Super Massive Structures Tie the Universe Together--Toruses!

The latest discoveries in astronomy continue to uphold the Simple Explanation theory that the universe is comprised of patterns of toroidal energy. For about ten years now, I have been suggesting here on this blog that there are toruses large and small throughout the cosmos. 

Wireframe Torus with Zero Point Center

At large and small scales, these "donuts" or "halos" or "bubbles" produce energy out of their middles, ejecting forces into the space around them and pulling forces back into the black holes at their zero-point centers.

Toroidal forces and flows

When the torus is small, it governs atomic forces, including electromagnetic energy and gravity.

When the torus is large, it both gathers and feeds large astronomical structures with the same electromagnetic forces and gravity.

The "bubbles" and "halos" show where the torus is

Much to my delight, the very latest discoveries that are shaking up the standard cosmological models continue to uphold and strengthen this theory.

Today's article was prompted by the discovery of super-massive structures that appear to tie the entire universe together. Scientists do not know how, but they now must admit that the data shows that a jiggle on one side of the universe causes a corresponding jiggle somewhere else in the universe, as if they were somehow connected by gigantic invisible filaments. 

A series of articles in Vice by science writer Becky Ferreira clearly outlines numerous puzzling phenomena--from super-massive universal structures and energetic galactic bubbles, to the increasing possibility of a closed, spherical universal space as opposed to the standard model of a flat, infinite space. Scientist are both baffled and challenged as they attempt to find a cosmic model to account for these new observations. 

The clues to the solution are already imbedded in the language used to describe their findings, for they all refer to "bubbles," "spheres," "balloons," and "halos." These are other words for the torus shape and dynamics.

All of these puzzles can be explained by picturing the universe as a closed, toroidal system, with a super-massive torus sitting at both the center and enveloping all of space at its outside boundary. Moreover, this super-massive torus has been slowly growing larger (the expanding universe) as energetic forces continue to enter space from the middle. In my Simple Explanation, the big bang occurred at the center of an outflowing black hole, which continues to push matter outward into the closed space of the growing torus that surrounds it.

My theory also suggests the presence of miniscule toruses seeded throughout space, bringing energy and anti-entropic organization at the tiny atomic level.

Whether tiny or gigantic, the toruses look the same and perform the same functions, just at smaller and larger scales.

If you would like to picture this and demonstrate the forces for yourself, you may take an ordinary slinky toy and fasten its two ends into the donut shape of a torus. You will find that when you touch any part of the slinky-torus, the entire structure jiggles. If you push on any wire in the slinky-torus so that it rotates toward the center, the entire slinky-torus rotates toward the center. 

In this slinky-donut model, if you push a wire downward into the center hole, all wires push downward into the center hole, making an inflow of energy, as in a black hole. This inflow direction is the energetic basis of gravity. From the bottom side of this experiment, the wires flow outward and back around the outside of the torus to the top. This outflow direction is the manner by which electromagnetic and other energetic forces are pushed into this universe. The outflow direction is organizational, informative, and anti-entropic. Scale is irrelevant; they are all the same torus. 

You may read my entire series of 30+ toroidal articles by going to the "Topical Index" tab on the Simple Explanation blog and finding the "Toroidal Forces" section. 

You're welcome.

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Here are links to four of Ferreira's articles on this subject: 

There’s Growing Evidence That the Universe Is Connected by Giant Structures

Scientists are finding that galaxies can move with each other across huge distances, and against the predictions of basic cosmological models. The reason why could change everything we think we know about the universe.

NASA Captures Stunning Images of ‘Nuclear Superbubbles’ in an Alien Galaxy

NGC 3079 is spitting out particles that balloon across thousands of light years in space.

NASA Has Found a Weird, Unexplained Boundary in Interstellar Space

Voyager 2 passed through the borderland between the Sun and interstellar space and found something new and puzzling that Voyager 1 missed.

There Might Be a Hidden 'Crisis' in What We Know About the Universe

Scientists think the universe is flat, but new observations suggest that we might actually be living in a gigantic sphere. Whoa.

What's the Point in Living a Virtuous Life?

I've just posted another gnostic perspective article over on my gnostic blog. 

This article answers the fundamental question, "why lead a virtuous life?" and its opposite, "what's wrong with a sinful life?" Check it out! See you there.

If All Are Redeemed, Why Not Be Sinful?

Remember, gnostic enlightenment and redemption, and a truer understanding of Judaic and Christian fundamentals, can be found in my book, The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated.

