# if you were to squash the unviverse back into a singularity **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 1, 2003, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-to-squash-the-unviverse-back-into-a-singularity/210835 "2003-11-01T15:11:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![shea241](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@shea241](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shea241)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-to-squash-the-unviverse-back-into-a-singularity/210835/1 "2003-11-01T15:11:28Z")
ok the mass of the universe is estimated by some people to be 3 x 10^55 g [http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=342](http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=342) if you were to squash the unviverse back into a singularity how far would the event horizion extend out to. ---
**Author:** ![Redsland](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9de0a6/32.png) [@Redsland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redsland)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-to-squash-the-unviverse-back-into-a-singularity/210835/2 "2003-11-01T15:46:08Z")
If the three spatial dimensons of the universe were compressed into a singularity, there would be no space for an event horizon to reside in. ---
**Author:** ![shea241](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@shea241](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shea241)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-to-squash-the-unviverse-back-into-a-singularity/210835/3 "2003-11-01T15:51:43Z")
How is that possible doesn’t that mean that the light and everything else would just escape and the universe would expand? ---
**Author:** ![MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bb73d2/32.png) [@MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MC_Master_of_Ceremonies)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-to-squash-the-unviverse-back-into-a-singularity/210835/4 "2003-11-01T16:11:06Z")
If you want to know, the radius of the event horizon of a black hole of mass 3 x 10[sup]5[/sup] kg, well that’s easy, it’s about 4.4 x 10[sup]28[/sup] m which is roughly 5 trillion light years (barring silly mistakes in my calculations) Of course it’s not that simple, the big bang singularity is not the same as ones that occur in a black hole. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-to-squash-the-unviverse-back-into-a-singularity/210835/5 "2003-11-01T16:15:40Z")
> [@](#): > > The basic idea is that the radius of a black hole is that distance from the center where the escape velocity is equal to the speed of light. This is known as the Schwarzschild Radius. It can be calculated from the following equation:R = 2\*(GM/c^2) In this equation, G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of the original object, and c is the speed of light. [http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/kids\_space/black.html&edu=high](http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/kids_space/black.html&edu=high) G = 6.67259 \*10[sup]-11[/sup] m[sup]3[/sup] s[sup]-2[/sup] kg[sup]-1[/sup] ## So R = 2 \* M \* 6.67259 \* 10[sup]-11[/sup]/9\* 10[sup]16[/sup] R = M \* 1.482 \* 10[sup]-27[/sup] R = 3 x 10^52 \* 1.482 \* 10[sup]-27[/sup] R = 4.448 x 10^25 m **R = 4.736 x 10^9 light years** -Assuming no math errors. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-to-squash-the-unviverse-back-into-a-singularity/210835/6 "2003-11-01T16:20:57Z")
Uh oh. Someone’s got an error here. Regardless, the initial singularity [may have been considerably less massive](http://www.nap.edu/books/0309043344/html/153.html). ---
**Author:** ![MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bb73d2/32.png) [@MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MC_Master_of_Ceremonies)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-to-squash-the-unviverse-back-into-a-singularity/210835/7 "2003-11-01T16:24:06Z")
Oops, I see; the value was in grammes not kilograms. (also as a correction to my last post that should of been 3 to the 55, not to the 5). ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-to-squash-the-unviverse-back-into-a-singularity/210835/8 "2003-11-01T16:28:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by shea241 \* > \*\*How is that possible doesn’t that mean that the light and everything else would just escape and the universe would expand? \*\* Escape into what? By definition the universe is everything. If you squash it down into a point, then you are squashing the light and every other particle into that point. There is nothing outside that point for the light to escape into. ---
**Author:** ![shea241](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@shea241](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shea241)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-to-squash-the-unviverse-back-into-a-singularity/210835/9 "2003-11-01T17:22:00Z")
then is it possible that the universe isn’t expanding but that everything within the universe is contracting? ---
**Author:** ![MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bb73d2/32.png) [@MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MC_Master_of_Ceremonies)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-to-squash-the-unviverse-back-into-a-singularity/210835/10 "2003-11-01T17:44:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by shea241 \* > \*\*then is it possible that the universe isn’t expanding but that everything within the universe is contracting? \*\* 'Tis interesting that you should say that as emminent cosmogist and big bang rejectionist Fred Hoyle helped to show that a universe with everything in it shrinking produces the same results as a big bang csomolgy, this was known as variable mass theory). Though it was formulated a while ago and I doubt that it could explain everything in cosmology as it is these days.