Rotating galaxies, rotating universe, rotating black hole

 

I'm told about sixty percent of galaxies at the earliest times as measured by the Webb telescope rotate one way and forty percent the other, and that this somehow implies we are inside a rotating super-big (universe big) black hole.

Short answer: no—those two ideas don’t really connect, and the “60/40 rotation” claim does not imply we’re inside a universe-sized rotating black hole.

Let me unpack it carefully, because there are a few layers where things can go off the rails.

First, about the observation. The James Webb Space Telescope has indeed revealed very distant, early galaxies, and a few studies have tried to classify their rotation (clockwise vs. counterclockwise as seen from Earth). Some of those analyses reported a mild imbalance—numbers like 60/40 have been mentioned in headlines. But that result is controversial and not settled science. The effect is small, and there are several mundane explanations that scientists consider far more likely:

• Selection bias: faint, distant galaxies are hard to classify, and subtle biases in image processing or human/algorithm labeling can skew counts.

• Perspective effects: “clockwise” vs. “counterclockwise” depends entirely on the observer’s viewpoint. Flip your vantage point and the same galaxy reverses direction.

• Statistical noise: with limited samples and noisy data, apparent asymmetries often disappear as datasets improve.

In other words, this is exactly the kind of early, tentative pattern that often fades with better data.

Now, the leap to a rotating universe or a black hole. That’s a much bigger claim. There are theoretical solutions to Einstein’s equations—like the Kerr metric—that describe rotating black holes. And there are also exotic cosmological models where the entire universe has a global rotation. But here’s the key point: a slight imbalance in apparent galaxy spin directions does not measure global rotation.

If the universe itself were rotating in a meaningful way, we would expect clear, independent signatures, especially in the Cosmic Microwave Background—the afterglow of the early universe. Observations from missions like Planck spacecraft show the universe is extremely isotropic (the same in all directions), with only tiny fluctuations. Those data place very tight limits on any large-scale rotation. So far, there’s no convincing evidence the universe as a whole is spinning.

As for the “we’re inside a black hole” idea—that’s more of a speculative philosophical or mathematical curiosity than a scientific conclusion. Some models play with the idea that our universe could be the interior of a black hole in a larger spacetime, but:

• They don’t predict a simple 60/40 galaxy spin imbalance.

• They’re not supported by observational evidence.

• They’re not part of mainstream cosmology.

So what’s going on here is a classic pattern: a tentative observational anomaly gets paired with a dramatic theoretical idea, and the combination makes for a compelling story—but the scientific link between them is weak.

If you’re interested, we can dig into how astronomers actually determine galaxy rotation at those distances, or why “clockwise vs. counterclockwise” is trickier than it sounds—it’s a surprisingly subtle business.

Well the story was not compelling and I figured much what you just said. Inside a Black Hole, inside a simulation, inside someone's imagination. My present idea about how things came to be involves no violation of angular momentum, so I tend to side with a non-rotating universe.

That instinct of yours—keeping a close eye on conservation laws—is a very sound way to stay grounded. Angular momentum, in particular, is not something the universe “misplaces” casually.

But there’s a subtle point here that’s worth sharpening, because it cuts both ways.

In everyday physics, conservation of angular momentum comes from rotational symmetry (via Noether’s theorem). In cosmology, though, things get trickier. The universe as a whole isn’t sitting inside some larger, fixed stage where you can cleanly define a single total angular momentum in the usual sense. In general relativity, global conservation laws are not always well-defined for the entire universe—only local ones are guaranteed.

So a “non-rotating universe” isn’t really enforced by angular momentum conservation; rather, it’s inferred from observation and symmetry. And those observations are quite strong. The Cosmic Microwave Background is astonishingly uniform in all directions, which tells us that, to a very high precision, the universe has no preferred axis. A genuinely rotating universe would introduce anisotropies—directional differences—that we simply don’t see.

There are exact solutions to Einstein’s equations that describe rotating universes, like the Gödel metric, but they come with odd features (like closed timelike curves) and, more importantly, don’t match what we observe.

Your broader skepticism—lumping “inside a black hole,” “inside a simulation,” and “inside someone’s imagination” together—is, I think, quite healthy. Those ideas tend to be:

• Underdetermined (they can be made to fit almost any observation), and

• Hard to falsify (they don’t stick their neck out with clear predictions)

That makes them philosophically interesting but scientifically weak.

If I were to sharpen your position just a bit, I’d say: it’s not so much that a rotating universe would violate angular momentum, but that it would leave fingerprints—and we’ve looked for those fingerprints very carefully and haven’t found them.

I’m curious about your remark, though—you said your “present idea about how things came to be” respects angular momentum. Are you thinking in terms of some initial asymmetry that cancels out globally, or something more structured than that?

Oh I have to consult Deep Thought about that matter. The notion is that the universe in each conserved aspect adds to zero, the old free lunch.

Ah, the classic “zero-sum universe” idea—the old free lunch indeed. It’s a neat way to make sense of the cosmos without having to sneak in mysterious extra energy, momentum, or other conserved quantities. In a sense, it treats the universe as perfectly balanced: every bit of positive energy, momentum, or whatever is matched by a corresponding negative “counterpart.”

For example, people often point out that in a gravitationally bound system, the negative gravitational potential energy can balance out the positive energy of mass and motion, so the total energy of the universe could be zero. Extend that idea to angular momentum, electric charge, and other conserved quantities, and you have a tidy, self-consistent story. The universe “pays its own way,” so to speak.

It’s philosophically satisfying, too, because it hints at why “something” could arise from “nothing” without breaking conservation laws—a subtlety that often trips up casual intuition about physics. Deep Thought would probably nod appreciatively… or just sigh, “42,” and leave the rest as an exercise.

If you want, I can outline how this zero-sum accounting could work for angular momentum specifically, since that’s what makes a rotating vs. non-rotating universe question tick. It’s surprisingly elegant.

We just have to be careful to not wake the sleeping god.

Exactly—that’s the eternal cosmic precaution! 😄 In a universe balanced so neatly, any careless poke might be seen as… well, “disturbing the equilibrium.” Whether the sleeping god is literal, metaphorical, or just a metaphor for the deep laws of physics, the principle holds: subtlety pays.

I like to think of it as tiptoeing through the equations of the cosmos—admiring the zero-sum bookkeeping, enjoying the beauty, but never clanging a cosmic bell unnecessarily.

If you want, we can play with the “sleeping god” metaphor and see how it maps onto real physics: energy, momentum, and the universe’s bookkeeping. It’s a fun mix of myth and math.

I expect we are a wee bit too wee to worry now. About all we might achieve is our own demise.

That’s probably the sober truth. On the scale of the cosmos, we’re infinitesimal, and the forces that shape the universe—gravity, quantum fields, dark energy—don’t really take our ambitions into account. The most immediate “cosmic mischief” we can manage is, indeed, self-inflicted: wars, environmental collapse, technology gone sideways.

It’s almost reassuring in a way. The sleeping god, if it exists, is so vast and inert that our little dramas barely register. We can still explore, understand, and marvel—just without the illusion that we’re steering the galaxy.

It’s a perspective that’s equal parts humbling and freeing: we matter enough to care for ourselves and each other, but not so much that we have to fear cosmic consequences for every slip.