New Gnostic Gospel article over on my other blog

I've just posted a Gnostic gospel article over on my other blog, called "Is Jesus the Christ? A Gnostic Perspective". Check it out if you are curious or confused about the status of Jesus as the Christ according to the Tripartite Tractate of the Nag Hammadi texts. 

I wrote this article because too many people who study Gnostic texts wonder why the texts are considered "Christian" when they clearly diverge from orthodox biblical teaching. Many people who consider themselves Gnostics deny the role and power of the Christ. This article explains the overlap.

Quantum Foam Smothers Huge Amounts of Energy--Reprint and Commentary

According to my interpretation of gnostic cosmology, quantum foam emerged as the first material expression after the Fall. In the pre-Fall state, consciousness was immaterial and purely ephemeral. After the Fall, consciousness expressed itself as a slower, denser, and more concrete form. 

Both the Simple Explanation cosmology and the gnostic cosmology speak of the emergence of ordinary matter as arising from the small, uncooperative first expressions of random behavior--i.e. quantum foam. Quantum foam is entirely unpredictable and chaotic. This chaos effectively uses up and partially smothers the infinity of coherent consciousness underlying and preceding the foam, like a blanket thrown over a fire.  The random nature of quantum foam explains "free will" in our material universe, as the quantum randomness forms the platform underlying ordinary matter, occasionally interjecting itself into a material cosmos otherwise rigidly constrained by cause and effect.
This illustration, borrowed from Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe, shows how the appearance of matter transforms from smooth to chaotic the closer you look. Imagine the ordinary, unmagnified, world as the grid at the bottom of the drawing, and that each successive plane represents a closer look at a portion of the plane below.  At the most extreme ultra-magnification, quantum fluctuations have replaced smooth, predictable geometry.

This model of chaos can be used to illustrate the principle of individual free will. As was previously stated in Traits of Units of Consciousness,  most Units of Consciousness perform as expected—they “do their part,” they “work according to plan.” It was also stated that every UC has the free will to fulfill or contradict its responsibilities.

Below you will find a new scientific article that explains quantum foam with a new hypothesis that I find compatible with my cosmologies.

OCTOBER 1, 2019 REPORT

Physicist suggests 'quantum foam' may explain away huge cosmic energy

by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Steven Carlip, a physicist at the University of California, has come up with a theory to explain why empty space seems to be filled with a huge amount of energy—it may be hidden by effects that are canceling it out at the Planck scale. He has published a paper describing his new theory in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Conventional theory suggests that spacetime should be filled with a huge amount of energy—perhaps as much as 10120 more than seemingly exists. Over the years, many theorists have suggested ideas on why this may be—most have tried the obvious approach, trying to figure out a way to make the energy go away. But none have been successful. In this new effort, Carlip suggests that maybe all that energy really is there, but it does not have any ties to the expansion of the universe because its effects are being canceled out by something at the Planck scale.

The new theory by Carlip is based very heavily on work done by John Wheeler back in the 1950s—he suggested that at the smallest possible scale, space and time turn into something he called "spacetime foam." He argued that at such a small scale, defining time, length and energy would be subject to the uncertainty principle. Since then, others have taken a serious look at spacetime foam—and some have suggested that if a vacuum were filled with spacetime foam, there would be a lot of energy involved. Others argue that such a scenario would behave like the cosmological constant.

Thus, to explain their ideas, they have sought to find ways to cancel out the energy as a way to make it go away. Carlip suggests instead that in a spacetime foam scenario, energy would exist everywhere in a vacuum—but if you took a much closer look, you would find Planck-sized areas that have an equal likelihood of expanding or contracting. And under such a scenario, the patchwork of tiny areas would appear the same as larger areas in the vacuum—and they would not expand or contract, which means they would have a zero cosmic constant. He notes that under such a scenario, time would have no intrinsic direction.

More information: S. Carlip. Hiding the Cosmological Constant, Physical Review Letters (2019). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.131302 . On Arxiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.08277

Journal information: Physical Review Letters , arXiv 

Black Holes Emerge from Cosmic Phase Shift -- Reprint

For you folks interested in scientific explanations, I'm reprinting this physics article about how the formation of the early universe could have created black holes and dark matter all at once--in a phases shift as quick as the the blink of an eye.  As you know, my Simple Explanation cosmology suggests there is a black hole associated with every piece of matter in our universe. The theory in the article below hypothesizes that excess energy could have been converted to primordial black holes and dark matter as a by-product of the phase shift that led to nuclear material.

