Posted on 08/02/2004 10:16:56 PM PDT by CarrotAndStick
An Indian theoretical physicist who questioned the existence of black holes and thereby challenged Stephen Hawking of Britain at last feels vindicated. But he is sad.
Abhas Mitra, at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Mumbai, was perhaps the first and the only scientist who had the guts to openly challenge Hawking of Cambridge University who is regarded by many as the modern-day Einstein.
For over 30 years Hawking and his followers were perpetuating the theory that black holes -- resulting from gravitational collapse of massive stars -- destroy everything that falls into them preventing even light or information to escape.
Mitra, four years ago, in a controversial paper in the reputed journal, Foundations of Physics Letters, showed that Hawking's theory was flawed. He proved black holes couldn't exist because their formation and existence flouted Einstein's general theory of relativity.
Except a handful, the majority of mainstream scientists dismissed Mitra's conclusions even though, till now, no scientist has contradicted him in writing. Mitra invited several notable black hole theorists including Hawking and Jayant Narlikar of India to criticise his work but no one replied.
Naturally, Mitra now feels vindicated following Hawking's own admission two weeks ago at a conference in Dublin, Ireland, that there isn't a black hole "in the absolute sense."
In essence, Hawking's "new" black holes never quite become the kind that gobble up everything. Instead, they keep emitting radiation for a long time -- exactly what Mitra showed in his paper.
Hawking's about-turn has vindicated Mitra. But, in retrospect, he feels sad about the treatment he got at home while trying to take on Hawking all by himself.
Too "embarrassed" to be associated with a man who challenged Hawking, even Mitra's close colleagues avoided him and he became an outcast. To add insult to injury, BARC authorities removed Mitra from the theoretical physics division on the excuse that this division was meant only for those doing "strategic research."
"The ironic element in this whole exercise," Mitra told PTI, "is that the person who actually dared to show that there cannot be any black holes was completely ignored both by the academicians and the media."
A black hole is characterised by an imaginary boundary called the "event horizon" that shuts everything within. But in 1976 Hawking introduced quantum mechanics into the problem and claimed that black holes do radiate energy -- although at a low rate -- and ultimately vanish into nothingness.
The vanishing act, however, destroys all the trapped information as well - directly conflicting with the laws of quantum physics that say that information can never be completely wiped out. This is the "information loss paradox" associated with black holes that, in a way, was created by Hawking's own work.
One logical resolution of this paradox would have been to realise that black holes did not exist. But Mitra says that such sweeping, yet logical thinking "was never undertaken by either party involved in this prolonged debate and they kept on debating effectively to make the paradox more popular and perpetuating."
It was then that Mitra published his seminal paper showing that gravitational collapse of massive star can at best produce an "Eternally Collapsing Object" but not an "event horizon" or a black hole in the strict sense. "Since no event horizon is formed, there is no paradox at all in the first place," Mitra argued.
In a subsequent work Mitra showed that the "Eternally Collapsing Objects" that he proposed are actually the massive compact objects now referred to as Black Hole Candidates (BHCs).
Motivated by Mitra's work, American physicists Stanley Robertson and Darryl Leiter have confirmed in 2002 that BHCs have intense magnetic fields as predicted by Mitra and therefore are not real black holes which cannot have magnetic field.
Mitra says that in the light of new developments, "the supposed black holes are not really black holes and it would be intellectual dishonesty to still call them as black holes and keep the debate alive."
Though his own colleagues had sidelined Mitra after his first paper, he is solaced by the encouraging e-mails he had received from several physicists around the world.
One from Salvatore Antoci, University of Padova, Italy, a noted relativist says: "Let me express to you my great joy in seeing your much-disputed paper eventually accepted for publication by Foundations of Physics Letters. Convincing the community of relativists about the mythical nature of black holes will remain a tremendous task, but it is a little less desperate thanks to your success."
Peder Norberg, of the Department of Physics, Durham University, UK, said he carefully read through Mitra's paper and found "that most of the results presented there are more than impressive" while Stanley Robertson, a relativist of South Oklahoma State University, USA said: "On first becoming acquainted with your work, I was dubious, thinking it unlikely that something as profound as belief in the existence of black holes could become erroneously established in the literature. In the meanwhile, I have found no errors in your work. It is fascinating."
The only Indian who praised Mitra's work was relativist Pankaj Joshi of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai.
The BARC scientist recalls the episode in the 1930s when Subramanian Chandrasekhar's work on the upper mass limit of white dwarfs was considered incorrect by celebrated astrophysicists like Sir Arthur Eddington even though no one could precisely point out any error in Chandra's work.
If Black holes truly do not exist, how does one explain the existence of liberal democrats such as Kerry? Information vanishes into this mystery and is forever lost in revisions, indecision, distortion, and envy. Democrats can make the tax payers money vanish without a trace of improvement in any area it's expended on.
Of course the Republicans are doing a fair job themselves of learning that trick, such as ten billion down the African black hole for aids when African leaders have tossed the very possibility that aids exist down their own black hole, and an eventually 34 billion in Social Security to Mexico who can make that vanish down a black hole without an illegal ever seeing a dime of it.
Hawking is no more qualified an authority on theology than I am. However, just because you disagree with his views on religion in no way impacts his abilities as a scientist.
The behavior of the scientists is in this case perfectly appropriate. This fellow Mitra is a deep-fried crackpot whose work is replete with errors of the most trivial kind.
Right off the bat this article hits us with: "He proved black holes couldn't exist because their formation and existence flouted Einstein's general theory of relativity." Never mind that Schwarzschild's paper was the first published solution of the Einstein field equations of general relativity. It was published in 1916, only a year after GR was published.
