Astronomers calculate mass of largest black hole yet

The math for this is terribly wrong.

Solar Mass: 1.9 E30 kg.

times 6.6 billion:

1.254 E40 kg.

F = mA

F/m = A (see below*)

A = GM/R^2.

A = 300000000m/s^2. (event horizon)
M = 1.254E40 kg
G = 6.67E-11.

* Big M and little m are not the same thing. They are the respective variables from newton's law.

Multiply both sides by R^2 and divide by A to get R^2 alone.

R^2 = GM/A

R^2 = 2.78806e21 meters squared.

R = sqrt(2.78806e21)

R = 52802083292.2 meters

R = 52,802,083 km.

Which is a far cry from 20 billion kilometers.

I think what they are talking about is the inner edge of the accretion disk. In other words the point at which a particle (or planet or star) needs to be moving at the speed of light to stay in orbit. I didn't do the precise calculation but it is the right order of magnitude.

No their math is fine. QC is confusing Newton and Einstein again. He's using entirely the wrong equations to calculate the size of the event horizon. Nothing new there.

In his own work, Einstein reconsidered a model of a star where the components of the star were orbiting masses, and showed that the orbital velocities would exceed the speed of light at the Schwarzschild radius. In 1939, he used this to argue that no such thing can happen, and so the singularity could not occur in nature

Funny. I now learn that Einstein agrees with me on yet another point. Which is to say, true black holes cannot exist in nature, because that would violate relativity.

At any rate, the numbers they give above are absurdly wrong regardless of which formula you use. Try it for yourself.

They made this crap off out of whole cloth.

I'm ready to stab myself in the eye just thinking about trying to guess the orbital speeds of objects in another galaxy. I'm not that patient, or ambitious. Trying to imagine one solar mass, is torture, but billions. Just trying to imagine the forces in play out there is mind boggling. Shame we cant harness some of that energy for our own needs.

They used Schwarzild's math (which is what everyone who knows what they're doing) in which case the answer is ~19 billion kilometers.

Being Einstein doesn't mean that he's right about everything he says. Modern physicists understand relativity far better than Einstein ever did. Just like biologists have moved beyond Darwin, psychologists beyond Freud, quantum physicists beyond Planck.

They used Schwarzild's math (which is what everyone who knows what they're doing) in which case the answer is ~19 billion kilometers.

Being Einstein doesn't mean that he's right about everything he says. Modern physicists understand relativity far better than Einstein ever did. Just like biologists have moved beyond Darwin, psychologists beyond Freud, quantum physicists beyond Planck.

If you use the formula from wikipedia and actually plug in the values manually, you'll get 18.5 billion kilometers, which is still at nearly a 10% error on the part of the article's author. Additionally, the formula doesn't make any sense anyway, because it doesn't handle the inverse square law at all, and is treating the propagation of gravity linearly, which doesn't agree with any real world observations at all.

Now think about this, because if the swarzchild radius was actually 18.5 billion kilometers, then an 6.6 billion solar mass object having radius equal to this alleged schwarzchild radius would have an average density of only 2.145kg/m^3...which is only about 10% more than the density of carbon dioxide gas at standard temperature and pressure.

As you can see, if you do the formula for your own damn self instead of believing everything you read, their numbers don't make any sense at all, and neither do the numbers generated by the schwarzchild radius formula on wikipedia, nor for damn sure not the formula for schwarszchild radius on page 104 of "black holes and baby universes".

Again, if the thing had a schwarzschild radius of 18.5 billion kilometers, it would have an average density of only 2.145kg/m^3, which is roughly the density of air on earth.

The fact that nobody ever checks this crap is completely ridiculous.

There's a nice Schwarzschild radius calculator on
hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/blkhol.html .
It yields 19.48 billion kilometers.
I don't think the difference to 20 billion kilometers is of any importance in this context.

There's a nice Schwarzschild radius calculator on
hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/blkhol.html .
It yields 19.48 billion kilometers.
I don't think the difference to 20 billion kilometers is of any importance in this context.

Ok, now calculate the density you get from that. It's less than air in our atmosphere.

It's bullshit.

If that formula were true, there wouldn't even be neutron stars, because all neutron stars would be black holes.

Earth has a density of 5500kg/m^3.

This alleged black hole has a density of just 2.1kg/m^3....

Do you see how ABSURD that is?

Can anyone on this retarded web site do anything for themself, instead of parroting what someone else tells them to think?

On the other hand, if you use Newton's formula, you get 20.336kg/cm^3, which is 100 million times more dense than what you get from the swarzchild formula, or about 3333 times more dense than the earth.

THIS is numbers that are much more closely in agreement with the density of a critical mass neutron star.

I now learn that Einstein agrees with me on yet another point.

Funniest thing I heard all day. Thanks QC!

I doubt singularities exist or are necessary for a black hole to exist. If a black hole had a singularity at its center it would be in another dimension and disappear from our universe completely. A singularity involves a point and infinity, both concepts are figments of our imagination that don't exist in the physical reality.

If a black hole had a singularity at its center it would be in another dimension and disappear from our universe completely.

How do you know?

A singularity involves a point and infinity, both concepts are figments of our imagination that don't exist in the physical reality.

How do you know?

I somewhat agree with the gist of your comments and think that quantum effects may become significant as the singularity point is reached, so that there may not be any mathematical singularity as such. But the point is, I don't know this for a fact. So what makes you certain enough to speak in such absolutes?

Quantum - You are using Newton's formulas incorrectly.

It is not the acceleration at event horizon that is equal to the speed of light - the units don't even match because C is NOT per second SQUARED.
It is the ESCAPE VELOCITY which is C at the event horizon.

And yes the escape velocity drops linearly with distance - at 2x distance force is 4x less but drops only half as fast with still further distance.

And yes, the density of the event horizon can be very, very low: twice the mass is twice the radius or 8x the volume so 1/4 the density.

No, this is not the difference between Newton and Einstein. Calculate the ESCAPE VELOCITY. Intergrate the force to get the escape eneregy - from a radius it is that radius times the acceleration at the radius. Then use E = 1/2 * M * V^2, set V = 3x10^8 M/Sec and solve. That's pure Newtonian and still gives roughly 20 billion km. And as for 20 billion being off by 10%, that's what is called a round number.

Realscience:

Defintion of escape velocity, in part:

Defined a little more formally, "escape velocity" is the initial speed required to go from an initial point in a gravitational potential field to infinity with a residual velocity of zero, with all speeds and velocities measured with respect to the field

The problem is a black hole is not defined merely by escape velocity.

Escape velocity is misunderstood, because you can, for example, escape the earth and never achieve escape velocity, by burning thrusters just strong enough and long enough to rise against gravity, for example.

A black hole is defined as being something from which, "Nothing, not even light can escape".

But if you define the swarzschild radius as being the point from which escape velocity is c, then it would still be possible to escape the black hole just by using a sufficiently rocket.

continued.

Gravitational acceleration of an object of that mass at 18.5 billion kilometers is only 2443km/s^2, which means, for example, a sufficiently large nuclear rocket ship would be able to escape the black hole even from just below the schwarszchild radius. Any human crew would die from the insane g-forces, but in principle the ship would eventually escape if it had a large enough engine and enough propellant.

