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HOWTO-Escape-Black-Hole

Posted by michael on from the keep-this-handy-just-in-case dept.

Adam writes: "Below is a new HOWTO on escaping black hole, soon to be on linuxdoc.org ...Well, mabye not quite literally, still interesting. HOWTO-escape-bl ack-holes." Hmmm. Well, it's matter escaping from the accretion disk, which by definition is not inside the event horizon yet, so it's nothing really radical, but the producers of Star Trek-like shows can keep this handy for cheesy dialog on next season's shows. "Captain, we are activating the ion ray chambers to ride the supersonic winds out of the black hole!"

3 of 16 comments (clear)

  1. Curious... by AtomicClock · · Score: 2

    The article refers to "supersonic" speeds, but in the pseudo-vacuum accretion disk of a black hole, what exactly is the speed of sound?

    1. Re:Curious... by EricWright · · Score: 2

      There is no such thing as a true vacuum. The speed of sound (anywhere) is sqrt(\gamma P / \rho), where gamma is the ratio of specific heats, 5/3 for an ideal gas, P is the local gas pressure which can be estimated from the ideal gas law, and \rho is the local mass density.

      Eric

  2. HOWTOs, documentation, and monkeys by LNO · · Score: 4
    Posting this on linuxdoc.org is all fine and good, but what good will that do you when you're inside a black hole, eh? We should propose to Congress that this HOWTO be posted inside every black hole that a child could conceivably find.

    Won't somebody please think of the children?