Our entire universe may be located inside a wormhole, part of a black hole that lies within a much larger universe.

Indiana University theoretical physicist Nikodem Poplawski has used Euclidean-based mathematical modeling to suggest that all black holes may have wormholes containing universes created at the same time as the black holes.

Poplawski takes advantage of the Euclidean-based coordinate system called isotropic coordinates to describe the gravitational field of a black hole and to model the radial geodesic motion of a massive particle into a black hole.

He studied the radial motion through the boundary, or event horizon, of two different types of black holes – Schwarzschild and Einstein-Rosen, both of which are mathematically legitimate solutions of general relativity.

Poplawski admits that only experiment or observation can reveal the motion of a particle falling into an actual black hole. But he also notes that since observers can only see the outside of the black hole, the interior cannot be observed unless an observer enters or resides within.

“This condition would be satisfied if our universe were the interior of a black hole existing in a bigger universe,” he said. “Because Einstein’s general theory of relativity does not choose a time orientation, if a black hole can form from the gravitational collapse of matter through an event horizon in the future then the reverse process is also possible. Such a process would describe an exploding white hole: matter emerging from an event horizon in the past, like the expanding universe.”

A white hole is connected to a black hole by an Einstein-Rosen bridge, or wormhole, and is hypothetically the time reversal of a black hole.

Poplawski’s paper suggests that all astrophysical black holes, not just Schwarzschild and Einstein-Rosen black holes, may have Einstein-Rosen bridges, each with a new universe inside that formed simultaneously with the black hole.

“From that it follows that our universe could have itself formed from inside a black hole existing inside another universe,” he said.

Poplawski’s theory could avoid problems with the Big Bang theory and black hole information loss – a theory which claims all information about matter is lost as it goes over the event horizon and which defies the laws of quantum physics.

The model could explain the origin of cosmic inflation, Poplawski theorizes.

His paper is published in Physics Letters B.