Posted on 04/05/2005 10:43:19 AM PDT by ShadowAce
Black holes are staples of science fiction and many think astronomers have observed them indirectly. But according to a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, these awesome breaches in space-time do not and indeed cannot exist.
Over the past few years, observations of the motions of galaxies have shown that some 70% the Universe seems to be composed of a strange 'dark energy' that is driving the Universe's accelerating expansion.
George Chapline thinks that the collapse of the massive stars, which was long believed to generate black holes, actually leads to the formation of stars that contain dark energy. "It's a near certainty that black holes don't exist," he claims.
Black holes are one of the most celebrated predictions of Einstein's general theory of relativity, which explains gravity as the warping of space-time caused by massive objects. The theory suggests that a sufficiently massive star, when it dies, will collapse under its own gravity to a single point.
But Einstein didn't believe in black holes, Chapline argues. "Unfortunately", he adds, "he couldn't articulate why." At the root of the problem is the other revolutionary theory of twentieth-century physics, which Einstein also helped to formulate: quantum mechanics.
In general relativity, there is no such thing as a 'universal time' that makes clocks tick at the same rate everywhere. Instead, gravity makes clocks run at different rates in different places. But quantum mechanics, which describes physical phenomena at infinitesimally small scales, is meaningful only if time is universal; if not, its equations make no sense.
This problem is particularly pressing at the boundary, or event horizon, of a black hole. To a far-off observer, time seems to stand still here. A spacecraft falling into a black hole would seem, to someone watching it from afar, to be stuck forever at the event horizon, although the astronauts in the spacecraft would feel as if they were continuing to fall. "General relativity predicts that nothing happens at the event horizon," says Chapline.
Quantum transitions
However, as long ago as 1975 quantum physicists argued that strange things do happen at an event horizon: matter governed by quantum laws becomes hypersensitive to slight disturbances. "The result was quickly forgotten," says Chapline, "because it didn't agree with the prediction of general relativity. But actually, it was absolutely correct."
This strange behaviour, he says, is the signature of a 'quantum phase transition' of space-time. Chapline argues that a star doesn't simply collapse to form a black hole; instead, the space-time inside it becomes filled with dark energy and this has some intriguing gravitational effects.
Outside the 'surface' of a dark-energy star, it behaves much like a black hole, producing a strong gravitational tug. But inside, the 'negative' gravity of dark energy may cause matter to bounce back out again.
If the dark-energy star is big enough, Chapline predicts, any electrons bounced out will have been converted to positrons, which then annihilate other electrons in a burst of high-energy radiation. Chapline says that this could explain the radiation observed from the centre of our galaxy, previously interpreted as the signature of a huge black hole.
He also thinks that the Universe could be filled with 'primordial' dark-energy stars. These are formed not by stellar collapse but by fluctuations of space-time itself, like blobs of liquid condensing spontaneously out of a cooling gas. These, he suggests, could be stuff that has the same gravitational effect as normal matter, but cannot be seen: the elusive substance known as dark matter.
I don't know for sure that black holes exist, but if enough mass accumulates in one place, all the electrons will get squished into protons, and you will end up with densely-pack neutrons, kind of like a huge atomic nucleus. As more mass accumulates, you have to wonder whether those neutrons can hold up under all the pressure. I doubt it. So they will get squished even more.
Gravity as a force is such that it is greater when masses are close together, so the smaller the space the mass occupies, the greater the attraction that mass will have upon itself.
I assume that if the mass gets too much for physical neutrons to withstand, somehow they must cease to exist, but the mass does not go away, and so neither does the gravity. Thus we end up with a collapsing mass whose gravity increases as the mass gets smaller.
Of course, that whole thing about time stretching out and speeding up, the collapse could, once it began, be completely finished in a few microseconds, if that. But since the time as we observe it is stretching out, what would be seen from outside would be really really long, maybe even infinite. But that is the essence of what a black hole is. In my humble layman's opinion.
Interesting...but I thought time was manipulated by "speed", not specifically location. Or maybe I've got this "flip flopped". Never had this stuff in "skool" but it's interesting nonetheless.
Really.?... (bending over)...
SEE...
That's what I always thought.
"However, as long ago as 1975..."
God, that makes me feel old.
No problem. Happens to me too.
Matter of fact, the keyword search hasn't been working for me for anything older than 6 months or so.
theory of relativity - the key word here is 'theory'
... but it's a very simple theory. Really! That is the astounding thing. The existence of black holes is predicted by a very simple consideration. ( Did I mention simple? )
The "back pressure" to resist gravitational collapse implies an energy density ( pressure has units of energy/volume ) and if you believe in mass/energy equivalence, this energy density implies an additional mass density, which implies additional gravitational force. There comes a point when the addtional gravitational force due to the "back pressure" overwhelms the backpressure itself, so that collapse must ensue, regardless of the nature of the resistive force.
You can work this out "on the back of an envelope" and derive the Schwarzschild radius "to within a factor of order unity."
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