I'm not certain that points and infinity don't exist, just 99% sure. Just because we can come up with a concept in our imagination does not mean it exists.

If I'm wrong tell me how big a point is and how much volume it contains? It's a coordinate, not a physical object. If it existed it would be infinitely small.

Ever since we came up with the concept of infinity it has not had any use I know of (and calculus doesn't count) and everything we ever thought to be infinite has turned out to be finite. It doesn't even have any use in math (and calculus doesn't count). It has only caused trouble since the concept was invented (that includes religion). Infinity only exists in our mind. Nothing can be infinite (and ONLY nothing can be infinite).

Quantum: I didn't define the Schwartzchild radius to be the radius escape velocity is C - some guy name SCHWARTZCHILD defined it that way.

The acceleration may indeed be very low at that point and a rocket still couldn't escape. Firing that rocket takes energy, and gravity pulls on that energy, too. The Schwartzchild radius is also the distance at which even if the rocket were to convert all of its mass to energy with 100% efficiency it still couldn't escape.

18B km is 1.8E13 meters, so the acceleration would be 6.67E-11 * 1.25E40 / 3.24E26 or about 2500 meters/S^2, not about 2500 KM/S^2. That's 250 Gs rather than 250,000 Gs.

A rocket capable of >250 Gs could START to fight its way out from right next to the event hosizon of a 1.25E40 kg black hole, but even with 100% efficient matter/antimatter engines it would run out of fuel before it got all the way out (or exactly as it got out if it were 100% fuel).

On your comment with regard to escaping earth's gravity without ever exceeding earth's escape velocity by continuously firing a rocket, escape velocity is the velocity at which you could just barely COAST away without further firing a rocket.

Escape velocity = Initial Speed (as you said), THEN COAST. On one level I applaud your attempts to do the math, but please keep track of the units - if they are wrong, your answer is nonsense.

Try at least reading wikipedia before saying that something is misunderstood.

Here's the thing about black holes.

If a neutron has no charge, and it has an atomic mass of 1, then this is the most dense ordinary matter in existence.

Since neutrons are presumably spherical, "stacking" neutrons which are gravitationally bound (i.e. "neutron star",) should always result in structures that are less dense than any one neutron. After all, there is empty space in the stack for any neutrons that are tangent to one another.

Therefore, I figure that if black holes do exist, it would be far easier to make a black hole by accelerating a neutron to an absurd speed, than to make a black hole through gravitational collapse of a pre-existing star or neutron star.

After all, in relativity, mass is variable with respect to velocity, so if you have the neutron moving at like 0.9999999...9c, then it should become a black hole at some point...

Put enough nines behind there and we should end up with a single neutron which has a mass of like a gram or so. Black hole?

Funny. I now learn that Einstein agrees with me on yet another point. Which is to say, true black holes cannot exist in nature, because that would violate relativity.

At any rate, the numbers they give above are absurdly wrong regardless of which formula you use. Try it for yourself.

They made this crap off out of whole cloth.

No, they made it out of math.

And the answer is, regardless of whether you use Newton's or Einstein's forumlae (correctly), 0 or infinity.

F=mA has nothing to do with this...

Learn some physics.

If a neutron has no charge, and it has an atomic mass of 1, then this is the most dense ordinary matter in existence.

That doesn't make any sense at all.

Just because we can come up with a concept in our imagination does not mean it exists.

Of course not. And I pretty much agreed with you before. The only issue I had was your absolute certainty, which you still claim (at 99%).

If I'm wrong tell me how big a point is and how much volume it contains?

Again, I didn't say that you were wrong and, in fact, added a 'reasonable' guess as to why a mathematical singularity MAY not exist. But bottom line, I don't know and you don't know.

Ever since we came up with the concept of infinity it has not had any use I know of (and calculus doesn't count)

Whoa, that's a whole new kettle of fish! Tell me why Calculus doesn't count? It's only one of the most useful mathematical formulations ever devised and you want to forget about it?
(more...)

On your comment with regard to escaping earth's gravity without ever exceeding earth's escape velocity by continuously firing a rocket, escape velocity is the velocity at which you could just barely COAST away without further firing a rocket.

Escape velocity = Initial Speed (as you said), THEN COAST. On one level I applaud your attempts to do the math, but please keep track of the units - if they are wrong, your answer is nonsense.

Try at least reading wikipedia before saying that something is misunderstood.

I know that.

No duh guy. Get a life.

Try reading what I wrote first before making an idiotic response.

The fact is the numbers given by the schwartzchild radius formula do not match what anyone actually says about black holes:

infinite density,
"nothing can ever escape"
etc.

We have a 1/2 scale rail gun that can achieve far more than that amount of instantaneous acceleration right now.

(cont...)

everything we ever thought to be infinite has turned out to be finite.

Except for the things we don't know are finite or infinite.

It doesn't even have any use in math (and calculus doesn't count).

That must be a joke.

Infinity only exists in our mind. Nothing can be infinite

The universe may well be infinite (beyond the light horizon). Recent CMB measurements suggest that the universe is flat topologically, which is consistent with an infinite universe. But again, we don't know for sure, so we shouldn't be speaking in absolutes.

F=mA has nothing to do with this...

Learn some physics.

If we are talking about gravity then we are talking about force and acceleration.

Learn some physics, dumbass.

Soulman:

Nobody uses calculus in the "real world". Sorry. It's just true.

they don't use it in engineering, they damn sure don't use it in process or manufacturing.

NASA uses it, but weather people do not, except for the integrated kinetic energy index, other than that, I've even been told directly by professional meteorologists that they never use it.

It's not particularly useful in most applications because there are easier, more straightforward ways to measure things and predict things that are "close enough" for all real world applications.

I don't need to know the area under the curve X^2 or X^3, because the ideal surface is a sphere anyway, but in the real world we do everything in rectangles, cones, and cylinders, which is like 3rd grade math.

Actually Quantum, that's not a bad question.
A nucleon is about 1.7E-15 meters, so at 1.6E-27 m/kg it would need a mass of 1.1E12 kg. E=MC^2 says 9E16 J/kg, so that is 1E29 Joules. A Joule is just over 6E18 ev, so that is just over 6E47 electon volts.

Not only is that almost 1E35 times higher than the energy of the LHC, but it is also roughly two dozen orders of magnitude higher even than the highest energy cosmic rays.

So I don't think accelerating a neutron sufficiently would be easier than waiting for a large star to collapse.

But it was still a reasonable question.

Quantum - calculus is exactly what one can use to detemine escape velocity from a given distance from a mass - integrate the acceleration over distance from that radius to infinity.

And for 'infinite density', people are refering to a singularity at the heart of a black hole.

That is NOT the same as the average density within the black hole's event horizon (which clearly is not infinite, because with a finite size its mass would have to be infinite if it had an infinite density).

Quantum - do you understand the difference between a black hole's event horizon and the singularity supposedly at its heart?

(Note to hard-nosed physicists: I use the term 'supposedly' because to discuss in which reference frames a singularity exists and in which it doesn't would not fit in 1000 characters).

