What Are White Holes Essay Example

What is the likelihood that something with the opposite effects and behavior of a black hole exists? That such a force may have created our universe, or may be at the other end of passage ways to different universes?  Black holes have been proven to exist, but could it be that white holes too, exist? Yes, white holes could exist, though they are deemed the “impossible possibility”, the laws of general relativity and quantum mechanics both allow for their existence. With the discovery of a white hole, there may also be the answers to some of the world’s obscure questions, and many new speculations around our universe and the possibility of there being other universes. 

White holes are often viewed as entities that only exist in science fiction, but they may be more than just fiction, it could be that they exist beyond our minds creations, in a place that is much more real and disputable. They are controversial in the fields of science, but they have yet to be ruled out of questioning completely, and scientists have continued to return to studying the mysterious force. However, many scientists have determined white holes to be nothing more than fancy math, but it is the laws stated in general relativity and differential geometry that tell us to look closer.

Introduced by Igor Novikov in 1964, and predicted by one of Albert Einstein's field equations stemming from his theory of general relativity that is the maximally extended schwarzschild solution, the theory of white holes came into existence. Though Albert Einstein only viewed it as hypothetical, the maximally extended schwarzschild solution can be pictured in our minds as two vertical triangles, the triangle on the top represents a black hole, and the triangle on the bottom represents a white hole. To the left of the two triangles is a parallel universe, and to the right is an exterior universe, which can be seen in the diagram below.

In theory, a white hole is the opposite of a black hole, which has such a strong gravitational pull that neither energy or radiation can escape its event horizon--that is, except for subatomic particles that may be able to escape through quantum tunneling--but in simple terms, this is how scientists describe the function of black holes. A white hole does the same, only in reverse. A white hole uses strong forces to push everything away from its event horizon, meaning that nothing can enter inside of it. However, many scientists have chosen to dismiss the idea of such inanimate forces, and even Einstein thought that the theory was too ostentatious. But he, and others thought the same about black holes, which we can now see are no longer a theory, but something that coexist with our species in the same universe.  

Our universe is said to be made of mathematical structures, and it seems that mathematical terminology can also explain how a white hole could exist. A white hole can be described as being a reverse black hole, so in the form of numbers, a white hole could be represented as a negative number. To better understand this, look at the question that asks: What is the square root of 9? Well, the most common, but not necessarily more accurate answer would be 3. However, the answer that is -3, is also a plausible response to the question, because two negative numbers equal a positive number. So, this means that with the mathematical equation used to identify a black hole, there is the possibility that there is another answer to the equation that is the white hole.  Now, it can also be viewed as reversed time in the sense of geodesic completeness which states that, “In order for a model to be "complete" it must also include the negative part of the scale”. Thus, indicating that for a black hole to exist, there must also be the corresponding existence of a white hole. 

Stephen Hawking predicted that over time, black holes would leak radiation and eventually evaporate, and based off of his explanation of this theory, it seemed to explain the life cycle of a black hole rather nicely. Only, there is a fault with this theory due to the “no-hiding theorem” which states that all of the information that had fallen into the event horizon of a black hole, must eventually make its return back into the universe. A white hole, however, may be able to refine and better explain this occurrence. 

Inside of a black hole, at its center is its singularity, which is large amounts of mass that is said to not take up any space. This means that they have infinite density, except this does not seem likely according to scientists who tried to use mathematical processes to describe the behavior of black holes. Now, if black holes were connected to white holes by other structures, such as wormholes, then all of the matter consumed by the black hole would be able to exit out of the white hole, therefore supporting Stephen Hawking’s theory of evaporation. But then, why have we not seen these white holes emitting out the information collected by black holes? They may not be contained within our universe, but within that of another. 

The idea of there being other universes, parallel universes, is yet another possible piece to the mysterious puzzle that is existence, and nonexistence. It could even be that a white hole in another universe caused the Big Bang, therefore creating our universe. Such theories are difficult to imagine, and even more so to prove, but these “impossible possibilities” may not be as unlikely as they first present themselves.

The multiverse theory contains concepts that the human brain is not made to fully understand as our brains rely heavily on being able to imagine things. Such as with the idea of something being infinite, we can not physically picture something being infinite, we can look to symbols that are meant to represent infinite, but that does not really allow us to understand it any better. So, like the idea of something being infinite, the theory of there being multiverses, or parallel universes, with many dimensions and laws that completely differ from those of our universe is arduous to imagine and demonstrate the same. Which is why many scientists have dismissed this theory and the theory of white holes alike. 

This “many-worlds” theory was initially introduced by Hugh Everett in 1957 but has been taken into further analysis by several other scientists such as theoretical physicist Alan Guth, or physicist and cosmologist Max Tegmark, who have found four possible levels of multiverses. The first level, which is the most commonly known among the public, is where every possible outcome is played out. This level would look the most similar to our universe as the dynamics are based off the people and structures of the Earth. The second level is the bubble theory where every universe is its own distinct bubble amid an infinite range of other foreign universes. This level is the most popular among inflation theorists as it provides some supporting concepts for some new theories based around inflation and the Big Bang. The third level is on a more quantum level. Here, every quantum wave function (wave characteristics of a particle) becomes a possibility in some form of reality in a universe. The fourth level is made of mathematical structures that differ from the other, with each universe governed by new mathematical rules. 

