Fastest Spinning Black Hole Ever Found 204
brian0918 writes, "NewScientist reports that researchers in Cambridge have detected a black hole spinning at nearly 1,000 times per second — the fastest ever recorded. From the article: 'McClintock's team examined a black hole in our galaxy called GRS 1915+105, which lies about 36,000 light years away. They found the innermost stable orbit around GRS 1915 is so close that the black hole must be spinning at nearly 1000 times per second. The finding supports the idea that only fast-spinning stars can collapse to create powerful explosions called long gamma-ray bursts.'" The Astrophysical Journal abstract is open but you have to be a subscriber to read the full article there.
Not so impressed (Score:1, Funny)
In addition to low throughput, I bet there would be some data loss.
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Fastest Spinning Black-Hole (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Fastest Spinning Black-Hole (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Fastest Spinning Black-Hole (Score:4, Funny)
In the spirit of Dave Barry... (Score:2, Insightful)
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Original Article (Score:5, Informative)
The moon is green cheese (Score:5, Insightful)
People, what we have is a model, not an observation. As TFA says, this model is based on assumptions, though fewer assumptions in the past:"Now, astronomers have measured the spin of a black hole with a new method that requires fewer assumptions."
The black hole may indeed be spinning at 1000 revs, or is might just be that one of the model assumptions is invalid.
Method (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, assuming the theory is correct, their method sounds pretty plausibl
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The models used here might be completely accurate. They might also be just a reasonable approximation for some coditions, and might be an appaling approximation when you step outside those conditions. A bit like New
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So yes, assuming the underlying theories are correct, this could be a good measurement. We don't for certain know that general relativity and quantum mechanics are correct, but currently there is almost no scientific dissent on their validity. Those
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Or our high school science classes should be improved to the point that every adult would already know that these caveats are implicit in every scientific announcement. Way too many of us (esp. us Americans) treat science as either gospel or hogwash. Note that claiming that science is hogwash in no way implies rejecting the practical fruits of said hogwash.
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Re:The moon is green cheese (Score:4, Insightful)
If you believe that, you had better not fly. GPS systems only work because of General Relativity - Newton's work isn't accurate enough. GPS is proof of Einstein's work. Instead of being 'literally unusable', the information we collect is vital for so much of current technology.
So your attempt to disprove global warming by this argument just won't work. Sorry.
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But that was not the way the argument worked:
The modeling (practically all of it...pick your discipline) is flawed to the point that the data is literally unusable in an honest way.
The original poster was so desperate to not believe global climate change (I understand why - the consequences could be nasty) that they felt they had to rubbish ALL science.
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Actually, it is. Because if this is all that those wanting to dismiss climate modelling can come up with....
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If all they can come up with is that global climate modeling is so unreliable that it tempts the under-informed to mistrust modeling in general, isn't that enough?
Also, if your faith in global climate modeling is so strong, why such a weaksauce defense of it? Can't you be bothered to argue in favor of trusting the modeling, rather than simply arguing against extending distrust of the modeling to oth
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Because arguing in favour of modelling is hard, because modelling is hard. It involves detailed knowledge of physics, mathematics, chemistry and statistics. What am I supposed to do - go into those in detail in a Slashdot post? At some point people just have t
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Because the techniques that they use have shown to work very well in other situations. For example, the type of modelling used for climate situations (statistical ensembles) is also used for things like modelling of chemical reactions, and is a sup
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May I use an analogy?
It seems as if you're asking, "the engine in my riding lawnmower works just fine for mowing lawns; why shouldn't I use it in a high-speed chassis to break the world land speed record?". I know this is a gross exagger
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No, this isn't the case. Statistical ensembles are used in equally (or far more) complex fields, such as the simulation of quantum mechanical interactions or large molecular complexes.
but have you considered the possibility that the mode
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How sensible are the statistics? What is their predictive success right now?
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To simplify, there is a scientifically accepted standard for all statistics, called 'confidence limits'. Ranges are predicted (such as ranges in temperature in 100 years time), they are only shown if there is less than a 1 in 20 (5%) chance that they are wrong.
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Won't it be impossible to know "if there is less than a 1 in 20 (5%) chance that they are wrong", until we've actually waited, say, 100 years to see if the 100-year predictions really are that accurate?
What's been the predictive success of these metho
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No, because that is what modelling is for! Models aren't taken out of the air. They are based on proven theories of physics, chemistry, biology and so on, and tested by running against historical data
What's been the predictive success of these methods so far, and what's the longest time period for which pre
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well, there goes much of science. Much of science consists of running repeatable experiments on models, and seeing what the models do, then comparing what happens to models with reality. That has been the ba
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You are completely misunderstandi
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I am glad you mentioned cars. The methods used by climate modellers are indeed used by those who make cars. They are also used by those who make planes. They use statistical methods to analyse turbulent flows to predict air flows, energy transfers and forces. It is very much the same sorts of modell
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And climate models are run against past data before they are accepted. No model is acceptable unless it can produce reproducible results against some real data - there would be no point.
There's a huge difference between trying to divine the rules of physics vs. trying to model a complex and constantly changing system. Gravity, electricty, and chemical reactions haven't changed sinc
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I am am insisting that it isn't. The point of using statistical ensembles is to be able to quantify the uncertainty.
Predicting against the past is not the same as predicting the future or scenarios that we haven't seen before with success.
