Slashdot Mirror
Supermassive Black Hole At the Centre of Galaxy May Be Wormhole In Disguise
KentuckyFC (1144503) writes "There is growing evidence that the center of the Milky Way contains a mysterious object some 4 million times more massive than the Sun. Many astronomers believe that this object, called Sagittarius A*, is a supermassive black hole that was crucial in the galaxy's birth and formation. The thinking is that about 100 million years after the Big Bang, this supermassive object attracted the gas and dust that eventually became the Milky Way. But there is a problem with this theory--100 million years is not long enough for a black hole to grow so big. The alternative explanation is that Sagittarius A* is a wormhole that connects the Milky Way to another region of the universe or even a another multiverse. Cosmologists have long known that wormholes could have formed in the instants after the Big Bang and that these objects would have been preserved during inflation to appear today as supermassive objects hidden behind an event horizon, like black holes. It's easy to imagine that it would be impossible to tell these objects apart. But astronomers have now worked out that wormholes are smaller than black holes and so bend light from an object orbiting close to them, such as a plasma cloud, in a unique way that reveals their presence. They've even simulated what such a wormhole will look like. No telescope is yet capable of resolving images like these but that is set to change too. An infrared instrument called GRAVITY is currently being prepared for the Very Large Telescope Interferometer in Chile and should be in a position to spot the signature of a wormhole, if it is there, in the next few years."
I just wish he'd stop asking me for starships.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Lies.
Everyone knows you can only keep a wormhole open for 38 minutes.
But.. what would God need with a Starship?
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Everybody who's seen Star Trek V knows this. We also know Spock kills God with a phaser, in accordance with the prophecies of the ancients. Then, Kirk will explain to a Romulan and a Klingon how maybe God wasn't out there anywhere at all, maybe he's right here (beats his own chest), "In the Human heart." And the Romulan and Klingon nod, like Kirk has said something wise. Hard to believe NASA gave Shatner a medal.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
Wormholes involve extreme curvature of space-time. That means a large amount of energy. Energy is equivalent to mass, via E=mc^2, so a wormhole will have a large effective mass. That much mass in a small volume means an event horizon.
Or, if you prefer the geometric argument, extreme space-time curvature IS extremely strong gravity.
I don't really understand why a wormhole would have a smaller event horizon though. Perhaps something to do with the mass distribution. In a wormhole the mass would all be at the centre. In a black hole that grew through accretion it would be distributed throughout the volume.
Given the intense environment around Sag A*, even if it turns out to be a wormhole it will be utterly non-traversable. However, there are hypotheses that wormholes to be stabilized require using negative matter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_mass. At least, that's the most plausible mechanism suggested- so this would be inadvertent evidence that negative matter exists, which would be a really big deal. There's also speculation that a cosmic string could do something similar- note that a cosmic string is topological defect in space time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_string- these are not the strings from string theory although many forms of string theory would predict that such objects would exist. And of course, if wormholes exist in nature there's some small chance we can either make our own o find much smaller ones and put them to use. Unfortunately, there's a lot of dust and other debris between where we are and Sag A*, so even GRAVITY may have trouble getting enough resolution to figure this out.
The point here is that the concept of a worm-hole has been theoretical and the domain of Sci-Fi. It is a huge event if we are able to verify. My guess is that the verification will have ramifications in the theoretical physics, simply because so much has been strictly theory.
I'm pretty sure that the anonymous coward was referencing Star Trek V http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_V:_The_Final_Frontier where it turns out to be very much not God despite a certain fanatic's belief. This is where the famous line "What does God need with a starship?" comes from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYW_lPlekiQ.
Which is why many species evolved collaboration. Evolution doesn't always mean killing competitors. Some species(particularly humans) do extremely well by turning competitors into collaborators and developing mutually beneficial relationships.
This naive approach to evolution is pathetic.
I am surprised they don't mention the Event Horizon Telescope, which could resolve this.
There are too many pseudo-science stories on Slashdot these days. Are you listening, editors? It's like reading Scientific American (which was almost as bad as Omni last time I read it).
Here we have a whole huge paragraph full of fantasized bullshit whose only supporting documents are a speculative paper submitted to arXiv, and a brief regurgitation thereof on some arXiv blog.
Please stop wasting my time. I want to read NEWS for Nerds (where "news" means "as factually verifiable as possible") and stuff that MATTERS (and pseudo science speculation does not matter to me).
Thank you.
Why, yes.
If your stupidity and belief system requires you to attempt to destroy my way of life, then you are a threat to me.
The Christians who want to teach intelligent design, the Muslims who advocate Jihad, and the morons who fight against vaccination based on a discredited report, and those who think tax cuts for the rich and trickle down economics is real and effective ... these people are all dangerous idiots who think their belief system trumps facts, that some how god is on their side, and that we should all adhere to the bullshit rules they believe in.
They are advocating for my destruction, so it's really only rational to advocate for theirs.
Many many Christians are no better than the Taliban in their desire to force the rest of us to follow their rules.
