Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site lanl.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!lanl!wkp
From: wkp@lanl.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Big Bang Impossible
Message-ID: <17774@lanl.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 10-Dec-84 21:10:11 EST
Article-I.D.: lanl.17774
Posted: Mon Dec 10 21:10:11 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Dec-84 04:49:22 EST
References: <185@decwrl.UUCP>
Sender: newsreader@lanl.ARPA
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 29

> If the whole universe was ina speck, said spec would have been a black hole
> and the "big bang" could not happen.  No one has yet disputed this. Why not?

I don't know why not (that's why I read net.religion).  The answer to your
question is quite simple, though it is a very good question, and quite
profound.

The answer is that the matter in your speck never crossed the "event
horizon" of the universe, i.e., it never escaped from the black hole.  First
thing you need to do is to estimate the Schwarzschild radius for the
universe, R = 2GM/(c**2).  In this equation, M is the mass of the universe,
G is the gravitational constant, and c is the speed of light.  Estimating
the mass of the universe in the usual way, one finds that the Schwarzschild
radius of the universe is of the order of a GigaPc (10**9 Parsecs).

Since this radius is much larger than the aforementioned speck (and the
present radius of the universe), one concludes that the big bang can
easily happen since the mass of the universe is still within the
"black hole" radius of a Giga-Parsec.  

Of course, this means that we are all living within a black hole, and
that nothing in the universe can travel outside our own Schwarzschild
radius of 10**9 Parsecs.

This question has been dealt with in the literature a number of years ago.
If there are a lot of requests, I can scrounge up the references.

					    bill peter
					    los alamos