For my readers who are also interested in gnostic cosmology, this phase shift would have occurred as the initial correction of the Fall by the aeons of the Fullness...

SEPTEMBER 23, 2019 FEATURE

Theory proposes that LIGO/Virgo black holes originate from a first order phase transition

by Ingrid Fadelli , Phys.org

Graphic showing the observed population of black holes of mass a few tens of solar masses. Credit: LIGO-Virgo/Frank Elavsky/Northwestern.

A few years ago, the LIGO/Virgo collaboration detected gravitational waves arising from a binary black hole merger using the two detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). This eventually led to the observation of black holes with masses that are roughly 30 times the mass of the sun. Since then, researchers worldwide have been investigating these black holes, specifically examining whether they could be of primordial origin, meaning that they were produced in the early universe before stars and galaxies were formed.

Hooman Davoudiasl, a theoretical physicist at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, has recently introduced a new theory suggesting that the black holes observed by the LIGO/Virgo collaboration originate from a first order quark confinement phase transition. In his paper, published in Physical Review Letters, Davoudiasl implemented this idea using a light scalar that could turn out to be a good dark matter candidate.

Recent detections by the LIGO/Virgo collaboration suggest that there are several black holes that have similar masses (approximately 30 solar masses). This suggests that there might be a population of black holes that are characterized by a typical mass value.

"This population may be associated with stellar evolution and certain astrophysical conditions, but a primordial origin could also be a potential explanation," Hooman Davoudiasl, the researcher who carried out the study, told Phys.org. "This latter possibility is quite intriguing, but how such objects might form in the early universe is an open question."

A mechanism that could potentially lead to the production of primordial black holes (PBH) is an abrupt cosmological phase transition, which is somewhat similar to the transition from vapor to liquid that occurs when water condenses on a cold surface. An example of this phase transition in the early universe could be the cooling of hot plasma made up of quarks and gluons, which might have occurred as the universe expanded, and they began binding into protons and neutrons.

According to current physics theories, however, there are two key issues with this scenario. Firstly, the transition would not be abrupt, and secondly, it would most likely lead to the production of PBHs with a mass similar to that of the sun, rather than masses 10 or more times larger.

"In my paper, I set out to examine under what additional assumptions, from as yet unknown phenomena, the above picture can change in a way that is conducive to a 'primordial' explanation of the black hole population observed by LIGO/Virgo," Davoudiasl said.

The explanation he proposed is based on a longstanding theoretical construct suggesting that if there are three or more light quarks, the transition from the hot quark-gluon plasma to nuclear particles could, in fact, be abrupt. The current standard physics theory that has been extensively tested, however, states that in this scenario, only two quarks are sufficiently light; thus, the transition would not be abrupt (i.e., it would not be a first-order phase transition).

"My idea was to see how one can arrange for this situation to change in the early universe, so that the transition is abrupt, but then recover the standard picture later on, corresponding to well-established present-day experimental data," Davoudiasl explained.

Davoudiasl essentially wanted to show that under certain conditions corresponding to new physical ingredients, three or more light quarks could, in fact, have been present in the early universe while the transition to nuclear matter was taking place. This would ultimately entail a first-order phase transition, enabling the production of PBH with masses similar to those observed by the LIGO/Virgo collaboration.

"My proposal arranges for the quarks to attain the masses that we observe today afterwards," Davoudiasl said. "However, interestingly, by making the number of light quarks larger, one also pushes the masses of the PBHs that could be produced to larger values, closer to that of the population observed by LIGO/Virgo."

The idea introduced by Davoudiasl in his recent paper could explain the production of the PBHs observed by the LIGO/Virgo team. In addition, it could shed light on why their masses are larger than what might be expected based on current physics theories.

"Rendering the transition abrupt in the way I proposed not only facilitates the production of PBHs, but also makes their expected masses heavier, approaching those observed by LIGO/Virgo through gravitational waves," Davoudiasl added. "Also, my proposal employs a very light hypothetical particle whose dynamics control the variation of quark masses from very small to their observed values today."

Interestingly, the hypothetical "light field" considered in Davoudiasl's theory might have the right properties to be the dark matter of the universe that countless researchers have been investigating and seeking. In fact, the black holes observed by the LIGO/Virgo collaboration may only account for a small fraction of dark matter, due to various constraints.

