Talk:Nikodem Popławski

Sabbir Rahman
The proposal that the universe may be located in the wormhole of a black hole in an even larger universe is not new, and indeed the same proposal was made by me over five years ago and a technical paper describing it submitted to the physics arXiv. I made an attempt to edit this biographical article to make this fact known, including the appropriate references to the original proposal, but these changes have been deleted. It is not at all my intention to enter into an editing war, but it should be made known that the proposal made by Dr Poplawski is not original, despite the media coverage the proposal has received. This biographical article therefore contains contentious and inaccurate information and needs to be amended to reflect this.

Sarahman (talk) 00:03, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

It is now being claimed by user "Adrigon" (Dr Poplawski?) that I have "vandalised"(!) the page and added "nonsense" text. I made no attempt to corrupt the references, and if that did indeed happen, it was entirely unintentional. Mentioning a priority dispute with clearly cited evidence does not constitute "nonsense" text. On the other hand, intentionally deleting this clear evidence when it has been made known could be a sign of academic dishonesty. The counter-claim that the idea was originally Lee Smolin's is also not correct, and would, if true, also constitute evidence of lack of originality in any case. While Lee Smolin does make some rather unusual claims regarding black holes and the possible Darwinian evolution of universes via them, they are not the claims referred to at the head of this biographical article, and neither are they the claims attributed to Dr Poplawski by the media. The priority dispute therefore remains valid.

Sarahman (talk) 12:20, 17 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The priority dispute issue is not what was being referred to. It was your edits here:, in which you changed "Kibble" to "Kibbspule", and introduced spelling errors into the National Post URL reference, as well as replacing text so that the link rendered as broken.  How this could have been done "unintentionally", I can't imagine.  As for the dispute issue, I'm not a scientist and would prefer to stay out of it.  But in light of the edits mentioned, I find your intentions suspicious.  And it should be pointed out that if you authored the proposal mentioned and take issue with Poplawski or his theory, then your editing of this article may constitute a conflict of interest, as well as raise issues regarding original research.Adrigon (talk) 03:42, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Although Sarahman (Dr. Rahman) has heard of Dr. Poplawski's work in popular news, it seems he is completely unfamiliar with the original articles on which they are based: Anyone comparing Dr. Poplawski's papers above to Dr. Rahman's paper can see how clearly different they are.
 * "Radial motion into an Einstein-Rosen bridge" (also on arXiv.org)
 * and "Cosmology with torsion - an alternative to cosmic inflation".

In "Radial motion..." (the work under dispute), Dr. Poplawski uses general relativity to explicitly and mathematically show how matter can travel through an Einstein-Rosen bridge (wormhole). More technically, he solves the geodesic equations for massive particles crossing the event horizon of an Einstein-Rosen bridge, and derives that they do cross the horizon into another spacetime. Using unmodified general relativity, he Less technically, Dr. Poplawski's conclusion that black holes may contain other universes is based soundly on explicit mathematical results. Moreover, these mathematical results and their derivation are unique (as far as I have found) to Dr. Poplawski's paper.
 * studies the proper time and velocities of the particles,
 * discusses the light cone associated with the particles,
 * analyzes the Raychaudhuri equation in this metric to show that the geodesics are complete (i.e. there is no singularity in an Einstein-Rosen bridge),
 * derives the radial motion of massive particles in an Einstein-Rosen bridge in terms of Kruskal coordinates, and
 * includes the Kruskal diagram for such a particle to explicitly show how it moves to the second Kruskal sheet (how it gets to the other universe).

Dr. Rahman's paper is on an entirely different subject and treats the motion of particles into an event horizon as an aside. Without any mathematical justification, he simply states that "...the only reasonable and consistent conclusion seems to be that the infalling particle continues travelling smoothly onto the second Kruskal-extended exterior spacetime sheet...", i.e. that matter would pass from one space-time into another (page 16 / 29, paragraph 2). However, this is inconsistent with a statement he makes two paragraphs previously, "Clearly there is no ‘interior solution’, so that it is both impossible and meaningless for a particle to be said to ‘cross’ the event horizon," (page 15 / 29 last paragraph). This is in direct contradiction to Dr. Poplawski's own work. Later in section 5.5, Dr. Rahman claims (again without mathematical justification) that "...in the early universe the vacuum will have been a state with a relatively uniform energy distribution of gravitational waves which collapsed to form a multitude of hierarchies of classical black holes, of which presumably our entire observable universe is just one," (page 27 / 29, paragraph 2). One is unsure what Dr. Rahman means by this statement, including the idea of "a multitude of hierarchies of...black holes." However, none of it is explicitly relevant to Dr. Poplawski's work.