If we are talking about gravity then we are talking about force and acceleration.

Learn some physics, dumbass

We're talking far more than that.

State your framework and your figures, and let's do a proper comparison.

To correct my earlier answer: I was sloppy and used the radius of a proton rather than looking up the radius of a neutron.

The neutron is 1.1E-15 meters rather than 1.75E-15, so it would require 4E47 ev rather than 6E47 ev packed into a sphere the size of a neutron to make a neutron-sized black hole.

Actually Quantum, that's not a bad question.
A nucleon is about 1.7E-15 meters, so at 1.6E-27 m/kg it would need a mass of 1.1E12 kg. E=MC^2 says 9E16 J/kg, so that is 1E29 Joules. A Joule is just over 6E18 ev, so that is just over 6E47 electon volts.

Using radius 1.7E-15, and assuming mass 1kg, I got a gravitational acceleration of 2.3E19m/s^2.

Alternatively, to have gravitational acceleration equal to 300,000,000m/s^2 with radius 1.7E-15 takes only 1.3E-11kg, or 1.3E-8grams.

Which I have calculated to be 7.829E15 times the rest mass of a neutron.

Soulman:

Nobody uses calculus in the "real world". Sorry. It's just true.

'Real' is such a subjective term. I often wonder whether you live in the real world.

One of the differences between newtonian gravity and general relativity (GR) is that in GR at the event horizon of a black hole the acceleration is infinite, it is impossible for a spaceship to increase its distance from the singularity once it has crossed the event horizon. (Quantum gravity effects will probably not significantly affect this result since for macroscopic black holes the event horizon is a macroscopic distance from the GR singularity where quantum effects would be significant. This speculation is supported by the fact that the semi-classical effect of Hawking radiation is insignificant for macroscopic black holes.)

I figure that if black holes do exist, it would be far easier to make a black hole by accelerating a neutron to an absurd speed, than to make a black hole through gravitational collapse of a pre-existing star or neutron star.

You figure wrong, as usual.

After all, in relativity, mass is variable with respect to velocity, so if you have the neutron moving at like 0.99999...9c, then it should become a black hole at some point...

You know nothing of SR/GR. Relativistic mass isn't inertia, nor does it represent the gravitation of a body. It simply isn't mass - it's the total energy of the particle. You can't just turn a mass into a black hole by accelerating it to high speeds. If it isn't a black hole in its rest frame, it ain't gonna be a black hole in any other frame!

Soulman:

Nobody uses calculus in the "real world". Sorry. It's just true.

'Real' is such a subjective term. I often wonder whether you live in the real world.

I am neither a physicist nor an economist .... but do not economists and (those nasty) bond traders use calculus to work out and predict market trends. (Obviously they blew it lately.) As well - their's may not be the 'real world' - but some thoeritical construct.

Using radius 1.7E-15, and assuming mass 1kg, I got a gravitational acceleration of 2.3E19m/s^2.

Alternatively, to have gravitational acceleration equal to 300,000,000m/s^2 with radius 1.7E-15 takes only 1.3E-11kg, or 1.3E-8grams.

Which I have calculated to be 7.829E15 times the rest mass of a neutron.

Quantum - what the heck would 300,000,000 m/sec^2 have to do with anything???
m/sec^2 is an acceleration, not a speed.
The speed (velocity) of light is 300,000,000 meters per second, NOT per second SQUARED.

If the escape VELOCITY is the speed of light, why would you arbitrarily decide to use acceleration instead of velocity?

Simply because you like the answer better?

Quantum: To show the difference, last airplane flight I went on cruised at roughly 600 mph, or roughly 1000 kph, or roughly 270 meters per second.

270 meters per second is a velocity.

It is nonsense to substitute an acceleration of 270 meters per second squared in some velocity equation (e.g., 'escape velocity', or 'cruising speed') because velocity and acceleration are not the same thing.
The plane at that time was cruising at constant speed (acceleration = 0 m/s^2), and even to get to that speed it sure as heck didn't accelerate at 27 Gs.

Do you see the difference?

(I point this out because you actually take the time to try the math, which is a good start.)

Nobody uses calculus in the "real world". Sorry. It's just true.

If you said something any dumber than this, I'd probably have to question whether you can breate without conciously thinking about it.

they don't use it in engineering

Ok, can you breathe without conciously thinking about it?

they damn sure don't use it in process or manufacturing.

Except for every time they do.

NASA uses it, but weather people do not

What?

except for the integrated kinetic energy index

...

other than that, I've even been told directly by professional meteorologists that they never use it.

You also have been told that we were magically created by a magician and believed it. With the level of gullibility that you display, and your outspoken anti-science attitude I don't know why you'd expect us to believe anything you say.

You can't just turn a mass into a black hole by accelerating it to high speeds.

You got that. If it were possible to do so, then if you considered the particle at rest and the rest of the Universe in motion, that would turn the rest of the Universe into a black hole.

I wonder if KyuCee is an HIV denialist, too: "Stop taking the ARVs -- they're what's making you sick, not HIV. You'll be okay. Trust me."

Whoa, that's a whole new kettle of fish! Tell me why Calculus doesn't count? It's only one of the most useful mathematical formulations ever devised and you want to forget about it?

I don't want to forget about it, I am just saying it isn't really using infinity or proves infinity exists. Before someone said that calculus proves infinity exists. Because it doesn't really use infinity, it uses everything between 2 limits for example. Everything between 6 and 8 is 2, not an infinite number. Yes there are an infinite number of points in between (maybe) but you can't use one imaginary thing to prove another.

Calculus is amazing and as far as I am concerned Newton is the smartest person who ever lived for inventing it and I think that it is a greater leap of understanding than what Einstein did.

I'm not an astrophysicist so please don't curse me out and hurl insults at my mother for asking a dubiously informed question. It is my (limited) understanding, that an event horizon can be thought of as screen at a movie theater that records and projects the information of the matter that fell into the black hole. Lawrence Krauss described what happens basically as when the object/gas/whatever falling in, it appears to slow down and stop completely when it achieves light speed, thus from our point of view, being frozen at the event horizon almost eternally. If this is true for all matter falling in, then how can we ever see the event horizon as anything other than the jumbled "picture" of all matter that ever fell into the black hole? Thus we would never see a black silhouette at all, would we, even for a "dormant" black hole that wasn't consuming anything? It would appear to be a glowing orb of some kind. Sorry If I have misunderstood something basic.

Calculus is amazing and as far as I am concerned Newton is the smartest person who ever lived for inventing it and I think that it is a greater leap of understanding than what Einstein did.

Agree about Newton being the greatest scientist (if flawed). But there is some controversy about who invented calculus - Newton or Leibniz? I think it's fair to say that they both invented it independently, but it is Leibniz's notation or formalism which is the more powerful and which is used today.

Wulfgar - Basically you are right. From an outsider's perspective matter falling in slows to a crawl at the event horizon. But any photons from that matter are so red-shifted by the gravity well that by the time they get to us they are effectively invisible, and so the event horizon still appears 'black' (in the sense that a shadow appears black).

So yes, any photons escaping the black hole would show the jumbled picture if we could see those photons, but we can't see them so we wouldn't see a 'glowing orb'.

