Originally posted by sonhouse What would constitute proof would be sending a probe to orbit one of them, the probe being in an orbit that allows the thing to survive and able to then conduct experiments like shoveling matter to spiral in and watching the proceedings, it would be that kind of thing that would settle the issue. Till then it's all theory, or conjecture.
I don't think we need a probe in orbit. All we need is to find a real life black hole and spot some signature properties in its behavior. It might even be possible with a black hole on the other side of the galaxy or even in another galaxy.
Originally posted by twhitehead I don't think we need a probe in orbit. All we need is to find a real life black hole and spot some signature properties in its behavior. It might even be possible with a black hole on the other side of the galaxy or even in another galaxy.
I think that has already been done, don't know if that qualifies as proof though.
Originally posted by USArmyParatrooper Is it excepted as proven fact that they exist? How about that they are created by dying stars?
From what I understand, implosion of a dying star (that runs out of nuclear fuel) to a black hole is compulsory for stars of a certain mass and greater. So, whether any have actually been seen or recorded does not really matter. At least according to Kip Thorne and Michio Kaku (and I think I remember something from Hawking as well to this effect), black holes must exist somewhere in the Universe.
Originally posted by zeeblebot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole#Observational_evidence
...
Contents
4 Observational evidence
* 4.1 Accretion of matter
* 4.2 X-ray binaries
o 4.2.1 Quiescence and advection-dominated accretion flow
o 4.2.2 Quasi-periodic oscillations
* 4.3 Gamma ray bursts
* 4.4 Galactic nuclei
* 4.5 Gravita ...[text shortened]... There are several candidates for such an observation in orbit around Sagittarius A*.[99]
...
"The deformation of spacetime around a massive object causes light rays to be deflected much like light passing through an optic lens. This phenomenon is known as gravitational lensing. Observations have been made of weak gravitational lensing, in which photons are deflected by only a few arcseconds. However, it has never been directly observed for a black hole.[99] One possibility for observing gravitational lensing by a black hole would be to observe stars in orbit around the black hole. There are several candidates for such an observation in orbit around Sagittarius A*.[99] "
Originally posted by zeeblebot "The deformation of spacetime around a massive object causes light rays to be deflected much like light passing through an optic lens. This phenomenon is known as gravitational lensing. Observations have been made of weak gravitational lensing, in which photons are deflected by only a few arcseconds. However, it has never been directly observed for a black ...[text shortened]... le. There are several candidates for such an observation in orbit around Sagittarius A*.[99] "
Originally posted by sh76 From what I understand, implosion of a dying star (that runs out of nuclear fuel) to a black hole is compulsory for stars of a certain mass and greater. So, whether any have actually been seen or recorded does not really matter. At least according to Kip Thorne and Michio Kaku (and I think I remember something from Hawking as well to this effect), black holes must exist somewhere in the Universe.
The current science says black holes must exist. The question is whether or not we have actually observed them and confirmed that we have got that bit of the science right.
Black holes depend on some extremes in relativity, and we have found in the past, that when you take things to extremes, unexpected phenomena may emerge.
Originally posted by sonhouse Einstein rings are proof that space-time is malleable. That's all. A big step in the realization that at the end of the road of such space-time bending is the ultimate one, black holes. That's why those rings are a big arrow pointing to at least the possibility that black holes can be real. What would constitute proof would be sending a probe to orbit one o ...[text shortened]... , a proton-antiproton beam collision. The LHC may be powerful enough to do that. News at 11.
Black holes can also theoretically do computation.
The bit-computation and bit-depth per mass in the formation and vaporization of a Black Hole is many orders of magnitude beyond anything achievable with classical transistors (assuming even a very generous fundamental limit in that regard).
I sometimes think about a possible future in which CPU's are composed of arrays of miniature black holes blinking in and out of existence and leaving as their signature a noticeable increase to the overall information entropy of the universe. (in other words doing a hefty amount of computation)
Originally posted by sharpnova Black holes can also theoretically do computation.
The bit-computation and bit-depth per mass in the formation and vaporization of a Black Hole is many orders of magnitude beyond anything achievable with classical transistors (assuming even a very generous fundamental limit in that regard).
I sometimes think about a possible future in which CPU's are ...[text shortened]... erall information entropy of the universe. (in other words doing a hefty amount of computation)
There would have to be a hell of an I/O going there though, eh. How would you encode it anyway?
The matter is the input, the distorted matter is the output.
The output actually isn't hard to parse.
Encoding the input is difficult. Incredibly difficult.
But the bottom line is theoretically bit-wise computation is denser through a black hole and popping out the other end than any matter-transistor process, assuming even generous fundamental limits in that regard.
Originally posted by sharpnova The matter is the input, the distorted matter is the output.
The output actually isn't hard to parse.
Encoding the input is difficult. Incredibly difficult.
But the bottom line is theoretically bit-wise computation is denser through a black hole and popping out the other end than any matter-transistor process, assuming even generous fundamental limits in that regard.
What about the ' Popping out at the other end' part of it? Black holes are for the most part cockroach hotels, you check in but you don't check out, Hawking evaporation aside. I would think Hawking leak would be the only way we could get info out of a BH, which would put a severe limit on the actual computation rate, since such radiation is such a minority of the energy leaving the vicinity of a BH. There would be massive amounts of energy coming from friction forces and the like of stuff in constantly smaller orbiting material, Xrays up the kazoo. So clearly such matter would have to be totally eliminated so you wouldn't swamp the much smaller Hawking leak ampltitude.
So I see the possibility of entangled particles being the bits, entering the BH event horizon, one checks in the other checks out, so you could tag each bit of info. Make sense?
Originally posted by sonhouse What about the ' Popping out at the other end' part of it? Black holes are for the most part cockroach hotels, you check in but you don't check out, Hawking evaporation aside.
I believe that miniature black holes evaporate due to Hawking radiation very quickly, so don't discount it too easily. Apparently the smaller they get the faster they evaporate, though I couldn't find any actual figures. Does anyone know how long a 1g black hole should last?
As with all black hole science, there is no actual observational evidence of Hawking radiation as yet.
Originally posted by twhitehead I believe that miniature black holes evaporate due to Hawking radiation very quickly, so don't discount it too easily. Apparently the smaller they get the faster they evaporate, though I couldn't find any actual figures. Does anyone know how long a 1g black hole should last?
As with all black hole science, there is no actual observational evidence of Hawking radiation as yet.
I think the ones purported to be possible at the LHC are much less than one gram and they are talking about nanoseconds or so, maybe even microseconds so a one gram version wouldn't last much longer, I'm guessing less than a millisecond. But one gram of matter meeting one gram of antimatter would be really really violent and that would be the same order of explosion (theoretically speaking) if a one gram BH blew up. I would not want to be within a thousand Km of such an event.
I think the figures for one Kg of matter completely converted was to run a 100 watt bulb for 30 million years or a 30 million watt bulb for 100 years so one gram would do a 100 watt bulb for 30,000 years or 30,000 watts for 100 years, so on year being about 30 million seconds give or take, 100 years is about 3 billion seconds times 30,000 and you end up with something like 30 trillion joules of energy going off in microseconds.... Not something I would like to be on the same planet with much less a thousand Km away🙂
Question about Black Holes
31 Aug '10 06:15
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