Slashdot Mirror
More Blackholes Discovered...
Lispy writes "Space.com has this story about the surprising finding of missing blackholes. There might be up to five times more blackholes in space than previously estimated.
"The European Southern Observatory in Munich, Germany reports that the black holes were all in "active" galaxies, meaning they were actively consuming large quantities of galactic matter.""
Black holes play hide and seek? I never saw that one coming.
"At the beginning there was
nothing but a big ball of
gases.
For a long time it just sat there
in the nothingness, getting hotter
and hotter.
Then it exploded."
Any thought you've ever had has already be
What if there are black holes being formed constantly, appearing in pen space even WITHOUT there having been a star there?
The universe could be collapsing, with black holes appearing faster and faster, exponentially more and more of them.
Well, I for one welcome our new black hole overlords.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Although some say that these black holes account for the "missing matter" that is needed for the universe to gravitationally collapse upon itself some hundreds of billions of years in the future, current analysis shows that the mass of all black holes are less than one trillionth of the mass of the universe.
Even if there are a thousand more times the number of black holes out there, it still won't account for the so-called "missing mass".
Of course, there could be many million times more black holes out there. Or some other large masses that we have yet to find. In any case, this 2-to-5 times the number of black holes isn't the (possible) mass we're looking for.
Does this make the theory of a "big crunch" any more likely than before? I'm guessing not.
The theory which I understood to be most prominent at present was one of an accelerating, expanding galaxy. Eventually, all galaxies would be moving away from one another so swiftly it would be impossible to see one galaxy from another. Every galaxy would sputter and die in a universe its inhabitants would perceive as utterly empty.
Does the discovery that black holes are more prominent than before just mean that the pace of destruction of said galaxies will only be any different? Or does it do anything to reverse the present theory? It's possible there's no change at all. Any galaxies like this that were seen (in the article) were behaving that way billions of years ago. Who knows what's going on now.
Also, I wonder what could trigger the Milky Way's black hole into an "active" state. Heck, it may already have happened, but it would take about 50,000 years for us to see it.
How can someone be surprised by this find? What we know about the universe is virtually nothing in comparison to what is out there.
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
I think once you brought it home, problems like that would solve themselves.
Occam's Razor
"Occam's razor is a logical principle attributed to the mediaeval philosopher William of Occam (or Ockham). The principle states that one should not make more assumptions than the minimum needed. This principle is often called the principle of parsimony. It underlies all scientific modelling and theory building. It admonishes us to choose from a set of otherwise equivalent models of a given phenomenon the simplest one. In any given model, Occam's razor helps us to "shave off" those concepts, variables or constructs that are not really needed to explain the phenomenon. By doing that, developing the model will become much easier, and there is less chance of introducing inconsistencies, ambiguities and redundancies."
Don't make things more difficult then they have to be. Black holes are the simplest explanation. Anti-matter and anti-gravity is a more complex explanation than what is possibly needed.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
With all due respect to sir Occam, the solution which appears to be the simplest is not always the simplest, simply because there is so much we don't know. Especially about black holes, missing matter, unified field theory and such fundamental questions.
:-)
I mean, a proton was such a lovely, simple thing, before they went ahead and turned it into a gazzilion complicated nonsensical sub-particles
father physics and mother natures way of recycling or ....
there is only so much space so every now and then things need to be archived compressed....or..
astronomy is like the computer industry... where the user/observer can never get there from here... there is always something missing....or...
we still don't know what gravity really is.... or... maybe MS has the answer... make people need you... again and again and again.....
And on that note.... I have a few black holes up for sale.... they contain everything you need and want... and as soon as we figure out gravity then we can unpack them...
Since the more usually accepted theory fails to account for certain phenomena (where is all that mass?), it is conceivable that a more complex theory is required instead.
Anyway, I'll go back to pretending I'm a software engineer now ;-)
time passes
Well, the thing about grit is, it's black...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Black holes are known to multiply - especially in spring, which is probably why we're seeing them now.
Occam's Razor (...) Don't make things more difficult then they have to be. Black holes are the simplest explanation
With all due respect to the advantages that Occam's Razor has given to the advance of science, this was exactly the key factor that made the leading scientist of late XVIII century like Antoine Lavoisier to judge that stones cannot fall from the sky. In 1768, 1794 and 1795 there were substantial sightings of meteorite showers in France, Italy and England - yet according to the Occam's Razor, it was easier to explain them by assuming the witnesses just lie. Use Occam's Razor as any razor - with extreme caution.
RTFA:
Depends on the language:
Basic: blackhole%
Fortran: BLACKHOL
Pascal: BlackHole
C: black_hole
Java: blackHole
Hungarian Notation: lpzBlackHole (a long pointer which terminates in null)
There is a possibility of "antimatter" with antigravity property.
FYI, in English (since you reference a French site), "antimatter" is charge-reversed matter. It still has positive mass and therefore, standard positive gravity.
You're looking for word(/phrase) "negative mass".
Note that negative mass emits a negative gravity field and therefore repulses everything, though; based on your haphazard explanation it's not clear if you're trying to claim negative mass would emit a gravitational field that attracts other negative mass.
That's just a nomenclature point. Here's a criticism: Every theory I've ever seen like that focuses in on how their exotic theory could explain something, but then completely fails to draw out the rest of the conclusions of that exotic matter. For instance, see the discussion on Exotic Matter in Wikipedia. Negative mass may explain some things, but it would also produce a boatload of other effects which we haven't seen.
Dark energy, in my mind, remains a better theory.
this is all just to outline
the real question. would i every reach the event
horizon, befor the univers came to an end?
Yes. You are only frozen at the event horizon from the point of view of someone distant from the black hole. Also, you are only frozen there for a short while in practice. The light by which they could see you would be red shifted by gravity until pretty soon you are invisible.
From your point of view, you fall in in finite time.
Remember, relativity does not guarantee synchronicity. A black hole produces the ultimate split in synchroncity: From the point of view of an outsider, you don't fall in. From your point of view, you do. The paradox is resolved because even for the outsider, you become invisible and undetectable except as a mass increase in the black hole.
Whoops, whack my third paragraph. Wikipedia says it all better and probably more accurately.