(If there were a sufficiently small black hole the Hawking radiation would be visible, but that's another matter.)

Calculus is amazing and as far as I am concerned Newton is the smartest person who ever lived for inventing it and I think that it is a greater leap of understanding than what Einstein did.

Agree about Newton being the greatest scientist (if flawed). But there is some controversy about who invented calculus - Newton or Leibniz? I think it's fair to say that they both invented it independently, but it is Leibniz's notation or formalism which is the more powerful and which is used today.

True, but given Newton's full body of work and Calculus, there is no comparison.

Despite all the interest in this story, there are no black holes.

Neutron repulsion energizes neutron stars and prevents the formation of black holes.

E.g., “the source of the pulsar's power may be hidden deep within its surface” [1] See also [2,3].

1. "Mysterious pulsar with hidden powers discovered," reported in ScienceDaily, 15 October 2010.

2. "A low-magnetic-field soft gamma repeater," Science, vol. 330, November 2010, pp. 944-946.

3. "Gamma-ray flares from the Crab Nebula," Science, (ScienceXPress) Published online 6 January 2011

With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo

Wulfgar:

RS's explanation leaves out an important aspect, I think. The objects falling into the black hole would "wink" out. As the event horizon is approached, rapidly from a distant observer's frame, the object would dim exponentially and the image would blend with everything else that had fallen into the black hole, including the original star.

The forever falling is very theoretical and not observable in any meaningful way.

Quite Contrary refuses to address the shown flaws in his original post. I appreciate his determination to think outside the square, but he squared the wrong thing. Please explain yourself or a crank forever you shall remain.........

I am hopeful that one day we may be able to actually see the silhouette of a super massive black hole against a starry backdrop - how exciting would that be!

Omatumr, How can you deny the existence of a black hole? Gravity affects light. Enough gravity can pull in anything it can affect. There is no upper limit to gravity. For there to be no black holes gravity would have to have a limit on its effect of only light and nothing else that it affects. That makes no sense to me.

I am hopeful that one day we may be able to actually see the silhouette of a super massive black hole against a starry backdrop - how exciting would that be!

I hope you are wrong. I assume you are talking about wandering black holes. They are so small, if they exist, that for that to happen it would have to be so close that it would be one of the last things we ever see. The huge ones at the center of galaxies are big but they are surrounded by so much junk they won't be seen like that. And big is relative, they aren't all that big physically, they are big in effects.

Pyle - 1000 characters does indeed force important aspects to be left out.

For an object small compared to the event horizon, the main dimming would be the red-shifting of the photons, so the object would rapidly fade redder and then dark. For even a stellar-mass black hole, ‘winking out’ would be a good description. For a sufficiently massive black hole, ‘red-shift out’ would be more fitting.

Near the event horizon only those photons heading nearly straight out could reach a distant observer, so the area from which photons are observable also shrinks near the event horizon. The larger the falling object relative to the event horizon, the more this contributes to the ‘winking’ by diminishing the number of photons as well as red-shifting them.

All this is for an observer many Rs (r-subscript-s) away - observers travelling with the in-falling object will see things very differently.

Omatumr, How can you deny the existence of a black hole?

Nuclear rest mass data revealed neutron repulsion in every nucleus with two or more neutrons about a decade ago [ "Attraction and repulsion of nucleons: Sources of stellar energy," Journal of Fusion Energy, vol. 19, March 2000, pp. 93-98].

That is “the source of the pulsar's power . . . hidden deep within its surface” ["Mysterious pulsar with hidden powers discovered," reported in ScienceDaily, 15 October 2010].

With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo

I somewhat agree with the gist of your comments and think that quantum effects may become significant as the singularity point is reached, so that there may not be any mathematical singularity as such. But the point is, I don't know this for a fact.

Singularities are objects of mathematics as they are well-defined in mathematics. The same holds for the term "infinity".
In physics, however, we don't have a definition of "infinity". The term "singularity" is a mere colloquial term without rigid definition in physics.

The confusion arises out of the use of mathematical models to describe physical observations.
Specifically, when we speak of the singularity of a BH, this is to be understood as the admission that we don't know what happens "inside" once there is no more known force to resist gravity.

It doesn't even have any use in math (and calculus doesn't count).

Maybe it's a bit too much torture for your brain, but you couldn't be more wrong than that.

some guy name SCHWARTZCHILD defined it that way.

No. It was a German guy named Karl Schwarzschild.
"Schwarz", by the way, is the German word for black.

@RealScience

"Try at least reading wikipedia before saying that something is misunderstood."

Now THAT's the funniest thing I've read all year, o so many levels. ROFLMAO!

Google John Moffat, theoretical physicist at U Toronto, book "Reinventing Gravity". Resolves all this, plus dark matter and possibly dark energy. MOG.

some guy name SCHWARTZCHILD defined it that way.

No. It was a German guy named Karl Schwarzschild.
"Schwarz", by the way, is the German word for black.

You are correct - I mistakenly added a 't' to his name.

@Quantum

Nobody uses calculus in the "real world". Sorry. It's just true.

Thank you for the single most face-palm ridiculous statement I have ever read on Physorg.

Have you never met an engineer in your whole life? Mechanical, electrical, power, civil, structural, optical and chemical engineers use calculus all day long. I am a computer engineer and I use calculus every day. So do economists and financial modelers. Biology has become an information science and virtually everything is modeled and designed using calculus now. Virtually every product created in any volume you have ever used, from transistor chemistry in your MP3 player to the process for homogenizing the milk you drink, was modeled and designed with calculus.

@RealScience

"Try at least reading wikipedia before saying that something is misunderstood."

A constructive suggestion indeed! But I cannot imagine it helping in this case. If QC was competent enough to consistently add value to these discussions, those verbose comments would be getting shorter, fewer and improving in quality.

I don't know if the missing piece in QC's puzzle is confusion about intellectual honesty, or a lack of cognitive confidence (perhaps for good reason) undermining the the normal urge to learn from other's with more expertise. But whatever the difficulty, QC hasn't demonstrated any ability to rise above it.

It doesn't even have any use in math (and calculus doesn't count).

Frajo: Maybe it's a bit too much torture for your brain, but you couldn't be more wrong than that.

Really. You use infinity in equations? Which ones? I was under the impression that when infinity turns up, something is wrong. Please enlighten me, I'll try to suppress the pain.

Why are you guys even arguing with these idiots? If they think calculus is useless, then really they have no hope of ever understanding anything beyond a 7th grade level. They certainly don't belong on this site, should be on the fox news site or something.

Quantum Conundrum is probably just a troll, I don't think anyone could really be THAT wrong about SO MANY THINGS and still think that they are smarter than everyone. I certainly hope not.

Really. You use infinity in equations? Which ones? I was under the impression that when infinity turns up, something is wrong. Please enlighten me, I'll try to suppress the pain.

In mathematics? It's often present. In physics, it means something is wrong according to some people. Many don't really see a problem with infinity. To the latter, it means we're lacking context.

Unfortunately, once QC was shot down he just ran away and refused to see any other logic than his own.

It would have been nice if he had at least acknowledged that average density does not equal actual density. The event horizon does not equate to a physical barrier, but a gravitational barrier.

