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Thanks Martin and Russell for responding, and Doug for the book reference.
> 1. Re: Physics question (Martin C. Martin)
> 2. Re: Physics question (Russell Standish)
> 5. Re: Physics question (Douglas Roberts)
I understand that there is not a center to the big bang, that the universe
was initially a fairly uniform soup in a confined space with no boundaries;
the 3-D analog of the 2-D surface of a sphere. A black hole would require a
break in the uniformity -- a difference in density to give rise to
gravitational potential energy.
The gravitation available is intense; a little symmetry breaking will create
a dense region which will experience gravititational attraction, begetting
more density, more gravity, and so collapse. That is the source of galaxy
formation as I understand it, but why not a faster process, collapsing
directly into black holes?
I suspect that countervailing process is gas compression: that the dense
region, in trying to collapse, heats itself up, creating a pressure
gradient, and causing the now heated matter to scatter away thermally,
putting a break on the collapse. Something like that limits the rate of
star formation, even now, as I understand it.
-Mike Oliker
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