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Black Holes Disputed

Posted by michael on from the assuming-the-theory-holds dept.

JScarpace writes: "Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and at the University of South Carolina in Columbia have proposed the existence of "gravastars" which are bubbles of superdense matter. If they are correct, the idea of a black hole with a singularity at the center may be just a fantasy."

2 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. Need to shine a little experimental light. by ArcSecond · · Score: 4, Interesting
    All this sounds a bit like philosophers arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Unfortunately, the lack of an empirical solution (just go an look at one) is holding us back from really nailing down the true nature of "black holes".

    What I do find interesting is that this gravastar model, like the black hole model, implies that the universe and black holes/gravastars are similar in nature: that they belong to the same class of objects. It is a wonderful puzzle to look into a black hole wondering "what's IN there", when the answer might be something that has qualities similar to the life-cycle of our own cosmos.

    Until we get some solid predictions about ways to differentiate one from the other, this is going to be a purely theoretical debate. Hopefully someone can advance the debate into the experimental realm soon. Maybe the new gravitational observatories can "shed some light" on this shadowy subject. ;)

    --

    I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.

  2. Re:no singularity... by (void*) · · Score: 4, Interesting
    When I posed this question to one of my physics professors at Caltech back in my student days, he came up with nothing better than that, either.
    That in fact is a very good explanation for what is going on.

    The "escape velocity" explanation is basically expressing an energy requirement. It is not insightful, like the light cone explanation becuase the light cone (when visuallized) shows you exactly which trajectories are possible. They all head towards the blackhole. The whole idea is that you cannot overtake the speed of light.

    So why is the answer not satisfying? Being a physics TA, I have to understand the misunderstandings of students. It would be very helpful to me to understand why the answer is not satisfying.