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Five-Dimensional Black Hole Could 'Break' General Relativity (sciencealert.com)
The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and Queen Mary University of London, have successfully simulated a black hole shaped like a very thin ring, which gives rise to a series of 'bulges' connected by strings that become thinner over time. Ring-shaped black holes were 'discovered' by theoretical physicists in 2002, but this is the first time that their dynamics have been successfully simulated using supercomputers. Should this type of black hole form, it would lead to the appearance of a 'naked singularity', which would cause the equations behind general relativity to break down. "If naked singularities exist, general relativity breaks down," said co-author Saran Tunyasuvunakool, also a PhD student from DAMTP. "And if general relativity breaks down, it would throw everything upside down, because it would no longer have any predictive power -- it could no longer be considered as a standalone theory to explain the universe."
Even if the facts are good and the theory is right, the analysis quoted is broken. A theory doesn't need to be able to explain the entire universe to have *some* predictive power. It's also weird to say that the equations "break down" in such an unqualified sense; what is meant (presumably) is that there are conditions where those equations can't be evaluated and likely don't apply.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
but remember the scary thing that happened when newtonian mechanics were found to be inaccurate and incomplete, all the buildings and bridges and engines we've designed that used them fell apart as the predictive power evaporated.
oh wait I'm full of shit
What a hoot. I play a lot of simulations. I can't wait for them to declare World of Warcraft characters are real and about to invade earth. ROFL.
Idiots and fools. Those who listen to the fool becomes the fool.
"physicists have successfully simulated what would happen to black holes in a five-dimensional world," That's all the further you have to read the article. The universe has either 4 or 10 dimensions if I remember the two theories correctly. It does not have 5 dimensions. This is science fiction/science fantasy.
The point of the five dimensional black hole is that it might represent an actual thing combining normal general relativity and electromagnetism. The idea is that the fifth dimension becomes when approximated by our near-Newtonian world, the symmetry of electromagnetism.
As I understand it, a key problem is that as a result of the model, one gets a scalar (number valued) field left over which we haven't observed yet (though at one time, it was thought that the Pioneer spacecraft anomalies might be an indication of the field).
Exactly. It's perfectly normal that our theories are built around the limits of our knowledge. A theory may work great until we start gathering new data in new ways which shows that there are problems in it... and then the theory needs to be expanded. That doesn't mean that the previous theory was wrong - just limited.
Honestly, there's enough problems with event horizons and singularities that I really think it's about time that we accept that they may well just not exist. We have a known force of the universe, inflation, that when the universe was packed into a very energy dense state led to the dilation of space until the universe reached a less energy-dense state. Why should we assume that this is something only applicable to the Big Bang, rather than a general rule of the universe? When you apply a dilation-driven inflation gravity to the environment of a black hole, suddenly singularities and event horizons disappear. A black hole is often described as a waterfall of spacetime rushing in; inflation is like a flood of spacetime rushing out. Infalling particles are shifted to a tangential path; all of the energy of the black hole exists at the event horizon in a quasi-2d state. In such a scenario, black holes are - from an infinite-observer's perspective - basically nothing more than a frozen store of spacetime, ever so slowly leaking out, until - unthinkably long in the future, when they sit all alone in an empty void - they catastrophically explode in an inflationary flood of energy from which new matter can ultimately condense. Miniature versions of the Big Bang itself.
No naked singularities. No information paradox. No firewall. Explanatory power for the Big Bang. Why isn't this a theoretical route worth pursuing more?
The War of 1812... the good 'ol days when the federal government actually tried to save New Orleans.