Black Holes Don't Exist?

An Anonymous Coward sends this link about a physicist who is trying to prove that black holes can't exist. It'll be a shame if he succeeds; this would eliminate one major plot element that sci-fi writers have been able to rely upon for years.

Comments

Another argument + HyperDrive idea( /. patented )

[RedLaggedTeut]

Not sure that this is one of his arguments, but I always wondered whether space time would't bend faster ( slowing down time ) in the presence of more gravity such that you could never observe a black hole from the outside, only matter that comes closer and closer to the event horizon, never quite reaching it.

Same thing as for the astronauts twins .. (http://www.phys.virginia.edu/classes/252/srel_twi ns.html) the astronaut will not age at all when hitting the schwarzchild radius, so a black hole would be perfect if it existed .. And rate of slowdown of time is sqrt(1-v/c) .. which is the same effect that prevents matters from reaching light speed.

Interestingly, this effect seems to be like the doppler effect for sound waves. Continue thinking along that line, that would mean you can't go past light speed because that would mean breaking invisible links that existed between matter.

Continuing that thought, you might be able to go above light speed if you could make yourself completely invisible from all or most forces and other emissions, like light waves.

No idea how you could do that - so its just replacing one riddle by one that isn't much easier.

Now to continue daydreaming, that would also explain what happened at the philadelphia experiment - the ship cloaked, someone sneezed, and they ended up somewhere else - most likely in outer space.

I should end this with a REALLY funny note, but I got none.