Advances in quantum research are like a broken zipper.

I'm not saying I know anything about anything...

but I got excited about this post because one day not too long ago I realized that if something like a black hole exists then that gravity must be faster than the speed of light in that particular case. I don't know if this is the right way to go about it in understanding the possibility that gravity is faster than the speed of light.... but whatever a black hole is made up of, it is stronger and faster than the speed of light because light doesn't escape it. That is... if black holes exist. Do they? But basically that's my elementary take on it. I felt really good when I thought about it, lol.

Edit: I guess that would be something different, in regards to the speed of information (how fast magnet one affects magnet two). Oh man.

After having recently taken a super basic physics course I already understood that light doesn't travel at a constant speed and that it bends, slows down, and etc outside of a vacuum. I even read up a smidge about how light has been stopped/frozen. I've also been familiar with the double slit experiment for a long time now (since "What the Bleep do we know" like over ten years ago now- there's a youtube of a clip on Dr. Quantum and the double slit experiment, I always show it to people who've never heard about it because it's really easy to understand) and so I'm familiar with the concept that "regular" rules don't always apply on a quantum level. I LOVE THIS CRAP! Basically I'm obsessed with life.

So anyway idk why I went into all of that but, I'm just here supporting and being appreciative. Thank you again!

originally posted by: geezlouise
but whatever a black hole is made up of, it is stronger and faster than the speed of light because light doesn't escape it.

"stronger", sort of, we can say the black hole's gravity is strong enough to prevent light from escaping. "Faster", no. The black hole's gravity being strong enough to prevent light from escaping says nothing about the speed of the black hole's gravity.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

You are correct that I could probably do a better job of correlating sources.
There is a great paper and Q&A conducted by Dr. David Goldberg at Io9

Why can't Einstein and Quantum Mechanics get along?

The premise is to accept one theory, you have to sacrifice (or adequately explain) the other. It is the "unzip" I am talking about. Quantum Mechanics and GM are at real odds about electron spin...

It turns out that there is a unique relationship between classical and quantum theories. For instance, electromagnetism is generated by electric charges and currents. The sources are described mathematically by a vector, and it turns out that vectors produce spin-1 mediator particles. It turns out that mediators with odd spin produce forces in which like particles repel. And indeed, two electrons will repel one another.

General relativity, on the other hand, is known as a "tensor theory" because there are all sorts of sources related to the pressure and flow and density of an energy distribution. The quantum versions of tensor theories have spin-2 mediator particles. So whatever else, the graviton will be spin-2. And, you guessed it, even spin mediators attract like particles. And lo and behold! Like particles do attract gravitationally!

The talk assumes that if we ever correctly decipher what a "graviton" would be... a conflict of great proportion would ensue.

It is one of the real obstacles in the unification of both, how can they both be correct?

originally posted by: charlyv
Today, the forefront of Science is deeply saturated into understanding Quantum Physics. Trouble is, some evidence discovered when attempting to utilize quantum methods, seem to violate some of our really well healed theories, like the nature of the space/time continuum, or the general laws of relativity and the laws of Thermodynamics.

This may be the case, people looking at very deep levels like the stuff at the IAS--Maldecena and colleagues.

We understand the speed of light to be finite, unless slowed down by refractive influence traveling through transparent materials, or gravitational lensing. These slow-downs are miniscule and the speed of light in free space (a vacuum) is constant, regardless of the speed or direction of an object emitting that light. Light deals with fundamental particles called photons, but they also behave like waves.

So, a few questions come up:

What is the speed of the propagation of gravity?

Gravitational waves? In the low-field limit seen everywhere but near a black hole, very probably the same speed. This is from theory, there has been no direct experimental confirmation of gravitational waves, but the Einstein equation predicting them has been tested over and over against plausible and implausible alternatives and has never lost.

What is the speed of the propagation of magnetism?

The speed of light, for sure.

Einstein's relativistic equation for gravity based on general relativity demands that gravity travels at the speed of light. However, quantum science is departing from that view.

I've never heard of any quantum mechanical proposal which modifies this in any signficant way. Do you have an example?

Although they are not “particles’ (the “graviton” has not been identified), and are thought of as waves, they do have a propagation speed in which they influence objects around them, and this “speed” is most likely faster than light.

Almost certainly not in any macroscopic sense, and macroscopic (planets & stars & galaxies) is what matters for gravitation experimentally.

Quantum physics has shown us already that through quantum entanglement, the information about one particle is transferred to another entangled particle instantaneously, regardless of the distance between them.

Not exactly---correlations among the particles are maintained regardless of the distance between them---but that is not the same as information being propagated, as no macroscopic information transfer can be faster than c in known quantum mechanics.

It would follow that the true nature of magnetism and gravity can only be explained in a quantum environment, and if so, imagine the tasks we have of re-thinking and repairing our great truths!

Indeed. Rethinking electromagnetism in quantum mechanics was a major breakthrough. It started with Albert Einstein and the proposal of the photon (which wasn't full formed in 1905), which is now precisely defined in quantum field theory developed in the 40-50 years after Einstein through QED and modern quantum optics.

So, for the sake of an example, let’s say a star explodes.
Since the gravitational environment has certainly changed for any object near that star and beyond, when is that information available?

When the gravitational waves intersect which is at speed 'c'.

According to what science thinks today, it is anywhere from infinity (which is fairly close to instantaneously, but never gets there.), to 20x the speed of light (with some of the heaviest math that is conveniently left out of here, but referenced at the end of the post).

Science doesn't think that today.

We would require quantum methods to measure it, which as of yet, we do not have. In any case, many scientists are saying that the “information” reaches us long before we would ever see the explosion.

