I would think a black hole is more along the line of Quest's answer; just a big think of matter with gravity so powerful that light can't escape it, that rotates at near the speed of light; it sucks in matter, into its blackness, and the matter breaks up and thus looks like it was swallowed by a black "hole," yet then, over time, the black hole, throws the matter back into the universe in some form or another.

As for the "hole" part, in regards to workholes, Stephen Hawking said that even if a black hole does open up a wormhole at its bottom (if it is even a hole), this wormhole would be a VERY SMALL opening, and thus, you'd have to go far faster than the speed of light to even reach it, because it could open and close, and no matter can go up to the speed of light, so you'd never get to it.

Another thing about black holes I believe is that they change the wavelength of the light from an obejct as they go into it, so if you sent in a spaceship with a friend of yours in it, waving at the window, he and his ship would disappear in front of you before being torn apart, because the light sending his image to you would go from the visible light spectrum, to being stretched out to ultraviolet light and microwaves and such I believe, to being stretched to a flat line (light isn't necessarily just a wave, but you know what I mean). So objects going into a black hole would literally disappear while going in, if you could watch them.

If stars are at the centers of solar systems, and black holes at the centers of galaxies, and the solar systems move through the galaxy and galaxies move through the universe (weird to think that while sitting at this computer, we are moving through the universe at god know's what speed right now), anyone wonder what is at the center of the universe???

Originally posted by Broadsword20068
Another thing about black holes I believe is that they change the wavelength of the light from an obejct as they go into it, so if you sent in a spaceship with a friend of yours in it, waving at the window, he and his ship would disappear in front of you before being torn apart, because the light sending his image to you would go from the visible light spectrum, to being stretched out to ultraviolet light and microwaves and such I believe...
So objects going into a black hole would literally disappear while going in, if you could watch them.

anyone wonder what is at the center of the universe???

First, UV isn't between visible light and microwaves, in fact UV radiation has even shorter wavelength (bigger energy) than visible light. It's IR (heat) radiation which has longer wavelength than visible light.
This effect of light changing color is called as gravitational redshift, photons climbing up from gravity well lose energy meaning (longer wavelength) light turns redder.
Naturally it works also to other way, when observer lies in gravity well incoming light gets blueshifted.
That's exactly same effect what fast movement causes, objects fast velocity causes redshift when it goes farther away and blueshift when it's closing.

And there's "natural" edge inside which everything "disappears" completely and is uncapable to sending any EM radiation out, it's our old friend event horizon... inside that escape velocity exceeds speed of light.


And there's no such thing as center of universe which could be pointed at. No matter where you are movement of galaxies would look similar... closer galaxies moving away slower and far away galaxies faster.
This can be simulated with air balloon, make some dots to it and then start filling it while watching distances between dots. You'll notice that no matter what dot you use as reference dots farther away move away from it faster than those ones close to it.

I think it is just a ball of stationary particles collapsed in on themselves possibly forming the hardest element possible, were all the energy has been saped and pushed out of the atoms. Particles no longer holding orbits around atoms but the atomic energy is squezed out. A place were proton and neutrons and electrons are pushed so tightly together that no movement or energy exists between them. A place were gravity is king werethe force of gravity continues to grow as long as it s fed. A place were all those atoms energy is used by the black hole to perpetuate and grow itself even larger. The prefect engine so to speak. Complete and uter consumption of energy.A place were matter exists without energy. The eneregy is expelled and used as the jets you see streaming out of black holes.

Heh

I just work on planes hehe. I ve got no idea... just crazy speculation above =).

X

My bad on the light waves thing; however, I did read from somewhere that if a person was going into a blackhole, the effect of the gravity on the light carrying their image would either make them disappear in front of you, OR (maybe I got it mixed up), if they were recieving radio signals from you, even though you sent radio talk to them, they might never recieve the radio signal at a certain point because the gravity would stretch the light waves of the radio signal out too far. Something like that.

And I didn't say about finding the center of the universe, I just sugggested wondering what is at its center.

Sort of like what is at its edge (if it has an edge). After all, if the universe is open space expanding into nothing, and the universe contains matter, than what is at the edge of the expanding universe?? You can't crash into a wall, but you can't fly into even more open space, so what is there??

Some theorize there really isn't an edge, that if you started at one point of the universe and tried to go to the edge, you'd eventually end up back at the same place you started; think of it like walking around the Earth, but in more dimensions.

[edit on 29-1-2005 by Broadsword20068]

Originally posted by SaranGani
Hey everyone, If blackholes do exist and they suck all matter and light inside them what happens to them? are they taken to another dimension or are they just crushed? if so surely the crushed mass must exist somewhere?