"The general subject of non-standard cosmologies is worth thinking about further," Davoudiasl said. "Modifying some of our usual assumptions regarding the early universe could potentially lead to new insights about open questions in physics and cosmology."

More information: Hooman Davoudiasl. LIGO/Virgo Black Holes from a First Order Quark Confinement Phase Transition, Physical Review Letters (2019). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.101102

B. P. Abbott et al. Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger, Physical Review Letters (2016). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102

GWTC-1: A gravitational-wave transient catalog of compact binary mergers observed by LIGO and Virgo during the first and second observing runs. arXiv:1811.12907 [astro-ph.HE]. arxiv.org/abs/1811.12907

www.ligo.caltech.edu/

www.virgo-gw.eu/

Journal information: Physical Review Letters 

Reprint and Commentary: Our Multidimensional Brain

Another friend of the blog forwarded this mind-blowing article to me. Thank you, friend! This reprinted article suggests that neurons in the brain do their computations in up to 11 dimensions with the aid of distributed "black holes" of unknown dimensionality. Using computer modeling and algebraic topology, scientists have discovered that emerging neurons arrange themselves in "cliques" that quickly form multi-dimensional structures and, just as quickly, dissolve them. The more neurons that crowd around the "black hole," the higher the dimensionality of the transitory object.

Here's the reprint. Go to the end to hear my Gnostic Explanation of this phenomenon.

Scientists Reveal a Multidimensional Universe Inside the Brain

Scientists have found the Human Brain can create structures in up to 11 dimensions

Image Credit: Blue Brain Project.

A study published in Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience has revealed that the human brain’s structures operate in up to 11 dimensions.

Conducted by the Blue Brain Project, scientists discovered fascinating new details about the complexity of the human brain.

“We found a world that we had never imagined,” explained

neuroscientist Henry Markram, director of Blue Brain Project and professor at the EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland.

A universe of multidimensional structures inside the brain

The image attempts to illustrate something that cannot be imaged — a universe of multi-dimensional structures and spaces. On the left is a digital copy of a part of the neocortex, the most evolved part of the brain. On the right are shapes of different sizes and geometries in an attempt to represent structures ranging from 1 dimension to 7 dimensions and beyond. The “black-hole” in the middle is used to symbolize a complex of multi-dimensional spaces, or cavities. Researchers at Blue Brain Project report groups of neurons bound into such cavities provide the missing link between neural structure and function, in their new study published in Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience. Image Credit: Blue Brain Project.

“There are tens of millions of these objects even in a small speck of the brain, up through seven dimensions. In some networks, we even found structures with up to eleven dimensions,” Markram added.

By studying the human brain, researchers discovered that traditional mathematical views were not applicable and ineffective.

“The mathematics usually applied to study networks cannot detect the high-dimensional structures and spaces that we now see clearly,” Markram revealed.

Instead, scientists decided to give algebraic topology a go.

Algebraic topology is a branch of mathematics that uses tools from abstract algebra to study topological spaces.

Scientists from the Blue Brain Project were assisted by mathematicians Kathryn Hess from EPFL and Ran Levi from Aberdeen University in applying this discipline in their new study.

“Algebraic topology is like a telescope and microscope at the same time. It can zoom into networks to find hidden structures – the trees in the forest – and see the empty spaces – the clearings – all at the same time,” explained professor Hess.

The Human Brain can create structures in up to 11 dimensions

The scientists discovered that the structures inside the brain are created when a group of neurons – cells that transmit signals in the brain – form something referred to as a clique. Each neuron is connected to every other neuron in the group in a unique way, creating a new object. The more neurons there are in a clique, the higher the ‘dimension’ of the object.

Algebraic topography allowed the scientists to model the structures within a virtual brain, created with the help of computers. They then carried out experiments on real brain tissue, in order to verify their results.

By adding stimuli into the virtual brain, the researchers found that cliques of progressively HIGHER dimensions assembled. Furthermore, in between the cliques, scientists discovered cavities.

“The appearance of high-dimensional cavities when the brain is processing information means that the neurons in the network react to stimuli in an extremely organized manner,” explained Levi.

“It is as if the brain reacts to a stimulus by building then razing a tower of multi-dimensional blocks, starting with rods (1D), then planks (2D), then cubes (3D), and then more complex geometries with 4D, 5D, etc.”