So, yeah, fuck the whole lot of them. Putting ignorance and stupidity on a podium is a sign of lunacy.
Is there any real evidence that a wormhole would actually pass anything to a remote location, or is that just a writers fantasy? Usually travel does not include being disassembled to your constituent parts midway. OK. Call me a doubter!
Evidence? Umm... there is no evidence that wormholes exist at all. But, by definition, if they exist, they would move matter/energy from one point in the universe to another. Otherwise the phenomenon being observed is not a wormhole. The matter that makes up your body is universally fungible as energy. The universe does not care which form you take.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
Finally a stable wormhole for our FTL travel needs. Now, since Sagitarius A is 26,000 lightyears away, all we need to do is build some sort of wormhole network to get us there, and then FTL travel will be ours!
Why do you think that having an absurd childish belief is simply disagreeing with his view, rather than seeing it as the deep ignorance that it is?
Religious idiocy wouldn't be a problem, but malicious people are able to use it to get rubes to vote for insane anti-social right-wing loonies.
In the Celestial Temple?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Nice straw man you've built there.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
"The thinking is that about 100 million years after the Big Bang, this supermassive object attracted the gas and dust that eventually became the Milky Way. But there is a problem with this theory--100 million years is not long enough for a black hole to grow so big. The alternative explanation is that Sagittarius A* is a wormhole..."
No, the widely accepted alternative (aka, the actual mainstream consensus) is that the supermassive black hole and the galaxy grew together, not that the black hole came first and was supermassive before the galaxy existed. This wormhole theory is an answer to a question no one is asking.
Yes, actually we do. We know that supermassive objects exist... we know that they can bend light, and we know that space can be bent to such a degree by such objects that any light which travels too close to it travels a curved path that never leaves a bounded region of space near the object that we refer to as an event horizon, creating a region in space that is basically just "black" as it appears from outside of that region, It obviously obscures anything behind it, while its gravity still bends light in visible ways beyond its event horizon, allowing us to identify it's mass, position, and event horizon size.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Wormholes are one of the great disapointments of exotic physics, because they can't actually be used for anything.
Yay, a FTL portal to the distant universe! That... no object can traverse. Including light. Oh.
Much like entanglement, which promises instantainous action over any distance and thus FTL communication - but, on closer examination, can't be used to send classical information.
Let's burn it!
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
"Even the Jihadists are really not likely ever to personally cause you harm."
The day before 9/11 you likely would have said the same to everyone personally harmed in 9/11 or through the loss of someone in 9/11.
"So apparently simply disagreeing with you is threatening to destroy your way of life?"
I think he is pointing out that those who disagree on these particular topics (which for the most part are factually established and not really legitimately open to debate) are as a group taking action to impose their views on others or tangibly impede education and/or progress in our society. In some cases even reverse it.
So that's where spaghetti sauce comes from !
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" The photographer who didn't want to work for a gay wedding, the baker who didn't want to make a cake for a gay wedding reception, the companies who don't want to pay for abortifacients; all examples of theists being made to break their own rules."
No, no they are not. They are cases of theists imposing their rules on others or punishing them for not following the theists rules. There is no religion I am aware of which forbids photographing or feeding gay people. There is also no religion which forbids providing healthcare. Following your own rules means deciding whether YOU are okay with yourself being gay, not your clients, not your children, not your hairdresser, you and you alone. The same with whether or not you are going to get an abortion or use contraception or take advantage of any other medical procedure.
Refusing services to others simply because their rules are different than yours and thus they are gay or opt for an abortion is imposing your rules on them. It's your place to support the idea that everyone gets to pick their own rules. It's not your place to provide or withdraw support based on which rules someone else follows. It's simply none of your business.
What if powerful free-est of markets capitalism provably left, for every one person with a successful Einstein level of intellect, five equivalently smart who had to put aside their insights and education to focus on simply staying alive? How many years of progress would that waste?
On a recent poll about 1/3 in the USA believe in a young earth (10,000 years or less) and do not believe in natural evolution[1]. About half of the Christian believe that Jesus will come back in the next 40 years[2]. This is pure asinine to any reasonable long term policy and if not tamed could very well doom us all, especially because those believes comes from a first world country, that is military and economically superior. In addition, you have millions of delusional Christians that think WWIII will speed up the second coming of Jesus[3][4].
Moreover, if being religious is deeply ignorant, you should be able to provide strong evidence against the existence of a God. Not just point to a lack of evidence you like, but evidence against it.
First, that proves for me your ignorance of logic. You demand to prove a negative, which is a logical fallacy. Second, absence of evidence is evidence for absence. For example, if I make the claim that I have a cat in my house and you come over and look everywhere for my cat and you don't find anything, that is strong evidence that I lied and that I have no cats. The same is for God or for gods.
[1] http://www.reuters.com/article...
[2] http://www.alternet.org/survey...
[3] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ame...
[4] http://www.washingtonsblog.com...
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