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What is a singularity? Do they exist?

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  • What is a singularity? Do they exist?

    Numerous threads in the distant past discussed the argument for beginnings of out universe, and the existence of other possible universes. Did our universe 'begin' with the expansion of a singularity?

    The only thing I have been able to resolve is that there is no objective evidence any sort of physical beginning of our universe, and the singularity is a hypothetical infintely dense point that cannot be determined to ever have existed.
    Our universe and/or our physical existence is possibly infinite, eternal depending on your view of Quantum time, or simply a part of the endless Quantum nothingness.

    Source: https://www.wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2013/09/13/does-every-black-hole-contain-a-singularity/




    Does every black hole contain a singularity?


    Category: Space Published: September 13, 2013

    Artistic rendering of a black hole. Public Domain Image, source: Christopher S. Baird.

    In the real universe, no black holes contain singularities. In general, singularities are the non-physical mathematical result of a flawed physical theory. When scientists talk about black hole singularities, they are talking about the errors that appear in our current theories and not about objects that actually exist. When scientists and non-scientists talk about singularities as if they really exist, they are simply displaying their ignorance.

    A singularity is a point in space where there is a mass with infinite density. This would lead to a spacetime with an infinite curvature. Singularities are predicted to exist in black holes by Einstein's theory of general relativity, which is a theory that has done remarkably well at matching experimental results. The problem is that infinities never exist in the real world. Whenever an infinity pops out of a theory, it is simply a sign that your theory is too simple to handle extreme cases.

    For example, consider the simplest physical model that accurately describes how waves travel on a guitar string. If you drive such a string at its resonant frequency, the simplest model predicts that the vibration of the string will increase exponentially with time, even if you are driving it gently. The string actually does this... up to a point. The problem is that the exponential function quickly approaches infinity. The model therefore predicts that a guitar string driven at its resonant frequency will, in time, vibrate passed the moon, passed the stars, out to infinity, and then back. Does the string actually vibrate infinitely just because the model says so? Of course not. The string snaps long before vibrating out to the moon. The appearance of the infinity in the model therefore indicates that the model has reached its limitations. The simple model of waves on a string is correct as long as the vibrations are small. To avoid the infinity in the equations, you need to build a better theory. For vibrating guitar strings, all you have to do is add to the model a description of when guitar strings snap.

    As another example, consider a thin glass drinking goblet. If a singer sings a note at the right pitch, the goblet begins to shake more and more. The simplest model would predict that, in time, the goblet will be shaking infinitely. In real life, this does not happen. Instead, the singing causes the goblet to shatter to pieces when the shaking becomes too violent.

    Every scientific theory has its limitations. Within its realm of validity, a good theory matches experimental results very well. But go beyond the limitations of a theory, and it starts giving predictions that are inaccurate or even just nonsense. Physicists hope to one day develop a theory of everything that has no limitations and is accurate in all situations. But we do not have that yet. Currently, the best physics theories are quantum field theory and Einstein's general relativity. Quantum field theory very accurately describes the physics from the size of humans down to the smallest particle. At the same time, quantum field theory fails on the planetary and astronomical scales, and, in fact, says nothing at all about gravity. In contrast, general relativity accurately predicts gravitational effects and other effects on the astronomical scale, but says nothing about atoms, electromagnetism, or anything on the small scale. Using general relativity to predict an electron's orbit around an atomic nucleus will give you embarrassingly bad results, and using quantum field theory to predict earth's orbit around the sun will likewise give you bad results. But as long as scientists and engineers use the right theory in the right setting, they mostly get the right answers in their research, calculations, and predictions.

    The good thing is that general relativity does not overlap much with quantum field theory. For most astronomical-scale and gravitational calculations, you can get away with using just general relativity and ignoring quantum field theory. Similarly, for small-scale and electromagnetic calculations you can get away with using quantum field theory and ignoring general relativity. For example, you use just quantum field theory to describe what the atoms in the sun are doing, but use just general relativity to describe what the sun is doing as a whole. Many efforts are underway to consistently unite quantum field theory and general relativity into one complete theory, but none of these efforts have been fully solidified or confirmed by experiments. Until a successful theory of everything comes along, physicists can mostly get by with using both general relativity and relativistic quantum theory in a patchwork manner. This approach mostly works because the realms of validity of both theories do not overlap much. But this approach breaks down when you have an astronomical object collapsed down to quantum sizes, which is exactly what a black hole is.

    A black hole forms when a massive star runs out of the fuel needed to balance out gravity, and collapses under its own gravity to a very small size. General relativity predicts that the star collapses to an infinitely small point with infinite density. But, as should now be clear, such a beast does not really exist in the real world. The appearance of a black hole singularity in general relativity simply indicates that general relativity is inaccurate at very small sizes, which we already knew. You need quantum field theory to describe objects of small sizes. But, quantum field theory does not include gravitational effects, which is the main feature of a black hole. This fact means that we will not known exactly what is going on in a black hole until scientists can successfully create a new theory that accurately describes small sizes and strong gravitational effects at the same time. Whatever the new theory ends up telling us, it will most certainly not say that there are singularities in black holes. If it did, that outcome would simply indicate that the new theory is just as bad as the old theory. In fact, one of the requirements for the future theory of everything is that it not predict singularities in black holes. In this sense, the interiors of black holes are the final frontier for theoretical physics. Just about everything else in the universe can be accurately described (at least in principle) using our current theories.

    © Copyright Original Source

    Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
    Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
    But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

    go with the flow the river knows . . .

    Frank

    I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

  • #2
    So then, where did the universe come from?