Later we are hit with: "Motivated by Mitra's work, American physicists Stanley Robertson and Darryl Leiter have confirmed in 2002 that BHCs have intense magnetic fields as predicted by Mitra and therefore are not real black holes which cannot have magnetic field." This sentence is ridiculous for a number of reasons, but it will suffice to point out that the Kerr-Newman solution to the Einstein Field Equations was published in 1965 (rotating, charged black holes must necessarily have intense magnetic fields).
There are plenty more howlers in this article, and if you follow the links AdmSmith posted, you'll see that Mitra's papers are veritable fountains of errors.
It is the shame of FreeRepublic that the rantings of crackpots are routinely posted in lieu of science, and accepted uncritically and to great applause by a certain segment of Freepers, who despite the pride they take in their ignorance of the topic, seem to have a politically motivated need for mainstream science and scientists to be discredited. It really reflects badly on all of us.
Hmm.... Looks like this article (or I) touched a nerve. So, are you saying that all of Mitra works should be discredited and he should be shunned by the scientific community?
The works are discredited by their own errors. As for "shunning", the scientific community is under NO obligation to take anybody seriously. The attention of scientists is something that must be earned. Mitra, far from earning it, has actively destroyed any chance at such attention, because of his trivially erroneous claims.
Besides, if you follow the links AdmSmith provided, you'll see that Mitra has received the attention of some physicists. The results of that attention were not flattering to Mitra, to say the least.
If a maverick historian came along and tried to claim that the Roman Empire never existed, or that the United States of America existed before England did, would academic historians be under any obligation to give attention to his work?
"What's the difference between Pakistan and a pancake? I don't know any pancakes that were nuked by India!
What, too soon?"
Sorry, but I don't see that analogy as quite apt. It seems that Mitra, as wild and inaccurate as his theorizing may have been, did serve to point out an inaccuracy in then-current "belief" by the scientific community.
Not even remotely. Mitra insists that black holes are impossible. Then Hawking changes his opinion on a very subtle theoretical issue regarding black holes--a change which, I might add, had been urged on him for years by Kip Thorne, who by any standard is a mainstream physicist--and Mitra claims vindication? Preposterous.
Now that sounds like fun!
roflmAo!
It's not reputed, it's real enough.
Was this scientist an Objectivist of the Ayn Rand sense of the word? That makes sense because in the Objectivist community, the existence of black holes has been held to be impossible because it was a contradiction.
Nonetheless I predict FR's motley collection of science kooks will be exulting at this further evidence of the closed-mindedness of the scientific establishment
Your outstanding and eloquent plea for reason reminds me why you are my second-favorite Freeper. (Radio Astronomer is my favorite. Sorry).
It really reflects badly on all of us.
The small but annoyingly loud number of pseudoscientists does no service to FR or conservatism in general, and only gives the Left further ammunition. And the person who winds up taking these shots is Jim Rob, who has done prehaps more than anyone to establish a strong and coherent conservative community on the Web. It is through no fault of his own that the pseudoscientists (as well as the homophobes, Muslim-bashers, and other fringe dwellers who masquerade as being part of mainstream conservatism) keep trying to sabotage things.
Well, I'm sure that must depend on what the meaning of "black hole" is. But in any case, I don't find "religious warfare" to be conducive to the practice of science --even when one "odd ball" is ganged upon by those who adhere to oft adjusted "conventional wisdom."
The fact of the matter is that the guy is flat-out wrong, and easily shown to be so. The only things a competent scientist can do is debunk him or ignore him. There's no third option. Which would you prefer? You've complained about both.
Yes, Brother A ... but it isn't just the "scientific community" that acts this way. This seems to be human nature.... (And you may recall what Katherine Hepburn says about "nature" in The African Queen: Nature is what we humans "were put here to rise above" ... or words to that effect).
I think Hawking is a real stand-up guy to make a public correction of a long-standing error regarding a subject that probably is very dear to his heart.... The man has both integrity and guts, and I honor him for it.
Surely you know of cases of both "ganging upon" and shunning. Consider the old practice of tarring, feathering, running out of town on a rail and being told never to come back.
What would I prefer? I would prefer that scientists stick to the scientific process instead of jumping to conclusions and not considering hypotheses which would contradict that which already seems demonstrated by the SP --and as you know, it becomes difficult to claim thoroughgoing "proof." I think Copernicus would have the same preference.
Further, there is no room for ad hominem in the SP.
Good point - props for Hawking. And Hawking probably knows something about being an obvious target for being considered an "excluded other." I'd guess that being handicapped can be good for the putting the workings of human nature into perspective, especially in one's view of humans regards and treatment of others.
Physicist asked me what I prefer as to the deportment of scientists and I answered in post #58.
Stop right there. Nobody has jumped to anything, here. The conclusions come from working through the mathematics. See again the links that AdmSmith provided. Mitra isn't assumed to be wrong, he is demonstrated to be wrong.
and not considering hypotheses which would contradict that which already seems demonstrated by the SP
Physicists do that every day. If scientists only considered current theories and only accepted those data that were in agreement with them, there'd be nothing for a scientist to do, nothing at all. It is the job of the experimentalist to find ways in which current theories fail in the lab. It is the job of the theorist to compose new theories which match the existing data, and predict previously unknown phenomena. If you don't understand that, then just what is it that you think scientists do?
Scientists are not under an obligation to consider hypotheses that contain simple mathematical errors or easily refuted misconceptions. That's what we're talking about here.
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