Black holes are, in theory, just REALLY REALLY deep... so that's where all the mass goes. Of course black holes are not to be confused with worm holes (entirely different discussion )

Osiris

Originally posted by Broadsword20068
My bad on the light waves thing; however, I did read from somewhere that if a person was going into a blackhole, the effect of the gravity on the light carrying their image would either make them disappear in front of you, OR (maybe I got it mixed up), if they were recieving radio signals from you, even though you sent radio talk to them, they might never recieve the radio signal at a certain point because the gravity would stretch the light waves of the radio signal out too far. Something like that.

And I didn't say about finding the center of the universe, I just sugggested wondering what is at its center.

Sort of like what is at its edge (if it has an edge). After all, if the universe is open space expanding into nothing, and the universe contains matter, than what is at the edge of the expanding universe?? You can't crash into a wall, but you can't fly into even more open space, so what is there??

Some theorize there really isn't an edge, that if you started at one point of the universe and tried to go to the edge, you'd eventually end up back at the same place you started; think of it like walking around the Earth, but in more dimensions.

[edit on 29-1-2005 by Broadsword20068]

if the universe is infinite you could never reach its edge. you would just keep going, on and on and on, and on. now the fact that its expanding- well things are just getting further apart in regards to each other, it doesnt mean it had a discernible edge to begin with, and that edge is getting further and further away.

if you say its finite, then its not really a 'uni-verse' it would simply be a smaller verse that is contained in another larger dimension of other universes, which in turn form an endless loop. like that theory of a universe exisiting in every atom of your body, and your universe simply being part on an atom in another beings body somewhere far far away

still thats just my random spec, anyone got some cool sites where this is discussed by people who actually have more of a clue than me thnks.

On the other side of a black hole some scientists say that their is a white hole where all of the stuff comes out of,they just don't know where it comes out

Originally posted by painkiller
if the universe is infinite you could never reach its edge. you would just keep going, on and on and on, and on. now the fact that its expanding- well things are just getting further apart in regards to each other, it doesnt mean it had a discernible edge to begin with, and that edge is getting further and further away.

Actually fact that there isn't edge doesn't mean it has to be infinite.
Like Earth, surface area is definitely finite but you can continue travelling in straight line forever without hitting some edge.

Originally posted by Britguy
I have this theory that it's where all those things we "lose" over the years go to.
You know, all those odd socks that disappear somewhere between the laundry basket and the dryer. Things we are adamant we left on the shelf inside the front door only a couple of days ago that have now gone

LMAO

"and a man shall lose his hammer, which he put down just the other night, about eight oclock, and shall not knowwhere these things are" ~ monty python life of brian

yes, matter can b turned into energy, ever try burning a piece of wood?

Originally posted by Paladin327
yes, matter can b turned into energy, ever try burning a piece of wood?

No matter is consumed while burning wood. A better example would be nuclear fission, where about 1% of the matter involved is released directly as energy.

this will sound naive and stupid. i know nothing about blackholes...but why don't we just send something up there (without men in it ofcourse) and let it go in the black holes, and see what happens, then it could send photos back etc. but maybe if it was that simple they'd have already done it.
suse

Originally posted by Quest
The most likely theory to date goes as follows:

As matter falls into a black hole it adds to the mass of the singularity and creates a general "mush" of mass/energy.

Over time this mass/energy is put back into our own universe through gamma burst from the singularities poles and through hawking radiation.

I dont claim to know better than anyone else, but I thought that the polar ejections from backholes were material that had never crossed the event horizon. Last time I did any reading on physics (although I haven't read any of hawkings work actually and haven't gotten through Kaku's Hyperspace yet) we didn't think that any kind of information or energy could escape the event horizon. The "burp" I suppose would be another matter.

Evenetually black holes evaporate (if they don't have a continuous suppply of fresh matter) through these methods of expelling mass/energy.

This interests me, perhaps you could elaborate for me since I'm not extremely familiar physics. How would a blackhole evaporate? As it bent space would it come to occupy more space and as a result lose density allowing matter to escape?

There is no direct evidence, but the gravity of a black hole might open wormholes (rips in space-time). However, this is more sci-fi than science for now.

Forgive idle speculation by a layman, but could this be the cause of the ejections at the poles? Could a rip or a bend in space-time theoretically prevent a direct path into the blackhole and direct energy falling inwards back out from the poles?

What "other side"? Do you mean that you think a black hole opens some passage to another place or another dimension? If you can bring evidence of such I'd be most interested.

I may be remembering my school-boy physics incorrectly, but I was under the impression that gravity was an attribute of mass rather than energy. Although mass and energy can be interchangeable, from e=mc^2, can anybody confirm whether this is really applicable to the force applied by gravity, F=mg?

Essentially, I am asking whether particles that have *near* zero mass could escape? The math would seem to indicate otherwise when approaching the limits of c, since I understand that light can be bent by massive objects and the affects of effective gravity, but if we considered the very limits of mass and energy (i.e. notionally, zero mass) what then?

At the outer edges, the black hole must surely conform to our physical understanding of the universe, Newtonian physics for instance.