2012 - What does it mean to you?

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by popcorninthesofa

Last Nov. 3, www.bbc.co.uk aired a documentary on the subject of black holes. In the search of Black Holes they found something that is the building block of existence, and a subject that keeps the balance in the Universe. They said this discovery has frightened scientists as they can't make sense of it. They have found something which cannot be seen, it is so small yet it's mass equals infinity. It's where time stops and there is no Space. This is where physics fails. This is where the Universe came from and is at the centre of each black hole. It cannot be seen, but will give traces of light. There are millions of it, and I'm sure science will discover it is closer to home then they think. Science has given this place where infinite Gravity and Infinite Density exists the name "Singularity." This "Singularity" is something they cannot explain as the equations make this equal Infinity. Theory of Relativity is thrown out the window, and when they use Quatum Mechanics it gets even worse as this equals Infinity x Infinity. Astrologically, there will be an alignment, but we cannot say for certain what will occur.

Okay, a bit of clarification. A singularity is a mathematical construction to describe the center of a black hole. It doesn't terrify scientists it is interesting. The issue with the interior of a black hole is that you need two different, mutually exclusive models, to deal with it. Those two models are quantum mechanics (which deals with very small objects as discussed above) and general relativity. The problem with this is that the two theories do *not* agree and when you try to use them both, you get nonsensical answers (infinity). There are several prospects on the table to deal with this situation, string theory is one (although it may not pan out) and loop quantum gravity is another. Both are altogether too arcane and technical for me to delve into here.

The singularity as the beginning of the Universe is not used anymore. It is an artifact of cosmology that includes general relativity but not quantum mechanics. If you 'roll the tape backwards' to the beginning of the Universe without incorporating quantum mechanics you end up with an infinitely dense mass in an infinitely small space (a singularity). However, later developments in cosmology that *do* incorporate quantum mechanics eliminate the need for a singularity and no one in cosmology uses it any longer.

Singularities do *not* keep the balance of the Universe because the Universe is not in balance. Dark matter and dark energy (whatever they are) are *far* more important at explaining the expansion of the Universe (and thus its topology) than black holes or singularities.

Actually if there were a black hole in our immediate neighborhood, we would detect it. They are NOT subtle objects. Black holes have a number of very noticeable effects if they are in the neighborhood of other objects so it would NOT sneak up on us. Our sun lacks the mass to become a black hole by a couple of orders of magnitude. The nearest black hole to us is the SMBH at the center of the galaxy and that is 30,000 light years away (that's 17,634,641,716,300,000 miles away!).

There are millions of black holes, in fact all the spiral galaxies appear to have supermassive black holes at the center of them but they are ALL very far away from us.

To say that black holes terrify scientists because we don't fully understand the physics of them is an insult to scientists. It is that lack of understanding that creates interesting scientific work. The only reason it would terrify them if, for some reason, we found one in our immediate (solar) neighborhood but there isn't one and there isn't anything near (within a few hundred light years) massive enough to create one.


Cheers
Aj