The universe has something called the Higgs field that gives everything its mass. But this field isn’t completely stable. If it were to change suddenly, or “bubble,” everything inside that bubble would be destroyed. A group of scientists recently argued that tiny black holes from the early universe, known as primordial black holes, should have caused these bubbles and prevented anything from forming.
The earliest days of the universe are mysterious because we can’t go back in time to observe them directly. We rely on clues and signals to understand how it all began. Sometimes new information challenges our current models. Recently, a team of physicists suggested that if many of our models are correct, the universe should have destroyed itself long ago.
Their argument involves primordial black holes and the Higgs boson particle. The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 confirmed the existence of the Higgs field, which is crucial for giving objects their mass. If there were no Higgs field, nothing would exist. However, theoretically, the Higgs field could change to a lower energy state, creating bubbles with different physical laws.
In these bubbles, particles like electrons and protons would behave differently, making it impossible for life as we know it to exist. Fortunately, this isn’t happening anytime soon. But according to many current models of the early universe, it should have happened already due to primordial black holes. These tiny black holes, if they existed, would have formed right after the Big Bang and caused widespread bubbling in the Higgs field.
The research team suggests two possible explanations: either our models are wrong and there were no primordial black holes, or we don’t fully understand how the Higgs field works. They believe there might be some unknown physics at play that prevents these destructive bubbles from forming.
This won’t be the last study on this topic. Science is about questioning everything, and future research may provide more answers to this mystery.
Source: https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a61816635/science-suggests-universe-shouldnt-exist/