Black Holes are not actually "holes".

Black Holes are not actually "holes".

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einsign

Original Poster:

5,494 posts

247 months

Tuesday 8th January 2013
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Black holes formed by stars etc gathering matter and eventually having so much mass that light cannot escape, fair enough but this does not make it a "hole".

Why are they not called Black Stars?


Eric Mc

122,043 posts

266 months

Tuesday 8th January 2013
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Because they aren'really black - or stars.

Gene Vincent

4,002 posts

159 months

Wednesday 9th January 2013
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They are called correctly 'Black Hole Stars' they are usually a sphere the same diameter of Paris, ie very damned small, hot and dense (like the Napolean?) but they have a huge influence on the surrounding Cosmos and that is the 'Black Hole' that surrounds it and that's huge and light can't get out, so you have an event horizon, the point at which the light can't, this is odd and is really the only item we can study as we can get any information at all out of 'Paris' (bureaucracy eh!) so we use the term Black Hole.

We only study Black Hole Stars by the proxy of Maths, it works to a surprising degree of accuracy, accurate enough to even compensate for a tiny amount of evaporation through radiation in the final check sum.

We have a damned fine handle on them, they are odd but not even vaguely mysterious.

The Black Hole Star is a Gravitational Singularity but not a 'Singularity' without the prior clause as that term is reserved for the point from which this Cosmos came into being.

Somewhere in the Milky Way (not the confection) there is a big one or more likely one massive one and a tiny one and their death dance around each other has some additional impetus to the rotation of our Galaxy that we call the Milky Way.

I'm suddenly overwhelmed with the craving for sweet confections... odd world eh!

Edited by Gene Vincent on Wednesday 9th January 00:52

Laplace

1,090 posts

183 months

Wednesday 9th January 2013
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Is it not more accurate to measure a black hole by it's event horizon rather than imply they're the size of paris or there abouts?

As the event horizon is directly proportional to its mass you have black holes which vary in size massively from say a few miles across to larger than our solar system and no doubt beyond.

Eric Mc

122,043 posts

266 months

Wednesday 9th January 2013
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I've often heard Paris referred to as a Black Hole.

ewenm

28,506 posts

246 months

Wednesday 9th January 2013
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Eric Mc said:
I've often heard Paris referred to as a Black Hole.
Missing out on a lovely opportunity to reference Calcutta (as was) though.

Eric Mc

122,043 posts

266 months

Wednesday 9th January 2013
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Calcutta is probably a Supermassive Black Hole.

ewenm

28,506 posts

246 months

Wednesday 9th January 2013
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Something to Muse on...

einsign

Original Poster:

5,494 posts

247 months

Wednesday 9th January 2013
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Ok thanks GV, so its really about the distance/size of the event horizon because there is still a lump of "stuff" in the middle (squashed to the size of Paris?). Therefore its still not a "hole".

ewenm

28,506 posts

246 months

Wednesday 9th January 2013
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I'd have thought the term "hole" for something that matter (and light) can fall into and not escape from (excluding evaporation) is a fairly good laymans description.

The Black Flash

13,735 posts

199 months

Wednesday 9th January 2013
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ewenm said:
Something to Muse on...
hehe Nice!

Gene Vincent

4,002 posts

159 months

Wednesday 9th January 2013
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The word 'Hole'...

When we make a hole, because humans have to make sense of the world they live in we think of it as 3 dimensional construct.

But the reality is that any 'hole' we humans, or any other animal for that matter, makes is a hole in just 2 dimensions which has a third dimension which is not a hole added to it. Because inside a normal hole it is only a hole in on direction, up.

In space a hole has to have existence in all three dimensions and that was quite difficult for us to conceive having formed, until we grasped the entire Black Hole phenomenon.

Jinx

11,391 posts

261 months

Wednesday 9th January 2013
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Given as we are all happy with the terminology of a Gravity well for objects in space - maybe a black well would be a better term.......

hornet

6,333 posts

251 months

Thursday 10th January 2013
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I'm sure this is an oft-asked question, but it's also fascinated me...

If you could observe someone approaching and then crossing the event horizon of a black hole, what would you see? At the point of crossing, the light from them can no longer reach you, so do you see them pop out of existence, slowly fade out as fewer of their photons reach you, or would their image freeze in time?

Also, and I suspect the is just for Gene, isn't there something odd about the relationship between a black hole and the event horizon in terms of how you measure how much information it can store? Relates to the surface area rather than the volume?

Gene Vincent

4,002 posts

159 months

Thursday 10th January 2013
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hornet said:
I'm sure this is an oft-asked question, but it's also fascinated me...

If you could observe someone approaching and then crossing the event horizon of a black hole, what would you see? At the point of crossing, the light from them can no longer reach you, so do you see them pop out of existence, slowly fade out as fewer of their photons reach you, or would their image freeze in time?

Also, and I suspect the is just for Gene, isn't there something odd about the relationship between a black hole and the event horizon in terms of how you measure how much information it can store? Relates to the surface area rather than the volume?
In simple terms they blink out of existence to you the observer from a safe distance.

The person who was in that spaceship would notice nothing except an ever receding from him event horizon, for him he never sees himself enter it then without any warning he'd arrive at the Gravitational Singularity and are crushed to death about 5km above its surface.

A Black Hole is defined in extent by the event horizon, they are not separate, the latter is simply the manner by which we define the Black Hole.

But a gravitational singularity is an infinite absorber of light and any information it might be able to convey, it will grow is size not by absorbing light (although it does a little, following the Reissner-Nordstrom research) but by acquiring further mass, for example if your space craft fell into and finally was crushed and added to the mass of the Black Hole Star then at the same time the event Horizon would expand marginally.

AshVX220

5,929 posts

191 months

Thursday 10th January 2013
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Gene, doesn't the stuff getting sucked into a Black Hole, become part of that central object? If so, surely it should always be increasing in size as matter and mass are added, with the potential to become "all consuming"?

TheHeretic

73,668 posts

256 months

Thursday 10th January 2013
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AshVX220 said:
Gene, doesn't the stuff getting sucked into a Black Hole, become part of that central object? If so, surely it should always be increasing in size as matter and mass are added, with the potential to become "all consuming"?
According to Hawking Radiation, a black hole will emit particles as well as draw them in. No idea how much, just something I heard someone talk about a while ago.

annodomini2

6,862 posts

252 months

Thursday 10th January 2013
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TheHeretic said:
AshVX220 said:
Gene, doesn't the stuff getting sucked into a Black Hole, become part of that central object? If so, surely it should always be increasing in size as matter and mass are added, with the potential to become "all consuming"?
According to Hawking Radiation, a black hole will emit particles as well as draw them in. No idea how much, just something I heard someone talk about a while ago.
Eventually, depending on the relative perspective.

TheHeretic

73,668 posts

256 months

Thursday 10th January 2013
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annodomini2 said:
Eventually, depending on the relative perspective.
Hey, I only heard about it, my knowledge if it ends there.

Derek Smith

45,673 posts

249 months

Thursday 10th January 2013
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An object pulled into the black hole, invisible well, whatever, will speed up to almost the speed of light when crossing the event horizon, slowing objective time to a crawl, the nearer the EH the slower they will go.

If black holes/wells . . . will eventually fall apart then those who are pulled into the black hole will be travelling in time to getting on for the end of the universe and the great restaurant there.

All this according to Poul and Gateway so it might not necessarily be spot on according to current theories but that's the thing with all scientific theories: they are only spot on, 100% correct, for a short time.