Not saying singularities exist, but eve a 6.6 billion solar mass neutron/quark star is obviously going to have an event horizon that is much bigger than the actual star itself.

Nuge- I have wondered about Quantum, too, since even after it was pointed out that he was using acceleration rather than velocity he kept repeating the mistake.

But I would rather spend ten comments on a possible troll than to give up on an educatable person.

And it seems that Quantum must have finally realized that he was wrong, as he has been mighty quiet on this thread after the third or fourth time it was explained. Quantum at least TRIES the math, so perhaps he can learn the math.

Furthermore many people scan an active thread, and many of them will learn at least one thing from the dialog. And in checking my answers I learned that the neutron is considerably smaller than a proton, whereas I had thought of them as about the same size.

I also don't reflexively rate every QC post a 1 the way some people do - if I rate any post I give it the rating it deserves, independent of who made it. QC usually gets a 1, but even QC occasionally makes a good comment.

As far as these supposed visual effects when observers are falling into BH's or witnessing said events, I don't buy any of it.

First, the outside observer is going to witness the unfortunate victim dissapear into the BH. Not slow down and stop due to some ridiculous time dilation.

If this time dilation existed, then in the known history of the universe, no matter would have entered a blackhole. Instead, it would all be sitting around at the edges of the event horizon. The significant part about this is that when all new mass is sitting at the edges of the event horizon as opposed to being smashed in the center, your center of gravity changes.

Now in most cases, due to the obliteration of matter and subsequent accretion disk, this center of gravity will be uniformly distributed around the equator of the blackhole, depending on it's spin.

This keeps the BH's average center of gravity as defined from the measurements at the equator, but creates noticeable differences at higher lattitudes.

This could actually explain why there are so many spiral galaxies however. If most of the new mass is situated in a ring formation around the original singualrity, then it's mass distribution could be a significant factor in planar galaxy formation.

QC does make good comments sometimes, and I rank him so. He is in danger, though, of becoming such an accepted crank through lack of humility and plain silliness and stubbornness to accepting correction that his input is simply glazed over and an auto 1 is given.
Maybe he shall reincarnate as a new puppet? Seems to be the go with other fully fledged cranks.

An interesting side point to that is, when another blackhole merges or even grazes another blackhole, thereby changeing spin and relative mass distribution in these accretion rings, how does that affect galaxy formation?

Do spiral galaxies simply have blackholes that have uniform mass rings? Would modified or damage spin and mass ring relationships explain why giant elipticals keep their shape so long?

I still don't buy the observer/victim time dilation business, but it does bring up some interesting avenues for thought.

If this time dilation existed, then in the known history of the universe, no matter would have entered a blackhole. Instead, it would all be sitting around at the edges of the event horizon.

NoNoNoNoNo ... If I'm sitting in a space station in orbit a good distance around a black hole and I send a robot in a probe to take a one-way trip down, it's only the robot's clock that's affected. My clock keeps the same time as ever and the probe simply coasts through the event horizon and disappears. It's the robot's clock that runs slower as it gets closer to the event horizon.

If this time dilation existed, then in the known history of the universe, no matter would have entered a blackhole. Instead, it would all be sitting around at the edges of the event horizon.

NoNoNo ... if I'm in a space station and drop a probe into a black hole, it just falls in and disappears. If there's a clock on board the probe, it slows down -- meaning the trip seems even shorter on the probe -- but my clock doesn't.

So you think time dilation only affects clocks? You don't seem to understand how time dilation is expected to work. If the clock slows down, the probe slows down:

To a distant observer, clocks near a black hole appear to tick more slowly than those further away from the black hole. Due to this effect, known as gravitational time dilation, an object falling into a black hole appears to slow down as it approaches the event horizon, taking an infinite time to reach it.

So according to accepted theory, the outside observer is supposed to witness the victim slow down and stop due to time dilation.

So theoretically, no matter in the known age of universe has fallen into a singularity. To the known universe, all matter dilates as it gets closer and closer, never actually entering it.

To the person falling in, they don't notice any time dilation other than the outside observer speeding up. And fatal gravity of course.

As a result, in 13 billion years of history, all matter that has entered an event horizon is sitting somewhere near the edge of the horizon. Because all that matter has slowed down, and we are speeding along as normal.

As a result of this, if time dilation is true, then there should be detectable variations in a black hole's center of gravity. The event horizon my look spherical, but the gravity on the equator of the event horizon should be significantly different from the gravity at latitudes 45 and 90.

Assuming it is a blackhole that has had a normal life cycle and hasn't been slammed by other giant black holes. But then the same time dilation should hold for both of them as well, and center of gravity differences would be even more obvious.

Incredible, I have just read 77 comments. May I say (1) "Their existence is inferred from indirect evidence" is absolutely true. (2) The artist rendering of a Black Hole is what he has been told to make it look like; not true. (3) Today's conclusion that there is a Black Hole inside the center of each and every galaxy is -- think about it. If so, stars would be eaten away from the inside out and hence no galaxy. (4) However, what energy exactly are they finding and calculating in the "center" of a galaxy? Apparently an energy exists, but what is it? (A massive set of Suns would be logical.) New thinking is required.

Today's conclusion that there is a Black Hole inside the center of each and every galaxy is -- think about it. If so, stars would be eaten away from the inside out and hence no galaxy.

Clearly, you haven't thought about it. Either that or you know nothing about celestial mechanics, probably both.

New thinking is required.

Yes, but that comes after education.

New thinking is required.

When you see many massive suns orbiting the core of the galaxy at 500+ km/s you kind of need something in there that is keeping them tied down.

What keeps these blackholes from eating the galaxies is 2 fold:

1. Time. Give it another 20-100 billion years and logically the blackholes win.

2. Energy. When one sun falls into a blackhole it is shredded apart, with the resulting radiation blasting all other debris in the area pushing it away. Blackholes feed, but they are mostly drinking through a straw, albeit relatively nonstop for billions of years.

3. It is only a matter of time before one of our giant telescopes can zero in on a solar system sized event horizon. We will probably first detect suns dissapearing behind it in the haze of radiation long before we see the blackness though.

Omatumr, How can you deny the existence of a black hole?

He holds his breath until his face turns blue.

Oliver, density doesn't enter into it. Smack a few of your silly versions of neutron core suns together and you WILL get a black hole. Throw enough mass down the gravity well and eventually gravity will be too strong for light to escape. THAT is what makes it a BLACK HOLE.

What you are claiming is that SINGULARITIES cannot exist because of your idea of neutron repulsion will stop that from occurring. Black Holes do not require a singularity to exist. Frankly your idea of neutron repulsion makes predictions about atoms that simply go against the evidence. However even if it wasn't nonsense you still haven't shown this fantasy force to be stronger than the Strong Force. It would have to be stronger than the Strong Force for it stop a singularity from forming.

Mistaking a singularity for a Black Hole is another indication that you are a Crank.

Ethelred

You use infinity in equations? Which ones? I was under the impression that when infinity turns up, something is wrong. Please enlighten me

It's not possible to enlighten everything. A BH, for instance.
But I'll try:
Mathematics comprises a bit more than equations.
Set theory, for instance. Number theory, for instance. Even Linear Algebra For Beginners doesn't protect you against infinite vector spaces. Statistics - no go without the Central Limit Theorem.

