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Black Holes and FTL; my thoughts

Wing_Z said:
Reading down your post, I thought: Ha! Here's someone who could cast some light on my question, then!
Until I got to the last line, that is.
But I"ll pitch it anyway: everybody knows the effects of gravity, but are we any closer to knowing What it is?
Click to expand...

Uh-oh! Well, the general theory since Einstein was that matter warps space-time around it creating a slope in space-time that other matter just rolls down, kind of like a weight on a rubber sheet (a much beloved analogy of our scientists) - hence the seeming attraction.

So gravity is not a force, but rather a geometry of space-time - we are standing on a slope of space-time, in a manner of speaking, and feel the gradient.

However, recently scientists have been talking about gravity sort of being a byproduct of time and vice versa, that time and gravity are sort of mixed up, maybe even two sides of the same coin! They believe that research into time will be the next big thing in physics.

Can't pretend I understand it, myself!
 
Hey Lionheart, one important thing about black holes and how they can form I forgot to mention! Ghostrider got it right in #33. It is about matter. When a star lives and burns, it keeps it's volume/size through the internal gas pressure.

When it becomes old and the nuclear fires running it die off, it starts shrinking and the whole star will become smaller. It will keep it's mass though. So all the material of the star will begin to press in and it becomes more compact - it becomes denser. You have to keep in mind that the mass here is mind-bogglingly huge, so that this mass really can compress matter.

As the "boiler" pressure in the star drops more and more, some stars might even suffer a core collapse as gravity wins the battle of the forces in there. The core will compact to a superdense ball of matter about 30 km across, as dense as an atomic nucleus! The speed of this collapse can be around 70.000 km per second!

The outer layers of the star rush inwards, and when the core collaps stops due to internal atomic forces - this is very abrupt - they bounce of the superdense surface of the new core and are blown of into space. This is a Type II supernova.--> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova and --->http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_collapse

In the most massive stars the core will not stop it's collapse because the atomic forces are not strong enough to counter gravity. This run-away core collapse will result in a black hole.
 
View attachment 13356 Wonder what they were thinking..not to long ago!!......I think we are still like them,in a subject like this!... they had fear,wonder,amazement,and beliefs like we do, and we ,like them then have not "evolved" enough yet!!... Bath them,shave them,put cloths on them,and give them a computer,they would be just like us!..Still wondering about the great questions of space and time!!As surly as they could never envision our today...we cannot envision the coming tomorrow!......Who here over 50yrs old could have predicted today???...try 20yrs ago...The study of the heavens is looking backwards....its gone! we are in today,and cannot comprehend it,predicting tomorrow??? Forget it!!.........we are forever limited by our currant short comings....a limited brain,and the senses that go with it.....how different our world would look if our limited eyes could see the full spectrum of light,...our brain , I fear ,like some early computer,are not up to the job ...yet!!
so lay there,and wonder.."Twinkle,Twinkle,Little Star,How I wonder What You Are"..may be the question Man can never answer....Hurts our little ego's???...Like we are not the greatest ever???......best we look in the mirror,naked!!...We are one second away from regressing into those caves..if a natural,or man made incident happens,we would be lucky to be as smart as those who preceded us ,not to long ago..........."EAT ,DRINK, BE MERRY,FOR TOMORROW YOU MAY DIE"
 
Sascha66 said:
<snip>

In the most massive stars the core will not stop it's collapse because the atomic forces are not strong enough to counter gravity. This run-away core collapse will result in a black hole.
Click to expand...

Interesting- runaway core collapse, so when the cores radius reaches zero it further collapses into ...antimatter ?

Hmmm, never thought of that. But does it remain at 0 NM or does it grow negatively ?
</snip>
 
MaddogK said:
Interesting- runaway core collapse, so when the cores radius reaches zero it further collapses into ...antimatter ?

Hmmm, never thought of that. But does it remain at 0 NM or does it grow negatively ?
Click to expand...

That certainly sounds like an interesting idea!

The runaway collapse usually means that the core is compressed past the point where it would usually stop shrinking due to the internal resistance of atomic strong forces - so becomes denser still and also smaller. When it passes the Schwarzschild radius it can in theory be compressed into a point ( a singularity, more or less as you described it), although that is more a mathematical concept. In reality, it means that the object has become so dense that gravity captures light - and you have a black hole.
 
Seeing as matter cannot be destroyed, but merely change states, trade particles, etc. Looking at drawings and renderings of what black holes are theorized to look like they basically look like large funnels. Taking in matter through one end, and as it condenses and gets smaller it spews gamma, x-ray, and other radiation out of the smaller end into space. To my understanding this emission of large amounts of radiation is one of the primary ways they are confirmed to be in locations besides the absence of any light in a certain area of space. There is also a cool phenomenon that I have seen written about where sometimes you get the opposite effect of a black hole and it spews a solid column of plasma into space for what seems to be infinity. I cannot remember what it is called off the top of my head though. I still think there is a lot more in our universe, and even our own planet that we do not fully understand. Maybe never will. I did not know about these runaway collapses and such before though. Have read about stars collapsing, forming black holes, etc.. Never heard about how the process goes such as the runaway collapse and then when it hits bottom you get the supernova. Is pretty neat stuff.
 
Roadburner440 said:
Seeing as matter cannot be destroyed, but merely change states, trade particles, etc. Looking at drawings and renderings of what black holes are theorized to look like they basically look like large funnels. Taking in matter through one end, and as it condenses and gets smaller it spews gamma, x-ray, and other radiation out of the smaller end into space. To my understanding this emission of large amounts of radiation is one of the primary ways they are confirmed to be in locations besides the absence of any light in a certain area of space. There is also a cool phenomenon that I have seen written about where sometimes you get the opposite effect of a black hole and it spews a solid column of plasma into space for what seems to be infinity. I cannot remember what it is called off the top of my head though. I still think there is a lot more in our universe, and even our own planet that we do not fully understand. Maybe never will. I did not know about these runaway collapses and such before though. Have read about stars collapsing, forming black holes, etc.. Never heard about how the process goes such as the runaway collapse and then when it hits bottom you get the supernova. Is pretty neat stuff.
Click to expand...


YOu probably mean something like this - really cool!

http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1028/
 
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