Now whereas Dr. Poplawski's mathematical derivation of matter moving through a wormhole is entirely new, Dr. Rahman is correct to suggest that the idea that the universe exists in a black hole is not. However, the idea did not originate with Dr. Rahman. The earliest reference I can find is the 1972 Nature article by Pathria "The Universe as a Black Hole" which is cited in Dr. Poplawski's "Radial motion..." paper. In this, Pathria explicitly states: "Here I demonstrate that the universe may not only be a closed structure (as perceived by its inhabitants at the present epoch) but may also be a black hole, confined to a localized region of space which cannot expand without limit." He then goes on to mathematically outline how such an idea might be physically justified. Later in the paper, he says, "...I assume that there exists, outside our universe, an external world from which one may take a 'detached' look at our universe. " Unlike Dr. Rahman's paper, this is mathematically relevant, and is also clear and consistent in its conclusions regarding the disputed topic.

Another relevant paper is Smolin's 1992 Classical and Quantum Gravity article "Did the Universe evolve?". In section 2 of this paper, Smolin says, "Each final singularity is followed by an initial singularity, which evolves into a universe which is spatially closed. An alternative hypothesis...is that instead of an ending in a final singularity, the interior of a black hole tunnels into a new spatially compact universe. " As with Dr. Rahman's ideas, Smolin's are not mathematically explained in his paper. However, the proposal that the universe may exist in a black hole is the same and comes fourteen (14) years before Dr. Rahman's.

To summarize: Sarahman's (Dr. Rahman's) priority dispute claim is invalid because Dr. Poplawski's work is considerably different from Dr. Rahman's own. Although some conclusions may be similar, Dr. Poplawski's derive directly from the mathematics of his paper whereas Dr. Rahman's do not. Moreover, the idea that the universe exists within a black hole is older than Dr. Poplawski's paper, but also much older than Dr. Rahman's.

Shockhazard (talk) 21:31, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

First of all, thank you for pointing out the spurious characters which I unintentionally introduced in a couple of places while I was editing the article, and I apologise for that - this was probably due to my finger slipping on the mousepad of my laptop while typing, resulting in errors which I failed to notice and correct. Prof Kibble is a very-well respected member of the Imperial College physics department, and I really would have no reason at all to try to deface his name. To charge that this was intentional vandalism without verification is rather uncharitable.

While it is true that Dr. Poplawski's work differs considerably both in nature and content (I am not attempting to claim that he plagiarised my work), this summary statement is obviously incorrect. The plain and simple fact is that I clearly made the proposal, in the paper, that the universe may be located in the wormhole of a black hole in an even larger universe, well before Dr. Poplawski did. Whether Dr. Poplawski's mathematical justification for the proposal is considered to be more rigorous or not than mine is simply not relevant. If Dr. Poplawski wishes to claim to the media that his justification for my (and others') earlier proposal(s) is somehow superior, he is welcome to do so, but he does not have a right to claim originality with regards to the proposal itself.

I actually am aware of, and have no issue whatsoever with Dr Poplawski's academic papers - I found them to be quite insightful and very well-written, and intend to reference them myself in future. What I do have an issue with, as I have clearly mentioned above, is the implication in the Wikipedia article that Dr Poplawski was the first to propose "...that the universe may be located in the wormhole of a black hole in an even larger universe", which is what most of the media fuss surrounding him seems to be about.

Note that there have been a great many works that discuss Schwarzschild geodesics, the Kruskal extenstion and related topics, and I do not make any claim either way regarding the uniqueness or otherwise of Dr. Poplawski's results in this regard.

A number of additional points ought to be made here to respond to other statements made above:

(i) Just because the proposal was mentioned as an aside in my paper does not somehow mean that the proposal was not made or that someone else can subsequently claim that they were the first to make the proposal.