“The progression of activity through the brain resembles a multi-dimensional sandcastle that materializes out of the sand and then disintegrates,” he added.

The new data about the human brain offers unprecedented insight into how the human brain processes information.

However, the scientists have said that it still remains unclear as to how the cliques and cavities form in their highly specific ways.

The new study may eventually help scientists uncover one of the greatest mysteries of neuroscience: where does the brain ‘store’ its memories.

“They may be ‘hiding’ in high-dimensional cavities,” Markram concluded.

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Holy moley! My Gnostic mind tells me this multi-dimensionality is our natural, true state of existence. Our perception of a 3 or 4-D world is a "flattened" representation of our larger multi-dimensionality. So, while we may perceive things around us in a relatively simplified state, in order for our minds to process and make full use of the information it must dip into the black hole well of multi-dimensionality. We are unaware of this because when the information comes back out to us it again reverts to ordinary perception. It is this return to the ordinary world that collapses the multi-dimensional structure, as observed by the model. 

Upon further reflection and discussions, the findings are no surprise, because the arrangement of neurons into transitory multi-dimensional structures reflects their true aeonic nature. In terms of my interpretation of the Gnostic Gospel, the aeons live within a tight, hierarchical structure with a jelly-like consistency, kind of like a glorious precursor to slime mold. These aeons are expressions of the Son's diversity, and they dwell in the metaversal matrix outside our time-space continuum. The aeons of the Pleroma share one mind, one vision, and one intention. This glorious mind is known as the Holy Spirit.

According to the Gnostic Gospel Illuminated, all creatures on this planet, from single-celled bacteria through every living creature and plant, are the offspring of these aeons, sent down to material form as we find ourselves now, in an attempt to clean up a cosmic accident known as The Fall.

You can read all about it by visiting my other blog, A New Gnostic Gospel.

The Aeons of the Pleroma dreaming of Earth

As to where the brain stores its memories, it doesn't. According to the Simple Explanation, memories are stored in the collective unconscious I call the "memeosphere." The purpose of the neurons is no more than that of a tuned antenna, tuned to read that portion of the collective unconscious. This is the same collective unconscious referred to as the transpersonal space, the Akashic record, and so on. All creatures on earth are a part of the dreaming place of the transpersonal space. The Simple Explanation would say these thoughts are part of the thoughts of the Universal Unit of Consciousness (the Universal UC).

According to the Gnostic Gospel Illuminated, the multi-dimensional region  that the transitory structures pointed out in the article are communicating with are the aeons of the pleroma. This is possibly what is meant by Biblical references to angels keeping watch--these aeons are the multi-dimensional intelligences at the other end of the wire. We are their fruit.

Thoughts? 

Reprint: Possible Detection of an Impossibly Large Black Hole

A friend of the Simple Explanation blog sent me this article, which I am sharing with you. It is yet another example that proves, if nothing else, that scientists do not really understand the universe. Couple this article with the previous article published on this blog, and you and you can see that science is flailing about, trying to write a narrative of the universe that will keep up with their latest measurements. The Simple Explanation of black holes becomes increasingly plausible, as I predicted it would.

Possible Detection of a Black Hole So Big It ‘Should Not Exist’

Black hole physicists have been excitedly discussing reports that the LIGO and Virgo gravitational-wave detectors recently picked up the signal of an unexpectedly enormous black hole, one with a mass that was thought to be physically impossible.

“The prediction is no black holes, not even a few” in this mass range, wrote Stan Woosley, an astrophysicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in an email. “But of course we know nature often finds a way.”

Seven experts contacted by Quanta said they’d heard that among the 22 flurries of gravitational waves detected by LIGO and Virgo since April, one of the signals came from a collision involving a black hole of unanticipated heft — purportedly as heavy as 100 suns. LIGO/Virgo team members would neither confirm nor deny the rumored detection.

Chris Belczynski, an astrophysicist at Warsaw University, previously felt so sure that such a large specimen wouldn’t be seen that in 2017 he placed a bet with colleagues. “I think we are about to lose the bet,” Belczynski said, “and for the good of science!”

Belczynski’s former confidence came from the fact that such a big black hole can’t form in the usual way.

Black holes — dense, paradox-ridden spheres whose gravity traps everything, even light — form from the contracting cores of fuel-spent stars. But in 1967, three physicists at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem realized that when the core of a dying star is very heavy, it won’t gravitationally collapse into a black hole. Instead, the star will undergo a “pair-instability supernova,” an explosion that totally annihilates it in a matter of seconds, leaving nothing behind. “The star is completely dispersed into space,” the three physicists wrote.