If you use the formula from wikipedia and actually plug in the values manually, you'll get 18.5 billion kilometers, which is still at nearly a 10% error on the part of the article's author.

The wikipedia formula is for a static, non-rotating black hole. the radius for a rotating black hole (which is basically every single one out there) is slightly larger. The number in the article seems roughly correct to me.

This is why ... Black holes are created after supernovae.. If the remaining neutron star spins in a perfect motion without oscillation, it will excelerate like a coil in an electric motor at faster revolutions then the speed of light only in reverse. The neutron core is surrounded by trillions of electrons. The resulting energy pulls the entire surrounding galaxy to a spin in equal direction albeit at much slower speed. The larger the original star the larger the mass the larger the whole. Simple. Now go and disprove it...

@Moebius

The huge ones at the center of galaxies are big but they are surrounded by so much junk they won't be seen like that. And big is relative, they aren't all that big physically, they are big in effects.

Well, at three times the size of Pluto's orbit I would say it's pretty big and as the article points out: 'Due to the black hole's large size and relative proximity, the astronomers think that it could be the first black hole that they could actually "see."' So I am hopeful, I know there will be a lot of material in the way but a window may open which allows us to glimpse it.

'Pretty big' is still relative. 20 billion kilometers is still less than a light day. Given that the average distance between stars is measured in light years (at the core of galaxies probably a bit less) this is still pretty small by interstellar measures.

Neistein - the burden of proof is actually on you. Good luck.

What a waste of time and energy. All, have to realize that almost all theoretical equations are derived with scant regard to natural limitations or boundary conditions that may apply in nature. So when a so called BH solution is extracted it is given a fictitious reality of its own. Singularities are taboo in nature.
And I disagree that black holes are discovered(or proved) any where like everybody believe, they are just inferred to exist so far.
I have concluded that gravity force itself has a maximum natural limit, the ‘g’ force boundary, that would prevent BH formation in nature. I can account for the galactic center behavior by means of of an extra space dimension without speculating a SMBH.
Read my web for how AGN is made of.

This is why ... Black holes are created after supernovae.. If the remaining neutron star spins in a perfect motion without oscillation, it will excelerate like a coil in an electric motor at faster revolutions then the speed of light only in reverse. The neutron core is surrounded by trillions of electrons. The resulting energy pulls the entire surrounding galaxy to a spin in equal direction albeit at much slower speed. The larger the original star the larger the mass the larger the whole. Simple. Now go and disprove it...

Matter cannot travel faster than light. It would become infinitely dense and infinitely massive resulting in collapse of the universe over time. We would not be here to have this conversation after the first one went off, and they had to have gone off because we're here to talk about it, (the presence of elements heavier than hydrogen).

Any questions?

50 million light years is pretty damned close indeed. I had no idea we had a monster that size in our neighborhood.

Is it in the same direction as the "great attractor"? Anyone know?

There are no black holes, and there are no upper or lower limits to the mass of a neutron star.

Neutron repulsion causes:

a.) Massive neutron stars to fission.

b.) Smaller ones, like the one in the Sun, to decay by neutron emission.

E.g., “the source of the pulsar's power may be hidden deep within its surface” [1] See also [2,3].

1. "Mysterious pulsar with hidden powers discovered," reported in ScienceDaily, 15 October 2010.

2. "A low-magnetic-field soft gamma repeater," Science, vol. 330, November 2010, pp. 944-946.

3. "Gamma-ray flares from the Crab Nebula," Science, (ScienceXPress) Published online 6 January 2011

With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo

There are no black holes, and there are no upper or lower limits to the mass of a neutron star.

Then explain the ultra massive central foci we have indirectly observed within each galaxy and explain how a neutron star of lower than 100kg mass can form.

I would like a definitive answer to the issue of what matter traveling at near light speed looks like to a distant/relatively fixed observer. Forget about the black hole for now. If I'm on earth looking through a telescope at a spacecraft traveling at 99.9999...% C does it appear to be moving fast or almost not at all? My understanding was that everything about the moving object basically stops from my point of view, while some here have said that its only events inside the craft that are moving slowly relative to me while the ship still appears to be traveling fast. Which is it?

If the ship is travelling very fast relative to your frame, then the ship appears to be travelling very fast relative to your frame.

The time dilation applies to the ship, not to you. From your perspective, you see something moving at 0.9999....c (not that you could really see that, anyway), and everything is hunky dory. On the ship, time progresses at a slower rate than elsewhere. They might see the universe aging by millions of years in a minute or two.

Oliver,

You've yet to explain away a few things that would arise naturally as a consequence of your cosmology.

Just a few:
1. Where are the Supermassive Stars that are allowed to exist in order to produce your theorized neutron stars of unrestricted(and therefore infinite or nearly so)mass?

2. With regards to these neutron stars of unrestricted mass- do they not continually evaporate due to particulate emission/radiation? Or can one exist in a "steady" or growing' state, dependent upon its position relative to a source of matter which can be trapped into its gravity well.

3. Why are your neutron stars of unrestricted mass not observable anywhere? Is this neutron emission somehow converted to visible light, thereby confusing everyone into thinking that the neutron star is actually just an ordinary, visible light emitting star?

contd

contd

4. If it is non-visble light, it should still manifest as some form of occultation of sources of visible light behind it, relative to the viewer, much as a black hole would appear, if viewed from some position above the event horizon, except for the difference of the neutron star having some, one supposes, more-or-less spherical shape or volume in space, and therefore being much easier of observation. Why do we not, then, observe them pretty much everywhere we look?

@Decimatus

An example of your comments here:

As a result, in 13 billion years of history, all matter that has entered an event horizon is sitting somewhere near the edge of the horizon. [...]Assuming it is a blackhole that has had a normal life cycle and hasn't been slammed by other giant black holes. But then the same time dilation should hold for both of them as well, and center of gravity differences would be even more obvious.

Can anyone help out here---my understanding has always been that a black hole -of any mass- doesn't consist of a volume bounded(ie, a physical presence) in 3D space, but consists solely of a circle or disc of a particular radius in two dimensions only(the event horizon, or "opening" into the black hole), and that this was the main reason for the inability to directly "observe" a black hole.

Am I correct, or do black holes occupy some roughly spherical volume in regular 3D space?

The time dilation applies to the ship, not to you. From your perspective, you see something moving at 0.9999....c (not that you could really see that, anyway), and everything is hunky dory. On the ship, time progresses at a slower rate than elsewhere. They might see the universe aging by millions of years in a minute or two.

This is where things get to be a lot of fun. travelling at less than the speed of light yet capable of crossing the universe at speeds that appear to be far in excess of the speed of light.

cont...

extrapolating on time dilation effects it is therefore theoretically possible to fly from here to the edge of the galaxy in a day (given sufficient acceleration). Then turn around and fly back again.

The problem will be when you arrive back at Earth and land and try to look up the address of where you lived before you started.

Of course after a trip like that you may not even be able to find Earth because unless you use sophisticated navigation equipment you will probably go to wrong location.

