Two major puzzles regarding the universe may be two sides of the same coin.

The first puzzle is the birth of the universe some billions of years ago, the so-called Big Bang. The pure thought that this event has happened without any past - that time in the universe has its outspring in a bang - is quite absurd. Just as incomprehensible as the concept of the entire universe being narrowed down to a single point - a space without size. In other words, the physicists seriously follow the assumption that both time and space have been set to zero!

The second puzzle is the presence of black holes that are created when heavy stars collapse. What happens inside a black hole?
Where does the matter go? In short terms astrophysics calculates that all matter is squeezed to a single point and that time terminates.
The consequence being that the content of the black hole simply disappears from the universe!

It does not require much fantasy to link together these two mysterious conditions.

Birth and death, white explosion and black hole. Two sides of the same coin? Certainly some mess will occur in our equations if we let a new universe evolve "on the other side" each time a black hole absorbs matter and extincts itself from the present universe. Too many new universes will turn up - and each of them apparently (?) becomes smaller than the one they escape from.
But it seems scientifically meaningless to control the number of universes - not to mention comparing their sizes.
Even if we assume that our own Big Bang is a result of a black hole in a parallel universe, it is not scientifically possible to gather information about "the other side". Astrophysics can calculate backwards in time - but only until zero.
However, a skilled scentist might calculate the total amount of matter in the present universe and from this make the guess:
"The parent universe is probably even larger than the present". No big deal. Are we short of stars?

Steen Juhler   Comments are welcome: ny@tid.nu