Black holes 'do not exist'

Nature.com ^ | 31 March 2005 | Philip Ball

[webheart]

Oh, pshaw. This guy is trying to get attention. He talks like his alternative is the only answer.

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.

[WKUHilltopper]

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.

[hosepipe]

[ Black holes 'do not exist' ]

Really.?... (bending over)...
SEE...

[Protagoras]

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.

That's what I always thought.

[SJSAMPLE]

"However, as long ago as 1975..."

God, that makes me feel old.

[snarks_when_bored]

Harvard physicist and blogger, Luboš Motl, attended a colloquium talk given by Chapline at Harvard. Motl was underwhelmed:

Motl's take on Chapline's arguments

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

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.

[opinionator]

theory of relativity - the key word here is 'theory'

[dr_lew]

... 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."