Of these four levels, white holes could exist in any as long as some of the individual universe within them had laws that allowed them to, but of these four, the most plausible would be the second level; the bubble theory. This level is most compatible with the existing laws of physics in our universe and may be the only one that humans could actually observe. In fact, we may already have evidence of this theory. 

The theory of inflation suggest that after the Big Bang, quantum fluctuation took place as particles expanded across our universe leaving measurable temperature differences in regions of space. This left a pattern that scientists have been able to observe, and in 2015 they came across a “cold spot” that contained 20% less matter than that average span of space would have. Theorists believe that this was the result of a collision with another bubble universe. But the contents of these multiverses remain as mysterious as the gateways connecting the black holes and white holes within them. The gateways that are said to be passageways through space and time; wormholes. 

So, we have black holes in our universe that connect to white holes in other universes that are apart of a multiverse, but then, what are these gateways to these other universes, and is it possible that we could travel through them? Well, wormholes are bridges that are said to take the shapes of spheroids that travel through space-time, with each end of the spheroid having a kind of mouth that would attach to black holes and white holes, connecting a passageway for everything the black hole traps. Wormholes, like black holes and white holes, were predicted by the laws of general relativity and in science are referred to as the einstein-rosenberg bridge theory. They have yet to be proven, but still remain a particular interest among theorists, with the idea of space travel being a postulation that has been fantasized for years. 

With this theory, the puzzle pieces all seemed to fall into place, until scientists realized that these wormholes would not be stable enough and would collapse in on themselves, thus eliminating the possibility of anything successfully traveling through them. That is, unless we were to add exotic matter into the equation. Exotic matter has negative matter and unfamiliar properties that would be able to stabilize the wormhole and support the two mouths, keeping both ends open to the black hole and white hole. With this new addition, the puzzle would finally be complete and black holes and white holes would be able to connect through wormholes stretching across universes.

There is, however, still a fault with the theory which is due to the second law of thermodynamics that states: "In all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state". White holes are the time-reversals of black holes which means they decrease in entropy. Entropy being disorder that either has to increase or remain the same, according to the second law of thermodynamics. But there may be a way to circumvent this. The universe is considered to be a closed system, this means that its entropy must be greater than or equal to 0; it can not decrease and become a negative number. But what if it was to be an open system? A system that is only open to parallel universes through the connection of black holes and white holes?

The second law of thermodynamics says that entropy can decrease in one place as long as it increases by just as much in another. Therefore, our universe would be open to other universes through the connection of wormholes. The black holes contained within our universe would pull in energy that would pass through the singularity of a black hole where it would then travel through a wormhole. Inside the wormhole it would travel through space-time until reaching the opening to a white hole that would forcefully push the energy outwards into another universe. The entropy in our universe would decrease, but that same amount of entropy would increase in the other universe.

With this information, a new question would arise which is: Can humans travel through these entities as well? The answer to that question is no, as of now, our technology is not advanced enough to withstand the extreme tidal forces of a black hole. A human spacecraft would be crushed once entering the black hole’s event horizon and any life inside would not survive making it into the singularity. Even with more advanced technology the spacecraft would have to tolerate not only the tidal waves of the black hole but possible the distortion of time and dimensions in a wormhole and then the impactful force of the white hole’s singularity. If the spacecraft managed to remain intact after traveling through space they might then find themselves in a universe with severe conditions that are not capable of supporting human life. So, white holes may not be very useful in the aspect of space travel, but they may provide knowledge of how our universe came into existence.    

We have been told that our universe was created by an astronomical explosion on a monumental scale to which we refer to as the Big Bang. This theory suggests that our universe started with the infinite expansion of the four fundamental forces: Gravity, electromagnetism (the interaction between electricity and magnetism), and strong and weak nuclear forces. These four fundamental forces are all found in singularities which, in theory, only exist in black holes and white holes. However, there is one thing that the Big Bang does not explain, and that is the Bang. Scientists have speculated what could have caused this explosion that created our ever expanding universe for years, but have provided few explanations. Until more recently, theorists began looking to the giant vacuums of space and their reversed twins. Now, some theorists believe that the Big Bang was the result of a gamma ray burst caused by a white hole in a different universe. 

Gamma ray bursts are the most energetic sources of light and are very short lived, lasting only a few seconds to a couple of minutes, much like the sudden explosion that caused the Big Bang. The death of a black hole is speculated to be much less intense as it would not explode until it first evaporated down to quantum sized measurements, unless encountering unexpected conditions, producing what could be a catastrophic explosion. However, the natural death of a white hole may play out a bit differently, and perhaps end with a bang.