Can anyone help out here---my understanding has always been that a black hole -of any mass- doesn't consist of a volume bounded(ie, a physical presence) in 3D space, but consists solely of a circle or disc of a particular radius in two dimensions only(the event horizon, or "opening" into the black hole), and that this was the main reason for the inability to directly "observe" a black hole.

Am I correct, or do black holes occupy some roughly spherical volume in regular 3D space?

I have never heard that explanation before. It wouldn't make sense. Gravitational objects have spherical gravity wells. Light trying to escape in any direction on a 3d grid is thwarted. The event horizon would have to be spherical.

If the event horizon wasn't spherical, then potentially you could skim over the top of it and be inches from the singularity without falling into the horizon. That isn't the case, for light or matter.

Caliban - The event horizon of a non-rotating black hole is spherical.
The area of the event horizon is also important because it is proportional to the entropy of the black hole.

The singularity on the other hand, is theoretically supposed to be 1D, point source. But the gravity effects extend in all directions from the point.

Personally though, singualrities are bunk. Mathematical illusions. In reality, I am sure there is a quark star or possibly even a neutron star in there. Either way, still surrounded by an event horizon once they reach the required density.

The reason we have not seen one yet is because they are too small, and either covered in a blinding light, shrouded in dust, or just plain lonely in the dead of space.

I imagine the James Webb would at least be able to see a sillouette of a star dissapearing behind the a super giant blackhole.
But whatever is inside, it won't matter until we can figure out a way to bypass the event horizon which is the end of the line.

Oliver,

1. Where are the Supermassive Stars that are allowed to exist in order to produce your theorized neutron stars of unrestricted(and therefore infinite or nearly so mass?

2. With regards to these neutron stars of unrestricted mass- do they not continually evaporate due to particulate emission/radiation?

3. Why are your neutron stars of unrestricted mass not observable anywhere?

4. Why do we not, then, observe them pretty much everywhere we look?

First

1. They are at centers of galaxies, including the Milky Way, and are frequently mislabeled as black holes.

2. Normal stars like the Sun shine because neutrons are being emitted from the central neutron star. Following neutron-emission, the neutrons become hydrogen by neutron-decay.

3. They are. See answer #1.

4. We do. They are in the cores of ordinary stars. We see the veneer of waste products from the neutron star glowing brightly in the photosphere. That is 91% H and 9% He in the Sun's photosphere.

This purports to be an actual image, but is still less than helpful. The article itself is less than no help at all, really, as could be expected from the source:

h ttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1347359/Biggest-black-hole-M87-big-swallow-ENTIRE-solar-system.html

Decimatus,
Thanks for the additional explaination, but I remained unconvinced.

Can anyone provide a definitive explanation/link?

This purports to be an actual image, but is still less than helpful. The article itself is less than no help at all, really, as could be expected from the source:

h ttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1347359/Biggest-black-hole-M87-big-swallow-ENTIRE-solar-system.html

Decimatus,
Thanks for the additional explaination, but I remained unconvinced.

Can anyone provide a definitive explanation/link?

I think what you may get confused with is that black hole geometry is represented in 2D. Its simply easier that way. In most articles talking about it, they even say "2D Representation".

And RealScience is also correct, a spinning black hole has a different geometry(wider and flatter) than a stationary black hole which you can find info on in most articles discussing them. How different the geometry is, depends on the speed of the spin. The creation of blackholes can be so violent that their spin can often be measuring in fractions of C.

I think what you may get confused with is that black hole geometry is represented in 2D. Its simply easier that way. In most articles talking about it, they even say "2D Representation".

And RealScience is also correct, a spinning black hole has a different geometry(wider and flatter) than a stationary black hole which you can find info on in most articles discussing them. How different the geometry is, depends on the speed of the spin. The creation of blackholes can be so violent that their spin can often be measuring in fractions of C.

Alright- I'll have to dig into it- my conceptualisation needs amendment, apparently. Which I will have to be satisfied with, since, sadly, I don't have a few tens or hundreds of billions of years to wait for one to grow large enough to be unmistakably visible.

Oliver,

For clarity's sake, i tried to use the quote function to pose a few questions, but, for whatever reason, the comment has failed to load twice, so here goes:

Are all Active Galactic Centers neutron stars, then -or are some of them actually black holes?
how do we tell the difference?

Are all stars these same supernova-remnant neutron stars? Do they all slowly decay/radiate away to nothing? Are there any strictly, textbook neutron stars? If so, how do they form? Could they form absent the supernova condition?

If it posssible for two G-type stars, for example, to form by different processes(ie simple accretion and via supernova/neutron star vector), then how do we distinguish between the two?

How are heavy elements formed?

omatumr:
What are the primary differences between a Black Hole and the Neutron stars you theorize exist in their place? I have visited many of the links you post, but haven't stumbled across this in any of them that I recall.

Caliban: You linked to that?
From article "At a distance of about 50 million light years it is relatively close to Earth"
Same article "by far the largest and most distant galaxy some 50million light years away."

Funny.

omatumr:
What are the primary differences between a Black Hole and the Neutron stars you theorize exist in their place? I have visited many of the links you post, but haven't stumbled across this in any of them that I recall.

Caliban: You linked to that?
From article "At a distance of about 50 million light years it is relatively close to Earth"
Same article "by far the largest and most distant galaxy some 50million light years away."

Funny.

That was just one of the reasons why I indicated that the article left much to be desired.

I linked to it for the actual image, since the physorg article can only boast an "artist's conception".

1. First, I want to thank all of you for civility.

2. Next, I am busy with a new paper that summarizes about 50 years of research.

3. Conclusions: Earth is connected gravitationally, magnetically and electrically to a neutron star - obscured from view by waste products in the photosphere. Neutron repulsion in the solar core is like the hot filament in an incandescent light bulb. There subatomic particles evolved and released the waste products that glow in the photosphere like a frosted light bulb. The waste products move on out to engulf Earth and the other Life evolved above, as Earth orbited in the heliosphere.

Analogy: Astronomers have been fascinated with the veil of waste products that hides the Sun, as an excited groom might become enamored with the veil that hides his bride.

There are no balls of hydrogen in the cosmos. Neutron stars emit neutrons that decay to hydrogen atoms. These glow in the photosphere and then continue on out in space to encompass the planets.

Oliver,

1. First, I want to thank all of you for civility.[...]There are no balls of hydrogen in the cosmos. Neutron stars emit neutrons that decay to hydrogen atoms. These glow in the photosphere and then continue on out in space to encompass the

I'll ignore the dodge implicit in your response.

Be you sure, though, to post a link to your article here on physorg just as soon as it is available.

I remain doubtful of your assertions regarding stellar formation, but will reserve judgement until you've had the chance to fully explicate your theory. Ultimately, there may at least be some validity in your concepts.

Meanwhile, it is entirely unfair of you to post here with regards to your theory, and not be prepared to answer questions and provide citations, especially since your claims are at such wide variance with the standard model. As has been said before, extraordinary claims require extraordinary(or, at least, rigorously sufficient) proof.

