Free Republic

Stephen Hawking has shocked physicists by admitting “there are no black holes”. In a paper published online, Professor Hawking instead argues there are “grey holes”. “The absence of event horizons means that there are no black holes—in the sense of regimes from which light can't escape to infinity,” he says in the paper, called Information Preservation and Weather Forecasting For Black Holes.He says that the idea of an event horizon, from which light cannot escape, is flawed. He suggests that instead light rays attempting to rush away from the black hole’s core will be held as though stuck on a...

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...

... Well, even 90 years isn't enough, it seems, so right now, we are entering new waters – the denial of some basic results of general relativity, our modern theory of gravity that has been around and available to everyone since 1916. So in the last week, hundreds of publications informed their readers that it's been "mathematically proven" that the big bang theory is wrong and the black holes don't exist. These nutty claims boil down to some papers by a crackpot named Ms Laura Mersini-Houghton (no, I really, really won't accept her doctorate) who had previously claimed that she...

The current thinking regarding black holes is that they have two very simple parts, an event horizon and a singularity. Because a probe cannot be sent inside a black hole to see what is truly going on, researchers have to rely on theories. The singularity theory suffers from what has come to be known as the "information paradox"—black holes appear to destroy information, which would seem to violate the rules of general relativity, because they follow rules of quantum mechanics instead. This paradox has left deep thinking physicists such as Stephen Hawking uneasy—so much so that he and others have...

Scientists use quantum gravity to describe the universe before the Big Bang.Scientists may finally have an answer to a "big" question: If the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe, what could have caused it to happen? Using a theory called "loop quantum gravity," a group led by Penn State professor Abhay Ashtekar has shown that just before the Big Bang occurred, another universe very similar to ours may have been contracting. According to the group's findings, this previous universe eventually became so dense that a normally negligible repulsive component of the gravitational force overpowered the attractive component, causing...

You can breathe a sigh of relief: the Universe will last for at least the next 24 billion years, according to astrophysicists who have modelled the mysterious force of dark energy to work out the fate of the cosmos. Andrei Linde, a theoretical astrophysicist from Stanford University, California, leads a team who previously predicted that the Universe might end as soon as 11 billion years from now1. But the team's latest research into dark energy, published online at the preprint server arXiv2, gives us a stay of execution. The team's new calculation relies on recent observations from the Hubble Space...

MARINA DEL REY, Calif., Feb. 20 — A dark unseen energy is steadily pushing the universe apart, just as Einstein predicted, suggesting the universe may have a more peaceful end than recent theories envision, according to striking new measurements of distant exploding stars by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. The energy, whose source remains unknown, was named the cosmological constant by Einstein. In a prediction in 1917 that he later called "my greatest blunder," Einstein posited a kind of antigravity force that was pushing galaxies apart with a strength that did not change over billions of years of cosmic history....

Professor Hawking, we have a problem. Nasa, the American space agency, is expected to announce this week that it has proved the existence of "dark energy", a cosmic force that counteracts gravity and will keep the universe expanding forever. The announcement will effectively demolish the theory that life will be wiped out in a "Big Crunch" when the universe collapses, and should end decades of academic dispute over the forces at work on the universe. In the past, scientists ranging from Prof Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge University physicist, to Albert Einstein, have argued that the universe eventually will stop expanding...

Space might end up dark, thick and boring. The Universe is not as bouncy as some think, say two physicists. If a Big Crunch follows the Big Bang, it may get stuck that way for ever1. A fluid of black holes would bung up space. There would be nothing to drive another Big Bang, and nowhere else to go. The Universe would be, you might say, stuffed. In a bouncing universe, all the matter currently flying apart slows until it reverses and falls towards a Big Crunch. Some physicists think this could ignite another Big Bang, in an unending sequence...

Universe might yet collapse in 'big crunch' 11:08 06 September 02 Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition The Universe might yet collapse in a devastating "big crunch". Physicists have shown that even though its growth is speeding up, it could still start to implode by the time it is only twice its current age. The Universe looks as if it will last forever, but we shouldn't jump to conclusions (Photo: SPL) "A few years ago, nobody would even think seriously about the end of the world within the next 10 to 20 billion years, especially since we learned that the...