(ii) It is true that there have been a number of papers that propose that the universe is, or exists within, a black hole, including the papers referred to by Pathria, Smolin and myself, and all three of these papers also refer to hierarchies of black holes. The latter hardly requires mathematical justification as it common sense that if a black hole can exist within (or conversely, contains) another black hole, then that black hole can do likewise, etc. (Note also that of the three, only Smolin claims that there actually exists a singularity within the black hole).

(iii) I did in fact, in my paper, provide mathematical justification for the non-existence of the interior solution, and it is true that I actually disagree with Dr. Poplawski on this and a number of other of his proposals/speculations, (for example his speculation that the universe may have spawned from a "white hole" - as I explain in my paper, what is commonly interpreted to be a white hole is in fact an antiparticle black hole because of the reversal of time signature on the second sheet). Note that it should be obvious from the context that I claim in my paper that a particle reaching the horizon cannot cross the horizon to enter the Schwarzschild interior - instead it passes into the second Kruskal sheet.

(iv) Importantly, neither Pathria nor Smolin (as far as I am aware) make reference to the possibility of the universe existing within the wormhole of a black hole or refer specifically to the Kruskal extension or Einstein-Rosen bridges (these are not widely accepted as being physically extant), and it is only this aspect of the proposal above that Dr. Poplawski might possibly have been able to lay at least some claim of originality to. However, it should be abundantly clear, even from the brief description that you have given above of part of my paper (and I thank you for actually taking the time to read the relevant parts of it), that this is precisely the proposal that I made over five years ago. Therefore, the priority dispute claim is entirely valid. Please note that I do not suppose, and neither do I claim, that Dr. Poplawski was aware of my earlier proposal. On the other hand, he certainly is aware of it now, and I have urged him to acknowledge this in future. Given the widespread media coverage this proposal has recently received and in particular its prominent position in this biographical Wikipedia entry, it is incumbent that the earlier proposal(s) be acknowledged both here and in the media. To intentionally conceal these knowing of their existence would be unethical.

(v) Finally, I would like to point out that I have absolutely no issue with Dr. Poplawski claiming originality for any work he has done that is genuinely original. It is also common courtesy to acknowledge earlier work which one may not originally have been aware of. It is unfortunate then that Dr. Poplawski has wrongly been portrayed in the media as having been the first to propose that the universe may be located in the wormhole of a black hole in an even larger universe, when clearly he was not. Clearly a mistake has been made, and he has an opportunity to correct that mistake. This Wikipedia entry would be a good place to begin.

188.222.170.124 (talk) 01:29, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Sarahman's priority dispute is still invalid: in none of Dr. Poplawski's papers does he claim that the proposal that the universe exists within a black hole is original. Nor does this Wikipedia biography. Nor do the reliable science news sources. However I would not be surprised (and likely nor should Dr. Rahman), if some of the more popular media have overstated the claims made in Dr. Poplawski's articles. But if this is true, then the fault lies with that news source, not with Dr. Poplawski. He should not be attacked because of irresponsible media over which he has no control. Shockhazard (talk) 06:05, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

This Wikipedia certainly does imply that the proposal was originally made by Dr. Poplawski. If you do not believe this, consider this alternative wording, which would be more accurate:

"Nikodem Poplawski (b. 1975) is a theoretical physicist at Indiana University, most widely noted for Sabbir Rahman's proposal that the universe in which the Earth exists may be located within the wormhole of a black hole which itself exists in an even larger universe".

The use of 'his' instead of "Rahman's" or "Pathria's" most certainly does incorrectly imply that the proposal was originally due to Dr. Poplawski. This Wikipedia article, as I mentioned from the outset, is therefore biased, inaccurate and highly misleading. Wikipedia is not a tabloid newspaper, but rather is supposed to be even-handed and balanced, so the first sentence needs to be changed to state what Dr. Poplawski has actually done (i.e. provided a sounder mathematical basis for proposals originally made by others). I really do not understand how, given the above, you can still maintain that the priority dispute is invalid. User 'Adrigon' even went as far as to say that the existence of priority dispute was not even 'relevant'. If that were the case, then the plagiarists would be having a field day.

I do not know what claims Dr. Poplawski may or may not have made to the media, but if they are falsely claiming that the proposal originated with himself, then he has a responsibility to correct those false claims. If he continues to 'ride the media wave' without acknowledging prior research despite knowing of its existence, then he most certainly would be at fault.

