In a new paper, published in Physical Review D , my colleagues and I propose a striking alternative. Our calculations suggest the Big Bang was not the start of everything, but rather the outcome of a gravitational crunch or collapse that formed a very massive black hole - followed by a bounce inside it.
This idea, which we call the black hole universe, offers a radically different view of cosmic origins, yet it is grounded entirely in known physics and observations.
Today's standard cosmological model , based on the Big Bang and cosmic inflation the idea that the early universe rapidly blew up in size, has been remarkably successful in explaining the structure and evolution of the universe. But it comes at a price: it leaves some of the most fundamental questions unanswered.
For one, the Big Bang model begins with a singularity - a point of infinite density where the laws of physics break down . This is not just a technical glitch it's a deep theoretical problem that suggests we don't really understand the beginning at all.
To explain the universe's large-scale structure, physicists introduced a brief phase of rapid expansion into the early universe called cosmic inflation , powered by an unknown field with strange properties. Later, to explain the accelerating expansion observed today, they added another "mysterious" component: dark energy .