Orbital – The Fourth Dimension, the Multiverse, and Black Holes
By Evan Allen – Thanks to: Ryan Nguyen, Matthew Cheng, Brennan Ibata, John Paradise, John Wong
Get Ready to Get Mind blown
The Fourth Dimension
Today, during our Orbital research period, I along with a few friends (listed above) did some deep
thinking about the origination and termination of our universe as we know it. As you might know, the
universe is expanding out away from itself, going who knows where. The Big Bang Theory says that it all
originated at a single, infinitesimally small point and over the course of 13.7 billion years exploded into
what it is today. As humans, we see the universe in three dimensions, which can be represented as axes:
forward and backward (X), side to side (Y), and up and down (Z). What if we added a fourth axis to this
list, representing the expansion of space? Don’t worry if this doesn’t make sense; if you think about it too
much it can get very confusing and doesn’t end up making that much sense. Let’s just focus on the fourth
dimension for now, shown on the line below.
Alternate Universe?
The Big Bang
Our Universe
Universe has expanded… backwards?
Universe is infinitely small
Universe has expanded
For this example, the fourth dimension can be measured in units of time, let’s say billions of years. At
zero, you have the exact moment right before the Big Bang. The entire universe is compressed into one
point, infinitely small. Nothing else exists. If we go forward along this axis, we will follow the course of
events that the conventional Big Bang theory dictates: the universe expands out, forming the world we
know today. Eventually the universe comes to present day, as shown as the mark on the right side of the
line. But what if we were to go the other direction? Let’s reverse time from our present day universe. All
the events of the universe would undo themselves, and all matter and energy would slowly compress back
into a singular point as it was right before the Big Bang. But let’s not stop there. If we kept going, what
might happen is that the universe would explode again, just as it did in our universe, but backwards
somehow. It would be like a negative, anti-universe. As you get farther and farther away from the center
point of the line, the Big Bang, the universe expands. And as soon as we hit 13.7 billion years before the
Big Bang, we would probably see a universe that is very similar to ours, but would backwards in some
way or another. I don’t exactly know how this would work, I don’t know what it would look like. Maybe
it would be exactly like our present universe, maybe not. It’s just the product of my brain spattering ideas
everywhere.
The Multiverse, Black Holes, and why the Law of Conservation is false… and true
I have another theory on how the universe got to be, but it completely violates the last one, so just forget
everything I said before this point. The Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy states that “matter and
energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed or converted.” This means that it is fundamentally
impossible to rid the universe of any matter or energy; the only thing we can do is modify or affect it in
some way. This holds true for most things; for example, when we burn coal it turns into heat and light
energy. The one single place where the universe does not follow this law in a black hole. Once something
has crossed the “event horizon” of the black hole, it cannot escape. It just seems to… disappear.
In order to explain this phenomena, we have to look at our universe as a whole, and place it on the plane
of space-time. By itself, the plane of space-time is a flat surface. However, when you introduce matter
and energy to the mix, it starts to warp
itself out of shape. This is how gravity
works.
Let’s use the solar system as an example.
Due to its massive nature, the sun pushes
down on the fabric of space time. This
depression forces the objects around it to
roll around it in a fashion similar to a coin
rolling around a spiral. All matter interacts
with this fabric of space-time. Earth itself
has its own little depression, around which
the moon orbits.
So far we have been talking about gravity
as depressions in the space time fabric, because they pull objects inward. So what would happen if instead
of a depression, we had a hill in the fabric? Things would roll down this hill and out, like the reverse of
gravity. That sounds like the Big Bang Theory! Everything started out on top of the hill, and slowly it
rolled down, spreading out and expanding.
So how does it get on top in the first place? This is where we get back to our initial topic of black holes.
See, the reason that black holes have such immense gravitational force is that they are not just simply
deep depressions in the space-time fabric; they are rips. They are holes that lead to other universes. Once
something falls into one they have no way of escaping because it will just fall into another universe. This
entry of matter and energy into a new universe is what we know as the Big Bang. Our Big Bang was
probably just the cumulative result of black holes in other universes that sucked up so much matter and
energy that they were able to create a completely new universe. Through this method, black holes actually
can remove matter and/or energy from a universe, and can create it (through the form of a Big Bang). I
like to call this system of multiple universes a “metaverse.” If you look at the system of universes as a
whole, you will see that the Law of Conservation is actually true, but only for the metaverse. Individual
universes have the capability to gain and lose matter through Big Bangs and black holes, but the total
amount of matter and energy in the metaverse is always the same. The reason that the Law of
Conservation seems to hold true in every case but black holes and Big Bangs in our universe is that
nothing else can create an opening to another universe; therefore the matter/energy has nowhere to go and
ends up trapped in this universe until it finds a black hole. This is demonstrated by the diagram on the
next page.
The Big Bang
Black Hole
Black Hole
Black Hole
The Expansion of the
Universe
The Expansion of the
Universe
The Expansion of the
Universe
Forever and ever and ever!
Black Hole
Black Hole
Black Hole