sharp@noao.UUCP (Nigel Sharp) (12/15/84)
Having irritatedly pointed out that the Universe is not a black hole, I have been publicly told off for obfuscation, by bill peter (according to his signature, he doesn't use capitals) `in utter frustration'. So - here I go again. 1) I was not obfuscating, I was pointing out and trying to clarify an apparent misunderstanding. I stand by that statement: the Universe is not, never was, and never can be, a black hole. 2) I was not, in fact, trying to answer the original question, but perhaps I should: `How could mass be blown off the extremely massive speck which contained all the mass in the Universe ?' Answer: it wasn't. In the beginning, this speck contained not only all the mass, but also all of the space. There was no outside. The primordial blob did not explode out into a surrounding nothingness. This is, unfortunately, the popular picture evoked by descriptions of the big bang, but it is false. The entire structure just started expanding, stretching the space inside itself. The question of what triggered this is, of course, interesting, but my personal prejudice is that that's a philosophical question, not a physics one. Classical analogies to the big bang are only analogies: the phenomenon itself is irrefutably relativistic. Questions of the horizon size and causality early on in the expansion of the Universe keep a lot of professionals in work, and I don't want to clutter the place up right now. Nothing I said was bogus. Nothing I ever say is bogus, but occasionally I fail to explain myself adequately. Perhaps we could avoid the ad hominem for long enough to get the physics explained ? Finally, if anyone wants to take me to task for what I say, I prefer private mail: after all, you could be wrong in public as well ! -- Nigel Sharp [noao!sharp National Optical Astronomy Observatories]