[Physicist]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Professor Hawking establish, mathematically at least, that black holes are not as black as once thought and that they eventually evaporate with a climactic exposion at the evaporation's conclusion?

There's no need to go there. If inflationary cosmology is correct, then the universe is (and always has been) at its own black hole density, meaning that the universe still is that primordial black hole. We've never escaped it and never will.

[Pistias]

We've never escaped it and never will.

That's just because we need more funding. We'll find a way out, just get the taxpayers to shell out some more loot.

[callisto]

If inflationary cosmology is correct, then the universe is (and always has been) at its own black hole density, meaning that the universe still is that primordial black hole. We've never escaped it and never will.

Intriguing thought! I'm curious...If inflationary cosmology proves correct, then do you think that it might explain ANOMALOUS GRAVITATIONAL FORCE?
A discussion of this phenomenon appears in the 4 October 1999 issue of Newsweek magazine (See also the December 1998 issue of Scientific American.) The mystery of the tiny unexplained acceleration towards the sun in the motion of the Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11 and Ulysses spacecraft remains unexplained. A team of planetary scientists and physicists led by John Anderson (Pioneer 10 Principal Investigator for Celestial Mechanics) has identified a tiny unexplained acceleration towards the sun in the motion of the Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, and Ulysses spacecraft. The anomalous acceleration - about 10 billion times smaller than the acceleration we feel from Earth's gravitational pull - was identified after detailed analyses of radio data from the spacecraft. A variety of possible causes were considered including: perturbations from the gravitational attraction of planets and smaller bodies in the solar system; radiation pressure, the tiny transfer of momentum when photons impact the spacecraft; general relativity; interactions between the solar wind and the spacecraft; possible corruption to the radio Doppler data; wobbles and other changes in Earth's rotation; outgassing or thermal radiation from the spacecraft; and the possible influence of non-ordinary or dark matter. After exhausting the list of explanations deemed most plausible, the researchers examined possible modification to the force of gravity as explained by Newton's law with the sun being the dominant gravitational force. "Clearly, more analysis, observation, and theoretical work are called for," the researchers concluded. The scientists expect the explanation when found will involve conventional physics.