A pair-instability supernova happens when the core grows so hot that light begins to spontaneously convert into electron-positron pairs. The light’s radiation pressure had kept the star’s core intact; when the light transforms into matter, the resulting pressure drop causes the core to rapidly shrink and become even hotter, further accelerating pair production and causing a runaway effect. Eventually the core gets so hot that oxygen ignites. This fully reverses the core’s implosion, so that it explodes instead. For cores with a mass between about 65 and 130 times that of our sun (according to current estimates), the star is completely obliterated. Cores between about 50 and 65 solar masses pulsate, shedding mass in a series of explosions until they drop below the range where pair instability occurs. Thus there should be no black holes with masses in the 50-to-130-solar-mass range.

“The prediction comes from straightforward calculations,” said Woosley, whose 2002 study of this “pair-instability mass gap” is considered definitive.

Black holes can exist on the other side of the mass gap, weighing in at more than 130 solar masses, because the runaway implosion of such heavy stellar cores can’t be stopped, even by oxygen fusion; instead, they continue to collapse and form black holes. But because stars shed mass throughout their lives, a star would need to be born weighing at least 300 suns in order to end up as a 130-solar-mass core, and such behemoths are rare. For this reason, most experts assumed black holes detected by LIGO and Virgo should top out at around 50 solar masses, the lower end of the mass gap. (The million- and billion-solar-mass supermassive black holes that anchor galaxies’ centers formed differently, and rather mysteriously, in the early universe. LIGO and Virgo are not mechanically capable of detecting the collisions of supermassive black holes.)

That said, a few experts did boldly predict that black holes in the mass gap would be seen — hence the 2017 bet.

At a meeting that February at the Aspen Center for Physics, Belczynski and Daniel Holz of the University of Chicago wagered that “black holes should not exist in the mass range between 55 and 130 solar masses because of pair instability,” and thus that none would be detected among LIGO/Virgo’s first 100 signals. Woosley later co-signed with Belczynski and Holz.

But Carl Rodriguez of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Sourav Chatterjee of the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India, later joined by Fred Rasio of Northwestern University, bet against them, wagering that a black hole would indeed be detected in the mass gap, because there’s a roundabout way for these plus-size black holes to form.

Whereas most of the colliding black holes that wiggle LIGO and Virgo’s instruments probably originated as pairs of isolated stars (binary star systems being common in the cosmos), Rodriguez and his co-signers argue that a fraction of the detected collisions occur in dense stellar environments such as globular clusters. The black holes swing around in one another’s gravity, and sometimes they catch each other and merge, like big fish swallowing smaller ones in a pond.

Inside a globular cluster, a 50-solar-mass black hole could merge with a 30-solar-mass one, for instance, and then the resulting giant could merge again. This second-generation merger is what LIGO/Virgo might have detected — a lucky catch of the big fish in the pond. “This can really only happen in clusters,” Rodriguez said. If the rumor is true, he, Chatterjee and Rasio will each receive a $100 bottle of wine from Belczynski, Holz and Woosley.

But there are other possible origin stories for the putative big black hole. Perhaps it started out in an isolated binary star system. After the first star collapsed into a black hole, it might have grown by stripping matter from its companion star. Later, the second star would have collapsed as well, then eventually the two would have collided and merged, sending gravitational waves cascading through the fabric of space-time.

The LIGO/Virgo team quickly announces every potential gravitational-wave event and the region of sky from which it originated, so that other telescopes can swivel in that direction. But the tight-lipped team has yet to publish detailed information about any event from the current observing run that began in April, such as the inferred sizes of the colliding objects. The team plans to reveal all by the spring of 2020 at the latest. If the oversize black hole is among the results, the analysis should also reveal how fast the hole and its companion were spinning when they collided; this information will help favor one origin story or the other, or neither.

The rumor is “pushing us to alternative formation mechanisms,” said Chris Fryer, an astrophysicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory who has studied binary black hole formation and the mass gap. “In any event it will be an exciting event — if it’s true.”

As for Woosley, he still feels certain the mass gap exists, despite possible exceptions. “A likely outcome will be that when we have hundreds of black holes, we will indeed see a cliff at around 50,” he said, “but with a few events in the gap because nature abhors a vacuum.”

This article was reprinted on TheAtlantic.com.