I was watching Discovery Science Channel this weekend and was watching a show about supermassive blackholes. While I am an amature astronomer, Dr. Michau Kaku said something that kinda sounded....well off. They were discussing a star being consumed by a blackhole. Kakumade a comment that once the star reached the ecretian (sp?) disk it would speed up in it's decaying orbits until the matter reached the speed of light before entering the event horizon and being consumed. It struck me that matter, propelled to the speed of light becomes infinitely massive. If this is the case, and assuming that laws of special relativity do not apply in this case, how can a singularity consume something that is infinitely massive?
Any thoughts? Did Dr. Kaku misspeak?

[edit on 1-9-2009 by djvexd]

[edit on 1-9-2009 by djvexd]

It gets stranger still.. as you get closer to the center of a black hole time moves more slowly. At the center theres no time at all. So in theory you would never actually hit the center. But because blackholes have a finite lifespan eventually they die and you get crushed. But this would all happen at normal speed from your perspective.

Dont get mass confused with massive.

[edit on 3-9-2009 by VitalOverdose]

you really have to love this kind of stuff, really messes with your head. Someitmes, its so strange you would swear they are just making this up as they go along. I love trying to understand it, hate trying to explain it though..

Originally posted by djvexd
I was watching Discovery Science Channel this weekend and was watching a show about supermassive blackholes. While I am an amature astronomer, Dr. Michau Kaku said something that kinda sounded....well off. They were discussing a star being consumed by a blackhole. Kakumade a comment that once the star reached the ecretian (sp?) disk it would speed up in it's decaying orbits until the matter reached the speed of light before entering the event horizon and being consumed. It struck me that matter, propelled to the speed of light becomes infinitely massive. If this is the case, and assuming that laws of special relativity do not apply in this case, how can a singularity consume something that is infinitely massive?
Any thoughts? Did Dr. Kaku misspeak?

[edit on 1-9-2009 by djvexd]

[edit on 1-9-2009 by djvexd]

Ok, I believe what you are missing here is that beyond the ecretion disk the black hole is infinitely massive. The material that is on the rim is moving at the speed or light or greater but it still dose'nt have enough mass or speed to over come the mass of the singularity itself. Remember at the singularity our physics break down. The singularity is infinitely massive and infinitely small. That's the reason light at its speed cant even escape the black hole. To giove you an example of how massive an object in space can be. Pulsars and super dense and have huge masses which create tremendous gravity wells. A spoon full of a pulsar the size of say Pluto would weigh as much as Mt. Everest or comparable. Thats a lot of mass. So imagine a dot that has the same mass as the Earth (6.0 sextillion metric tons) or 6.0 × 10 to the 24th power kg. That dot would be extremely massive and would cause a severe dent in the space/time plane or fabric.

Some stars dont collapse enough or quickly enough to become a black hole. A star has to collapse to infinity to become a black hole. Super massive black holes which are at the center of most galaxies are theorized to have come into being from the cannibalizing of one black hole on others. I hope that answers your question. I'm not a astro physicist but I have studied this and from all that Ive read and heard this is an accurate description of what you are asking about

Now if you want to get more confused go look for the Science Channels program about Steven Hawkins idea of black holes actually destroying information which can never be recovered. Steven has since then retracted his ideas about that. Still its would interesting to inform yourself on it.

A couple of points before I explain this as best I can:

• Michio Kaku is a paid mouth. He is very intelligent, but he will also say whatever he is paid to say. What you heard was not what "Mucho Kookoo" believes or knows, but rather what the producers of the show wanted him to say.
  
  Intelligence is irrelevant if it does not value truth over a few bucks.
  
  
• All information on black hole activity beyond the Schwartzchild's Radius is purely theoretical. and therefore subject to correction as more information is discovered and new theories are presented. Dr. Stephen Hawkings, a man who is both intelligent and scientifically honest, has made a career on the subject of black holes alone.

Now, to answer your question as best I can:

All matter is trapped energy existing in a spatial energy membrane. All matter also exerts a 'pull' on this somewhat elastic membrane which we know as gravity. In the presence of a black hole, this pull is such that the membrane is pulled into the black hole at such a high speed that the Schwartzchild's Radius (otherwise known in layman's terms as the 'event horizon'), where the speed of the membrane due to gravity equals the speed of light, extends beyond the physical dimensions of the black hole.

As matter reaches the massive proportions found in a black hole, it becomes no longer individual particles, but rather begins to meld into a single massive particle. Since the mass of a particle is a function of the energy required to produce the mass effects described by the familiar equation E=mc², the physical size of a particle is inversely proportional to its mass.

VitalOverdose was correct: do not confuse mass with massive. In reality, the two are mutually opposed when at the quantum level.

Any object which approaches the Schwartzchild's Radius will experience an acceleration into it, at which point it will be moving at the speed of light relative to an outside observer. Relative to the object, however, it might not be moving at all; it is not really the object that is moving at he speed of light, but the space-time around it. Think warp field from the old Star Trek TV show.

That means that matter in the accretion disk, which is by definition outside the Schwartzchild's Radius, is not moving at the speed fo light. It is accelerating toward the speed fo light relative to an outside observer.

Now what happens when the spatial membrane reaches the speed of light is another mystery. I have come to think it is entirely plausible that time itself enters a new dimension at the Schwatrzchild's Radius, bending off at a 90-degree angle into an as-yet not understood dimension. Space limits how much of this train of thought I can place here, but if anyone wants more info, I'll make an attempt.

Maybe that answered your question; maybe it just confused you. I know it tends to confuse me at times.

TheRedneck

I want to thank EVERYONE that posted in this thread. The amount of information took me quite a few days as well as multiple reading of posts to get it down. I think I understand the answer....maybe...lol...head still swimming. Between Hawking's video and checking out a book by Kip Thorne about blackholes and time warps I have a headache. I can tell you guys and gals however that with one question answered it has produced six more. But I will try and research those before I bring them up. If my brain doesn't implode first Once again THANK YOU, to each and everyone of you.