slows down time! In my opinion, it makes sense for the beginning of the universe to have a slower time. If the universe was having a very slow time, then millions of years to us would be a few seconds to them. In other words, every few seconds in this miniature universe, large universes are being born and destroyed. This works in that once the universe ends, it will once again begin in a few seconds. That means if there is some sort of reaction that takes a long time to work, it really will not take that long in the universe.

I know that it sounds very confusing, but it means that almost as soon as the universe crunches into the infinitely small particle during an event known as the big crunch, it will expand once again. There is a counterpoint to this theory. If the gravity is so great, how can the universe possibly expand? It would just be crunched into the infinitely small universe forever! I am not sure how to answer that. I have just recently made all of these connections (five minutes ago...).

If this is indeed what black holes will do, then they play a much bigger role in the universe than we have ever thought possible. Dr. Hawking is an optimist, and thinks the universe will expand forever. I can't say that I totally agree with him. These connections I have made are based on facts, but involve a lot of thought as well, and I hope whoever may read this will take a little time to think about if this indeed is how our universe ends: by black hole?

Think about this. There is a good chance that there is a super-massive black hole in the middle of our galaxy, the Milky Way. There may be black holes at the center of every galaxy. Eventually, the black hole may swallow the entire galaxy, picking up mass and gravity! Then, black holes may start to merge to form even larger black holes. Then the universe would enter a phase of only black holes merging until they make the ultimate black hole. This ultimate black hole will suck in the rest of the universe until it compacts into something very much like the beginning of our universe!

Perhaps this is the correct theory. It may also be totally wrong. Either way, it is my current theory of the end of our universe: the ultimate black hole.