Who? Where?

Let’s say again, that a gigantic permanent magnetic object instantly appeared out of nowhere in the solar system (bear with me). Again, new science suggests that the propagation of the magnetic influence has a “speed”, and again ranges from instantaneous (infinity), to 20x the speed of light.

No. If suddenly I were to energize a magnet from a disordered state to an ordered state which had a substantial magnetic field, the process of doing so would result in an electromagnetic wave propagating at 'c' in vacuum. Before that wave arrived, distant external observers would measure no magnetic field at their location even though in the same rest frame the distant magnet had already turned on.

This was already true in the Maxwell equations and doesn't change in quantum mechanics.

Note that there is no difference observable externally between the magnetic field produced by a 'permanent magnet' which I presume you mean to be an ferromagnet with macroscopic magnetization and one produced by ordinary current. The first comes from aligned electron spin (related to intrinsic angular momentum of charges) and the second comes from current (related to macroscopic angular momentum of charges).

The original theories that magnetic flux propagation followed the speed of light are being severely challenged. The thinking here states that even being Millions of miles away from that “event”, the information reaches us long before we would ever see that object. Note this is not magnetic radiation, but the sudden presence of a permanent magnetic field, if such a thing could be produced.

No, you wouldn't suddenly measure a magnetic field. Entanglement doesn't quite mean what you think.

a reply to: charlyv

The talk assumes that if we ever correctly decipher what a "graviton" would be... a conflict of great proportion would ensue.

It is one of the real obstacles in the unification of both, how can they both be correct?

QM and GR were unified partially, in the low-field limit (which is nearly all of the universe) in the 1960's. The description about the propagating bosons comes from that notion---on the assumption that the low field limit will work like the rest of quantum field theory which is 100% verified by Standard Model experiments.

It's the full deeply nonlinear theory, e.g. for cosmology, which has not been fully unified with quantum field theory.

a reply to: mbkennel
Thanks for taking the time to go through those point by point which I didn't have the patience to do. That's an accurate assessment of each point, well done.

a reply to: charlyv

Hey cheer up, there's a 1000 qubit computer now. Actually, this stuff is really mind blowing. In 10 years from now things are going to be way different. Check this out...
www.dwavesys.com...

a reply to: Arbitrageur

OH MY GOD. If the speed of gravity in a black hole is equal to light then... as the light constantly moves outward, it is constantly being pulled back towards the mass in equal force so.... black holes are then, actually, FULL OF TRAPPED FROZEN LIGHT! And we just don't see that light because the light never reaches us because it's trapped, forever. HOLY MOLY!

Is that about right?

a reply to: geezlouise
According to my understanding, light would not escape from a black hole whether the speed of gravity was 1/10 the speed of light, the speed of light, or 10 times the speed of light, so the speed of gravity doesn't seem important for calculating the "event horizon", the radius around a black hole within which light cannot escape. In fact the only variable that matters in determining this "Schwarzschild radius" is the mass of the black hole "M" as the formula shows:

radius(schwarzschild) = 2GM/c²

G is the gravitational constant which is the "strength" of gravity, not the speed, and c is another constant, the speed of light in a vacuum which is a constant as far as we know, not a variable. Obviously if c, the speed of light, was different, the "Schwarzschild radius" would change, but the speed of gravity could be anything within reason without affecting this formula.

However you raise an interesting point. Some researchers hypothesize that when a supernova (exploding star) forms a black hole it may actually form a "frozen star" instead, as explained here. It's an alternate explanation to general relativity but GR runs into some problems with black holes so that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Black Holes or Frozen Stars? A Viable Theory of Gravity without Black Holes

Do observations of black hole candidates rule out alternative theories of gravity without horizon formation? This depends on the existence, viability and reasonableness of alternative theories of gravity without black holes.
Here a theory of gravity without black hole horizon formation is presented. The gravitational collapse stops shortly before horizon formation and leaves a stable frozen star.

I don't know if that idea is correct or not but I find it interesting and though it's not the general relativity model, even general relativity predicts that to an external observer, time near the event horizon would appear to slow so much that it might appear "frozen". However in that model an observer near the event horizon would not experience any such "time freezing" and time would appear to pass "normally" inside their spaceship, but they could look out the window and see billions of years go by in an arbitrarily short time according to the clock in their spaceship. Either theory is mind-bending, which shouldn't be surprising since black holes are the ultimate "benders" of space and time.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
a reply to: mbkennel
Thanks for taking the time to go through those point by point which I didn't have the patience to do. That's an accurate assessment of each point, well done.

Thanks. And I never took GR or QFT classes for real.

originally posted by: geezlouise
a reply to: Arbitrageur

OH MY GOD. If the speed of gravity in a black hole is equal to light then... as the light constantly moves outward, it is constantly being pulled back towards the mass in equal force so.... black holes are then, actually, FULL OF TRAPPED FROZEN LIGHT! And we just don't see that light because the light never reaches us because it's trapped, forever. HOLY MOLY!

Is that about right?

Halfway.

The speed of gravitational waves is the speed of light everywhere, not just around black holes.

But near a black hole it's as if the light is orbiting forever like a satellite and so instead of going out, it just circles/ellipses back to itself.

When an ordinary object is in orbit around a planet or star, it is is "going straight" according to general relativity. If it has enough momentum, then it reaches escape velocity and can't stay in orbit but flies out. LIght always 'goes straight' but what straight is, depends on gravity.

In the usual case of a planet, light has enough 'escape momentum', but if the gravitation is strong enough, then even light won't, much less anything else with more mass. That's a black hole.