To quote Sabine Hossenfelder "Before you say “no way,” hear the latest research out". Sabine posted a report on a new study. She posted it on
Starts With A Bang.
I can't say that I completely understand the complexities but: The Higgs particle detected at the LHC is just slightly heavier than expected. This could mean that the universe is in a false vacuum rather than a true vacuum. If the false vacuum collapsed to the true vacuum it would cause the destruction of the universe. Theory puts that as happening in the far (and I mean really far) future. However, the paper that Sabine is reporting on shows that possibly the death of a black hole from Hawking radiation could trigger the collapse. Right now we don't know of any black holes that will die any time in the near future, they are all too cold. But a primordial black hole could do it. Primordial black holes, if there are any, would have been created at the Big Bang. They may not have been. For one thing we have not been able to detect the death of any of them. So we are probably safe.
Bill Gill
