The sure answer is we don’t know either way and we can’t. However, the laws of physics completely break down inside a black hole as all matter is crushed to oblivion. So, it is highly unlikely that we are in one, we probably wouldn’t be here if we were! However, some speculate that black holes are actually holes in space-time connecting separate universes. This is entirely speculative, but if it were true it would mean our entire universe is connected to another through a black hole and in some sense therefore we are “in” a black hole. This is not mainstream thought however.
Hi Ropst, Ownes and Mcnam – this question is one of a number that scientists have asked. Before we knew about black holes, people asked “Could we be just one atom in someone else’s universe”. As Sara says, the laws of physics break down in the black hole, in the same way that different physical forces have different relative strengths if we were the size of an atom.
What if our whole universe was some special part of a universe with _different_ physical laws though? That is generally considered a bit of a way out idea, and there is no real way to test it.
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