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Sparko View Post
      So then, where did the universe come from?
      Interesting discussion point. At present our universe is possibly is cyclic or oscillating, or possibly expanded in a Quantum World (possibly in a multiverse) as a singularity. Our present objective verifiable knowledge is that we are expanding form some point in the past, Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking demonstrated that the Universe must have begun in a ‘singularity,’ but these conclusions have limits as to the lack of objective evidence for the singularity and the jnitial expansion from the theoretical singularity. At present I believe there are unresolved problems with both options, but most at present go with the expansion from a singularity formed in a Quantum World.
      Last edited by shunyadragon; 03-31-2023, 01:57 PM.
      Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
      Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
      But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

      go with the flow the river knows . . .

      Frank

      I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post

        Interesting discussion point. At present our universe is possibly is cyclic or oscillating, or possibly expanded in a Quantum World (possibly in a multiverse) as a singularity. Our present objective verifiable knowledge is that we are expanding form some point in the past, Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking demonstrated that the Universe must have begun in a ‘singularity,’ but these conclusions have limits as to the lack of objective evidence for the singularity and the jnitial expansion from the theoretical singularity. At present I believe there are unresolved problems with both options, but most at present go with the expansion from a singularity formed in a Quantum World.
        So there are singularities after all?

        And what is a "Quantum World?" have you been watching Antman?


        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Sparko View Post

          So there are singularities after all?
          Singularities are not things, singularities represent theoretical points of infinite density that are theoretically in black holes, in the black hole center of galaxies, and what expanded to form our universe.

          And what is a "Quantum World?" have you been watching Antman?
          Not Antman. Antman's scale is far too large.

          The Quantum existence that the singularity formed that expanded to form out universe. and is the smallest scale of matter and energy of our universe and beyond. What Hawking described as the universe with no beginning and came from "nothing" is not truly nothing, but the Quantum World.

          OK I will take a look.

          Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
          Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
          But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

          go with the flow the river knows . . .

          Frank

          I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

          Comment


          • #6

            I see terminology in layman publications describing a 'Bib Bang explosion,' and the Hawking 'proved' our universe expanded from a singularity. This is bad non-science terminology.
            Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
            Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
            But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

            go with the flow the river knows . . .

            Frank

            I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

            Comment


            • #7
              As far how Hawking describes the Quantum World the universe originated form the Quantum 'nothing' I will let him describe it.

              Source: https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-debate-hawkings-idea-that-the-universe-had-no-beginning-20190606/



              Physicists Debate Hawking’s Idea That the Universe Had No Beginning

              A recent challenge to Stephen Hawking’s biggest idea — about how the universe might have come from nothing — has cosmologists choosing sides.

              Mike Zeng for Quanta Maga
              ByNatalie Wolchover
              Senior Editor



              June 6, 2019
              In 1981, many of the world’s leading cosmologists gathered at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, a vestige of the coupled lineages of science and theology located in an elegant villa in the gardens of the Vatican. Stephen Hawking chose the august setting to present what he would later regard as his most important idea: a proposal about how the universe could have arisen from nothing.

              Before Hawking’s talk, all cosmological origin stories, scientific or theological, had invited the rejoinder, “What happened before that?” The Big Bang theory, for instance — pioneered 50 years before Hawking’s lecture by the Belgian physicist and Catholic priest Georges Lemaître, who later served as president of the Vatican’s academy of sciences — rewinds the expansion of the universe back to a hot, dense bundle of energy. But where did the initial energy come from?

              The Big Bang theory had other problems. Physicists understood that an expanding bundle of energy would grow into a crumpled mess rather than the huge, smooth cosmos that modern astronomers observe. In 1980, the year before Hawking’s talk, the cosmologist Alan Guth realized that the Big Bang’s problems could be fixed with an add-on: an initial, exponential growth spurt known as cosmic inflation, which would have rendered the universe huge, smooth and flat before gravity had a chance to wreck it. Inflation quickly became the leading theory of our cosmic origins. Yet the issue of initial conditions remained: What was the source of the minuscule patch that allegedly ballooned into our cosmos, and of the potential energy that inflated it?
              Asking what came before the Big Bang … would be like asking what lies south of the South Pole.

              Stephen Hawking

              Hawking, in his brilliance, saw a way to end the interminable groping backward in time: He proposed that there’s no end, or beginning, at all. According to the record of the Vatican conference, the Cambridge physicist, then 39 and still able to speak with his own voice, told the crowd, “There ought to be something very special about the boundary conditions of the universe, and what can be more special than the condition that there is no boundary?”

              The “no-boundary proposal,” which Hawking and his frequent collaborator, James Hartle, fully formulated in a 1983 paper, envisions the cosmos having the shape of a shuttlecock. Just as a shuttlecock has a diameter of zero at its bottommost point and gradually widens on the way up, the universe, according to the no-boundary proposal, smoothly expanded from a point of zero size. Hartle and Hawking derived a formula describing the whole shuttlecock — the so-called “wave function of the universe” that encompasses the entire past, present and future at once — making moot all contemplation of seeds of creation, a creator, or any transition from a time before.

              “Asking what came before the Big Bang is meaningless, according to the no-boundary proposal, because there is no notion of time available to refer to,” Hawking said in another lecture at the Pontifical Academy in 2016, a year and a half before his death. “It would be like asking what lies south of the South Pole.”

              © Copyright Original Source

              Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
              Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
              But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

              go with the flow the river knows . . .

              Frank

              I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                I see terminology in layman publications describing a 'Bib Bang explosion,' and the Hawking 'proved' our universe expanded from a singularity. This is bad non-science terminology.
                What Hartle, Penrose and Hawking 'proved' is the math theorem applied to Einstein' Theory of Relativity..' Of course not everyone agrees with the Pentice-Hawking Theorem. Turok proposes an alternative based on Quantum Mechanics. Turok's alternative next.
                Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                go with the flow the river knows . . .

                Frank

                I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                Comment

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