: Richard: You must be a real theorist to claim that black holes result from an Equation of State. I think they result from the death of sufficiently large stars. Likewise, I think that singularities only exist in mathematics, not in nature. The black hole central singularity is a product of classical physics, not of nature. The components of the construction of universes I described is discussed in Briane Greene's book, THE ELEGANT UNIVERSE. Brian made some of the original contributions to those ideas. Each new universe generated by a black hole is a separate Big-Bang with a new beginning for time. White holes would generate a sub-universe that would have to fit into the old universe, a much more messy endeavor in which the laws of physics were already established; whereas in black hole creation of completely separate universes, new laws of physics have the opportunity to evolve, an opportunity denied by white hole creation. I think I got you with your own argument there. However, I agree with you on one issue. The black hole singularity is not beyond our theoretical conception. Superstring theorists are now in the throes of trying to understand it. So I looked at the latest on-line published papers to get a better understanding of what I call the central membrane of the black hole. The site is http://jhep.sissa.it/archive/papers/jhep011999007/jhep011999007.pdf The most recent appropriate paper is JHEP 12(1998)002, "Tachyons and black hole horizons in gauge theory" by Kabat & Lifschytz from Princeton, home of the foremost string theorists. To my amazement, I must confess, they agree with you. The black hole membrane is at the Schwarzchild radius. I had conceived of the membrane as occupying the volume we normally associate with the classical singularity, perhaps on the order of a Planck volume, not the whole black hole. I won't really believe it until I see a few more papers saying the same thing. Of course, their result may be restricted since it was derived under conditions where the entire black hole was roughly the size of a Planck volume. On another level, we seem to be arguing over a Vishnu Cosmology vs. a Krishna Cosmology. It's ironic that in Hindu thought, these are presumably different names for the ONE god. What fascinates me is that physics is in a position to decide between two different religious views. From another angle, perhaps god wanted to cover all bases so that whatever science finally decides, there is a ready scriptural cosmology to agree with it.

• Re: Scripture-consistent Cosmology - Greg_Armel/">Greg Armel - April 14, 1999 - 23:37 UTC