Black Hole Existence Has Yet to be Proven

reply to post by proteus33

A black hole cannot be detected. Its effects (in this particular case, the event horizon) can be.
Or not. But the technology which this grant will finance is bound to provide some new knowledge.

Unless you want to stay in our cave, knowledge is good.

reply to post by NorEaster


Good luck with all that, and good-bye.

reply to post by Phage

Phage

No. Observations which falsify a theory do not demonstrate that it is correct. They only show that it isn't. If no event horizon is found there's going to be a major kerfuffle about it.

Admittedly I'm not entirely knowledgeable on the topic, but if the event horizon isn't found, does that not still leave the possibility of the equally interesting issue of a potential naked singularity instead?

Or has it been proven that Sagittarius A* isn't spinning enough to do that?

reply to post by apex


Event horizon will never be found to our knowledge. Once you break that plane, if it exists, nothing will happen. Even tho radio signals travel faster than space ships, time gets distorted. Once you experience event horizon, no matter if you are a human, a space ship or a radio signal you are captured.

Nothing gets out, not even light.

proteus33
reply to post by NorEaster

 

how is 19 million dollars going to let you see an object that is infinitesimally small and half the galaxy away ?

Good question. Still, that money will keep the mortgages paid for the people working on this project. There are worse uses for $19 million. Maybe they'll have some sort of technological breakthrough? Other benefits can be had as a result of scientific research.

reply to post by NorEaster

I think black hole is a misnomer anyway. It would just as appropriately be called a black sun or black sphere. I high doubt there is a flat hole sitting in space. More like a spherical object like a star but with gravity so massive it traps all light inside the event horizon. Black holes I imagine of you could orbit one and look upon it would be a elliptical sphere.

reply to post by NorEaster


There is no black hole in middle of Galaxy. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier reveals whats at the centre of the Galaxy "God". Although hes a false God unfortunately.

The thing I cant understand about blackholes is its meant to be compressed mass caused by a collapsed star.
We know to ignite a Nuclear reaction it requires essentially compression of purified uranium material. How come the compressed mass inside a black hole go Kaboom ?

reply to post by AthlonSavage


My guess would be because the center is the focal point of the totality of concentrated mass of the entire galaxy (stars, planets), they are locked together, perhaps tethered in a way by gravitation, with the central mass being the most concentrated and dense. Who knows the true nature of fundamental space/vacuum/gravity field because in the center that is what is perhaps being infinitely and infinitesimally twisted like a whirlpool of space time,

Extremely strong magnets is what black holes are. They are the driving force of our electro magnetic universe. The universe is just a huge game of tug of war.

op, are you suggesting that maybe its not a black hole? with a set of conditions or known parameters, the pervasive response of a black hole certainly answers the question of what the hell is that. are you implying that it could be something else that is causing the effects?

What if the point of the black hole was simply that it is nonexistent. Existence implies a finite amount of space and energy.. throw some time in there as well... yet still it (the universe) is beyond our capabilities of knowing its true "size".. and how much of it there is. So we have black hole.. blah blah.. but what if the answer was simply nonexistence.. if there was a single point of energy that went boom.. (big bang).. then the result of the bang.. our universe.. was a finite (more than our technology allows us to understand at this point in time) amount of energy expanding in an infinite nonexistence... I'm sure this has been discussed before.. and I'm rather new to everything.. but the way I see it.. existence overlapping nonexistence would be hard to do.. for you have a finite something trying to fill an infinite nothing. so a black hole could simply be a "pocket" of nonexistence in which no finite amount of universe could fill unless it was greater than the amount of nonexistence in that area.. determining how much "nonexistence" there is in any one spot is simply unable to be known.. I couldn't begin to articulate an example for you.. nonexistence could never be understood.. for it is nonexistent.. and we are existent.. physically, mentally, and spiritually if you want to throw that in there.. but what do I know.. I'm just have my mind vomit out questions at the moment.. any critiquing on this would be very much appreciated.. I'm a new member.. and I like this website because of the information I can gain from educated responses.. there are many intelligent members on this site from what I've seen.. I like the idea of nonexistence.. seeing how the conscience is the thin line between existence and nonexistence.. for only we understand the two.. kinda like the singularity everyone wants to find I suppose.. how much universe does it take to fill a black hole? could it take the whole universe? we might never know if we only assume the black hole is another part of existence which we assume to be finite. or am I totally off track?

Well this is news to me, I had always assumed that we had direct proof of black holes, either by observing the gravitational lensing around the black hole or by seeing some large mass such as a star being sucked into a black hole... but in fact neither of those things have been observed. The main reason we think a black hole must be at the center of the galaxy is because it contains so much mass in such a small area. That isn't good enough proof for me, the theory of general relativity predicts a very specific type of black hole with many properties we can describe, but the fact that we cannot merge general relativity with quantum mechanics indicates that our understanding of space-time is incomplete.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

www.astronomy.com...

Observed, though before that the evidence was basically that of x-ray bursts from binary systems that appeared to only have one star... so... search and you shall find evidence.

Also the orbit of stars around the galactic centre give a very very very good indication that there is something invisible and massive at the centre. Doesn't have to be a black hole, but the amount of matter that comes out of multiple orbital mechanics equations is rather large for it to have no optical counter part.

a reply to: ErosA433

From that article:

A detailed analysis of its spectrum allowed scientists to infer the characteristics of its companion. “It turned out to be an object with a mass between 3.8 and 6.9 solar masses,” said Ignasi Ribas of CSIC at the Institute of Space Sciences. “An object like that, invisible to telescopes and with such large mass, can only be a black hole because no neutron star with more than three solar masses can exist.”

That is a far cry from direct proof. They analyzed photons coming from a star to reach the conclusion it must be in orbit with a black hole... I'm not finding that very convincing. They claim it must be sucking up matter from the equatorial disk around the "Be star" but they only provide an artists recreation of it, they don't provide any images because they still haven't directly observed the black hole or its accretion disk, they just assume it must be there because they can see gamma rays coming from that direction, but the article also states they are no longer able to detect gamma rays coming from that direction.

Also the orbit of stars around the galactic centre give a very very very good indication that there is something invisible and massive at the centre.

That's exactly why I said "the main reason we think a black hole must be at the center of the galaxy is because it contains so much mass in such a small area". All we know is that a huge amount of mass is contained in a very small volume of space, but it it is not necessarily invisible and there's no reason it absolutely must be a black hole with the weird properties predicted by general relativity.

@NorEaster

Data indication is one thing. Accurate interpretation of data indication is something entirely different.

Exactly, and that, IMO, applies to many objects out there. We do not even have a decent image of the 'star' that is our nearest neighbour, yet just assume the experts must be right. Same with Black Holes, and there is an alternative model that has Black Holes, and Suns, as creators of energy and matter, powered by tapping into the Vacuum energies. The Black Hole creates 'hard' gamma rays, and through pair production, creates the building blocks of all matter.
The tremendous magnetic fields around such objects, that require tremendous electric fields to exist, can be created by optical rectification, and this would indicate that the vacuum is actually a non-linear or quasi non-linear medium, which also allows for a new model of how light and other EM forces traverse the vacuum.
These types of ideas have been suggested by astrophysicists for decades, but it seems astronomers do not communicate or consult with the real scientists on matters such as this.
Detection of an event horizon does not mean anything either, as that is just another misinterpretation of data, as is the accretion disk, which is really a creation disk. Basically, turn the whole model according to astronomers around, and you will be likely much closer to the truth.