Sarahman (talk) 13:01, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

If the article said, "...most widely noted for his original proposal...", or, "...most widely noted for his unique proposal...", then Sarahman might have a case. But the word proposal on its own does not imply original or unique. It simply means that someone has offered an idea for consideration; it does not indicate that the idea has never been proposed before. And because Dr. Poplawski clearly suggested in his paper that the universe might exist in a black hole, he indeed offered it for consideration, and thus proposed it. That is a fact. And therefore, as has already been stated, Sarahman's priority dispute is invalid and, moreover, irrelevant to this biography of Dr. Poplawski.

Shockhazard (talk) 17:53, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I do not know whether you actually believe what you say regarding the semantics of the statement, or whether it is your intention to mislead people into believing that Dr. Poplawski made the original proposal. I reworded the statement to remove the possibility of misinterpretation, and you (or someone else) has now reinstated it, replacing "his" with "the". While this is a little tamer than using "his", it will still give the impression to an unwary reader (i.e. pretty much all readers) that the proposal was originally his.

An accusation is being made that I am trying to be opportunistic and trying to 'blow my own trumpet' as it were, but this is really not the case. The proposal that "the universe may be located in the wormhole of a black hole in an even larger universe" is a very specific one, which was NOT made originally made by Pathria, or by Smolin, or even by Wheeler, but (as far as I am aware) was made originally by ME. That is why I take issue with the implication that Dr. Poplawski made the original proposal. Also, the crossing of particles into the second (time-and-mass-reversed) Kruskal sheet is fundamental to my _derivation_ of classical electrodynamics from classical gravity - this is a far deeper result than simply unifying the two theories.

Whether my paper has been published, or even whether there may be errors in it (I know there were some errors, though probably not the ones which you might imagine) does not affect originality of the proposal. As it happens even Poplawski's work contains a number of errors but this is really not my concern here, as competent researchers will be capable of distinguishing what is valid from what is not from their own perspectives.

While I am happy that the current version includes references to earlier works, I would point out that the relationship between Poplawski's results and Smolin's 'fecund universes' is really quite minimal, and should really not be emphasised in the first paragraph. Smolin, unlike Pathria, myself and even Poplawski himself, claims that when matter falls into a black hole, it enters into a singularity (which the rest of us are claiming does not exist) in the Schwarzschild interior to emerge from another one in a new universe. Poplawski's work, which is not concerned so much with the Schwarzschild interior but with the second Kruskal exterior, is much more closely related and relevant to the work on geometrodynamics by Wheeler and on wormholes by Visser and many others, as it explains the physical process by which a particle can cross (or rather 'bounce off' would perhaps be more accurate) the event horizon into the second exterior sheet. While most authors (including Poplawski) consider the second sheet to belong to either another distinct universe or another part of the same universe (e.g. Wheeler), many other authors including Sakharov, Novikov, Chardin, Petit and myself, believe that the two sheets are superimposed, and that we live in a double-sheeted universe, with the direction of time on one sheet opposite to that on the other. Most physicists simply do not believe in the physical existence of the second sheet, which is why mathematical derivations like Poplawski's are important. But that _still_ does not mean that he (or someone else on his behalf) has the right to claim priority for a proposal that he did not originate himself. I hope that this is clear.

Sarahman (talk) 11:44, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

C. Ernesto S. Lindgren
Note: the following comment was moved here from the top of the discussion page to keep these disputes in chronological order. Shockhazard (talk) 17:05, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

—E-mails have been send to the editor of the Washington Post, the president of Indiana University, the president of the International Society For Geometry and Graphics, professor Theodore J. Branoff, and to its vice-president professor Eduardo Toledo Santos informing that Dr. Nikodem Poplawski‏ so-called theory is not a novel idea and that it has been discussed in several academic papers as far back as 1954. Readers might want to check a paper by C. Ernesto S. Lindgren titled “A MODEL OF A FOUR-DIMENSIONAL ENVIRONMENT” published in the proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Geometry and Graphics that took place in the city of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, in 2006, website http://www.isgg.net. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.220.200.29 (talk) 13:41, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

"If you want to know, what is it like inside a black hole - take a look around". Carl Sagan, 1980. -- A man without a country (talk) 11:40, 1 August 2013 (UTC)