DailyDirt: Mysterious Black Holes
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
The nature of black holes has been debated for years, as astronomers and physicists are puzzled by how these objects absorb matter/energy without violating agree-upon rules of the universe. Maybe black holes don't exist the way we thought they did? Or perhaps the laws of physics aren't quite right yet? (Or both!) Here are just a few links on these mysterious entities that are thankfully very far away.- Black holes may not be entirely black, as some particles can escape the extreme gravitational pull as Hawking radiation. Black holes might "evaporate" away over time (in about 10^67 years) or they might leave behind some super dark remnants. The ongoing debate about the ultimate fate of a black hole hasn't been resolved just yet. [url]
- Japanese astronomers have recently reported the discovery of three intermediate black hole (IMBH) candidates. Astronomers have previously seen "small" black holes (~10x the mass of the sun) and supermassive black holes (millions/billions of times the mass of our sun), but black holes that are in-between in size are still a bit of a puzzle. [url]
- Stephen Hawking has published a paper saying that black holes have no "event horizon" (the theoretical boundary beyond which nothing can escape the black hole) and proposes an "apparent horizon" which pulls everything in but also leaks some stuff out. Hawking hasn't formalized this assertion, and he says whoever does will have to explain a grand unified theory of everything at the same time. [url]
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Filed Under: apparent horizon, astronomy, astrophysics, black holes, event horizon, gut, hawking radiation, imbh, intermediate black hole, stephen hawking
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Black holes and stuff "in between"...
Needless to say, we know a lot less about this subject than we need in order to help make sense of this crazy universe!
My wife went to Cern a couple of years ago for some meetings about the search for the Higgs Bozon. All I got was a tee-shirt with the Higgs math printed on it... :-)
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Re: Black holes and stuff "in between"...
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Mis-spelling
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Re:
This is incorrect.
"as the gravity gets less, and the mass gets less, at some point gravity will be lower than the speed of light"
I'd love to see the math, please continue.
"it will no longer be a black hole, and everything in it will come out !"
Like some sort of cosmic fart? Is there any evidence of this occurring?
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The problem with Black Holes is
So while time passes for us, it passes so much more slowly the closer to such a gravitational entity. Hence, as far as we are concerned, the collapse of even a single massive body is "The Never Ending Story".
It puzzles me why so many intelligent people believe in such entities. It is like Zeno's Dichotomy paradox in reverse. They use mathematics to prove the existence of such entities in very specific environment and then extrapolate to our universe. Crazy mon.
But then again we do have the conflict between string theorists and and antagonists (Peter Woit and company), where they have taken up their standards of war and fight to the death to show each other wrong.
One day, I can only hope that these intelligent men and women can stop and smell the roses and step back to take a close look at what they are saying and realise that for the time being the universe is huge, we are small and very finite and our understanding the nature of the universe and the world we live on is still very limited and very incomplete. The fun is in exploring and coming up with ways to model what we see to make new things and do new things.
We have really got to get back to seeing that these things are fun.
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The freezing of time
This would have a profound effect on the pressure particles close to a event horizon can exert on particles further out. Fewer photons would exert pressure for the same reason.
It follows that the reduction in the speed of time in the center might be as important as the gravitational pull itself in triggering the collapse.
As the surrounding matter falls towards the center the gravitational well deepens and time gets frozen gradually further from the center.
If nothing can fall through the event horizon, then nothing can escape it either.
This would explain both what triggers the collaps, the release of energy in the supernova, and why black holes are rather dark.
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Re: The problem with Black Holes is
- Gravity is a theoretical force ... so what?
"but cannot exist in our universe"
- Do you allow them to exist in other universes?
"the gravitational field of a black hole is such that light cannot escape"
- Some theories dispute this
"It puzzles me why so many intelligent people believe in such entities."
- Use of the term "believe" is questionable in this realm.
"They use mathematics to prove the existence of such entities in very specific environment and then extrapolate to our universe. Crazy mon. "
- Yeah, those people are so crazy
"fight to the death"
- I doubt that
"One day, I can only hope that these intelligent men and women can stop "
- Why?
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Re: The problem with Black Holes is
I'm still waiting for an explanation of why all these cosmologists are wrong and black holes are impossible.
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Re: Re: The problem with Black Holes is
Simple, No? (reference anyone)
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Re: Re: Re: The problem with Black Holes is
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Re: Re: Re: Re: The problem with Black Holes is
The "reference anyone" was for the "Simple, No?", a sad attempt at humour - reference is for an ad on tv.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The problem with Black Holes is
However, I have not seen any of the proponents give a clear rebuttal to the premise that black holes cannot form in our universe.
Can you link to a clear rebuttal to the premise that they can?
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Which says?
Therefore, anything that they may consider to be a black hole in the universe (including the one they purport existing at the centre of our galaxy) isn't and is some other phenomenon. Which leads to the next question, what is actually there? What assumptions have been made that are incorrect and what alternatives can then be hypothesised?
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Re: Which says?
You state this as though it were fact - it is not.
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Re: Re: Which says?
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Re: Re: Re: Which says?
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Nobody truly knows (for now).
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Re: Nobody truly knows (for now).
Actually they're based mostly on math.
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Re: Re: Nobody truly knows (for now).
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Re: Re: Re: Nobody truly knows (for now).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Nobody truly knows (for now).
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Hawking radiation
Hawking radiation isn't particles escaping from inside the event horizon, just to clarify. It's when a pair of virtual particles forms, which would normally immediately annihilate each other, except that they form on opposite sides of the event horizon. One is sucked in, the other is not.
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Re: Hawking radiation
What the true nature of the universe from sub-atomic to super-galactic is probably even stranger than any model that has been devised by men (or women). Our models are a simplification for our use to provide a workable understanding of the natural world.
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Re: Re: Hawking radiation
Hawking radiation is a prediction based on science that's been proven reliable. It has not been confirmed, but it would be foolish to assert that it could never be.
The are purported to exist because the mathematical model requires them to being mathematically consistent. There is no actual requirement for them to actually exist.
There's no requirement for anything to exist. But some things do.
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Re: Re: Re: Hawking radiation
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Hawking radiation
Yes, your completely unsubstantiated statements still stand as an expression of your opinion.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hawking radiation
It just doesn't matter...
It just doesn't matter...
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