Oliver, I could possibly buy your explanation of stars(but like most theories it is just one of many). I too have often thought it odd that astronomers think most stars are 90%+ H/HE. At least there has to be a large solid heavy metal core in there somewhere that never sees open space. Theoretically a neutron core as well. And there are probably layers of fusion as you go deeper into the star. It may not match up to whatever theories rule the day, but it makes logical sense.

I don't see how you can say BlackHoles don't exist though. I am pretty sure a 6 billion solar mass neutron star is still a black hole. No singularity, but the light isn't getting out, so hence "Black Hole".

Also, you say that Neutron Stars can reach any mass level. Is Neutron Repulsion supposed to be infinite? At some point, be it 1 million masses, a billion, or a trillion, neutron repulsion has to be overpowered eventually. When that breaks down, where do we end up? Quark star? Smaller? Big Bang?

I see a lot of theories as to how and why black holes and whatnot exist, but not a lot of thought into the logical mechanical makeup of the entity itself.

Mathmeticians take the easy route with a singularity because that is where their math leads. Obviously that isn't possible, so where does that leave us? If we have neutron stars, I don't see why it couldn't also compress down into further sub-atomic levels.

On another note, Oliver it sounds like you are pushing pretty hard for your Neutron Repulsion theory to take hold. What is your /jobposition? Have any major sources publicized your ideas or theories? What types of experiments could be made to prove your theories?

That was just one of the reasons why I indicated that the article left much to be desired.

I linked to it for the actual image, since the physorg article can only boast an "artist's conception".

We should be aware that "the actual image" in this case is a superposition of several false-color images for different wavelengths.
More images of M87 on blackholes.stardate.org/directory/factsheet.php?p=M87

That was just one of the reasons why I indicated that the article left much to be desired.

I linked to it for the actual image, since the physorg article can only boast an "artist's conception".

We should be aware that "the actual image" in this case is a superposition of several false-color images for different wavelengths.
More images of M87 on blackholes.stardate.org/directory/factsheet.php?p=M87

That's right. A composite of various wavelengths of the thing itself, though, as opposed to a representation from an artist's imagination.

What is your /jobposition?

He is retired.

Have any major sources publicized your ideas or theories?

One non-physicist has quoted him in one article. Does that count? He has quoted himself many times. His neutron repulsion paper was published in a peer reviewed journal however NO ONE has cited it in any paper except Oliver. Pretty amazing that it was published as the conclusions don't fit the evidence.

What types of experiments could be made to prove your theories?

He doesn't like that question because MANY experiments that have been performed should have given astounding results supporting him if he was right. I have asked him many times about the iron stacks that should have shown neutron decay if he was right. He won't even acknowledge the question.

Ethelred

"extrapolating on time dilation effects it is therefore theoretically possible to fly from here to the edge of the galaxy in a day (given sufficient acceleration). Then turn around and fly back again."

Sorry if I'm being thick-headed. How is it possible from the point of view of someone on the craft to travel sub-light speed while travelling tens of thousands of light years(across a galaxy) in a single day? The minimum travel time, as experienced on the craft, should be more than the time it takes light to travel the same distance, no? Also, if you are travelling at such ridiculous speed that you cross a galaxy in a day, how can an outsider see this other than as you slowing to a crawl as you approach light speed? If the outside observer of the craft experiences a longer and longer duration of time for the craft to cross the galaxy(beyond the light yr distance), the closer the craft gets to C, then the craft must seem to be going slower and slower to the stationary observer, no?

Wulfgar:
C is C is C.
If you are traveling near an observer's C you appear to be going very fast. One year of your travel per the observer's frame is one year. From your frame, at the near C speed, you may only have registered a few seconds time elapsed, depending on how close to the observer's C you are going.

Relativity... what a head scratcher.

Wulfgar:
yep it is odd. But traveling across the galaxy in a day and still keeping below light speed is possible.

What you would observe out the window is that all the stars in their orbit of the galaxy would be moving quite fast as well.

So navigation would get tricky.

Also, the whole galaxy might be dead in the aeons that have passed outside your ship.

forgot to mention another odd byproduct of the fast travel.

The galaxy would get smaller as you accelerated.

So how does this rocket across the galaxy relate to black holes?

As stuff falls into the black hole it would accelerate to almost light speeds. Therefore it would see you moving faster too and you would see it moving fast.

Stuff falling into the black hole should also get bigger as it gets faster.

for the objects themselves time slows but they would not observe that they would observe everything else moving faster. Orbits would be faster and therefore effects of gravity would appear to be stronger. Stars would burn out quicker therefore radiation decay speeds up in the rest of the visible universe.

Its the high gravity not the high speeds. General Relativity. A high gravity field experiences time more slowly than its surroundings. The rocket stuff is special relativity, Einstein came up with general relativity to incorporate the effects of gravity into his theory.

forgot to mention another odd byproduct of the fast travel.

The galaxy would get smaller as you accelerated.

But only the direction you are accelerating. And you would look flattened in that direction to everyone else.

@nuge

High gravity yes but dont forget we are falling and therefore accelerating as well relative to everything else regardless of the cause.

can anyone recommend some further reading that clearly explains time dilation and relativity issues well and at length, or do I have to suck it up and just take some advanced physics and calculus classes?

"Earth is connected gravitationally, magnetically and electrically to a neutron star - obscured from view by waste products in the photosphere.

Neutron repulsion in the solar core is like the hot filament in an incandescent light bulb. There subatomic particles evolved and released the waste products that glow in the photosphere like a frosted light bulb.

The waste products . . . engulf Earth . . . as it orbits in the heliosphere.

Analogy: Astronomers have been fascinated with the veil of waste products that hides the Sun, as an excited groom might become enamored with the veil that hides his bride."

. . . it is entirely unfair of you to post here with regards to your theory, and not be prepared to answer questions and provide citations, especially since your claims are at such wide variance with the standard model.

See: "Earth's Heat Source - The Sun"
Energy & Environment 20 (2009) 131
arxiv.org/pdf/0905.0704

I do not respond to Ethylred

can anyone recommend some further reading that clearly explains time dilation and relativity issues well and at length, or do I have to suck it up and just take some advanced physics and calculus classes?

Try Giancoli's Physics for Scientists and Engineers. It has a good overview of the theory. Any decent modern textbook would though, really.

For a bit of inspiration, I recommend "Tau Zero" by Paol Anderson. It is a great book.

can anyone recommend some further reading that clearly explains time dilation and relativity issues well and at length, or do I have to suck it up and just take some advanced physics and calculus classes?

I think I have seen threads asking similar questions on Physics Forums (any physics forum would probably have threads offering recommendations). Various wikipedia articles have fairly simple introductions to both topics.

I do not respond to Ethylred

Or anyone else that has ever asked you a difficult question. Like Caliban in this instance.

Those iron stacks should have backed you up if you were right. They didn't. Ignoring me won't change that.

Ethelred

Haha, Ethelred won. Well played, sir.

Its the high gravity not the high speeds. General Relativity. A high gravity field experiences time more slowly than its surroundings. The rocket stuff is special relativity, Einstein came up with general relativity to incorporate the effects of gravity into his theory.

Yes but high speeds result in greater rest mass, meaning higher gravity.