No, it isn't. But it is done all the time. It is done in economics, in biology, even in physics (cosmology). There is nothing unique about climate modelling in this respect.
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How about a simple question: Have climate modellers already proven their ability to accurately model the global climate 100 years out, or not?
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How about a simple question: Have climate modellers already proven their ability to accurately model the global climate 100 years out, or not?
Yes, and No
What climate modellers have shown is that a range of models, all with different assumptions, when taken together, provide a range of predictions of the global climate for the next century.
This range of predictions can be statistically examined. There is an average prediction, and there are extreme limit predictions. All we can say is that the
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Sorry, but things don't work like that. The topic of this discussion was general relativity. You can't now work backwa
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Then why are you attempting to criticise physicists, or science in general? Are you broadly qualified? If not, how on Earth do you consider yourself in a posi
Black holes Vs. Planets (Score:2)
Re:Black holes Vs. Planets (Score:4, Informative)
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Erm, if there was a planet with a gravitational pull equivalent to a black hole, it would for all intents and purposes be a black hole. A hunk of matter with enough mass to equal the gravitational pull of a black hole would also not emit light. It would also have to be incredibly spread out. It would also have enough mass to start fusion and would either be a gas giant or would collapse and for
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strike
Re:Black holes Vs. Planets (Score:4, Informative)
Nonetheless, a planet will make a star vibrate ever-so-slightly-and-slowly, whereas a black whole will make who masses of stuff rotate around it, and suck them in.
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, halfway across the galaxy, and yet it's still so hard to find planets.
One thing is for sure. (Score:4, Funny)
Squished apart (Score:3, Interesting)
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Because of this effect, it is impossible not to orbit a rapidly spinning black hole as you fall in; you'll get dragged around along with space-time. I'm guessing (without having actually heard or re
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Ok, but how fast can you spin it?
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No, seriously. Relativity says that infinite tensile strength is impossible. Everything *must* cease to act as a perfectly rigid body at some level of applied force.
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Being an armchair physicist, I was wondering what *if* the hole was spinning almost the speed of light (>99.999%) at the horizon, then wouldn't the centrifugal force almost equal the gravitational force at the horizon? Enough that the horizon would shrink ever so slighly (or via Uncertainly Principle), making something that was once inside, now outside? Discounting for "quantum hair", even a couple of photons escaping would disagree with the theory "Whatever falls in a blackhole can'
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Furthermore, there's no event horizon "shrinkage" due to the hole spinning. You get a "smaller" event horizon (in comparison to a non-spinning black hole) as a result of frame dragging, but shrinkage would require the hole to speed up.
Black holes _do_ shrink. They do, in fact, evaporate over time, as a result of imaginary particles. This is termed Ha [wikipedia.org]
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I also understand that centrifugal force being "an illusion" that is linear acceleration (the key here being acceleration that approaches th
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Get the full text (no subscription) here (Score:5, Informative)
Is that fast enough for closed timelike curves? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yup, I saw him tomorrow
So the question is... (Score:5, Funny)
Makes sense to me... (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, i'm not an astrophysicist, but it seems to me that if a star had any spin at all before collapsing into a black hole, that spin would be magnified quite substantially, to conserve angular momentum (y'know, like a figure skater, or you spinning on your office chair).
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Two more questions:
1. Why are the positions of stable orbits (and what makes an orbit "stable", anyway?) dependent on the rate of rotation of the body being orbited? Isn't orbital mechanics dictated by the mass of the object being orbited? If you know the mass, and the altitude, you can compute the orbital velocity, no?
2. If the object is truly a singularity, does the co
Full Article Available for Free (Score:4, Informative)
Orbiting at no more than 30 miles from the center (Score:2)
If an ogject is orbiting at 1,000 times per second in order for it to remain just below the speed of light it would have to be NO farther than about 30 miles from the center of the black hole.
It's got to be on the verge of exploding. I wonder what effect the explosion will have here on Earth at 38,000 light years away?
Re:Orbiting at no more than 30 miles from the cent (Score:5, Funny)
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1K Hz sounds about right... (Score:3, Informative)
This When to the Egress (Score:4, Interesting)
In the immortal words of Space Quest IV... (Score:3)
"Doooon't mess with it!"
In this case, it sounds extremely functional, in the gravity-that-rips-your-arms-off sense.
obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Lovecraft reference? (Score:2)
"the ancient legends of Ultimate Chaos, at whose center sprawls the blind idiot god Azathoth, Lord of All Things, encircled by his flopping horde of mindless and amorphous dancers, and lulled by the thin monotonous piping of a demoniac flute held in nameless paws."
Wikipedia link [wikipedia.org]
Seemed somehow fitting.
Multi-Dimensional Universe (Score:3, Interesting)
Every black hole has a central singularity. These are points where mathematical modeling fails. That is because we assume every thing is 3-D. But the fact of the matter is these centers of black holes are singularities in 3-D but are actually simply transition points in higher dimensions..." [source] [indiadaily.com]
Whoa
Re:Multi-Dimensional Universe (Score:5, Insightful)
Moderators: Big words != informative.
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My favorite line is:
The limit cycle in the black hole is stable with everything getting attracted to it while on the other side it is unstable in terrestrial science vocabulary which means everything is pushed out over time.
Remember you heard about semantically unstable blackholes on India Times first! And the story babbles about "computer models". If you have something that can't be modelled mathetically, then it can't be modeled with computers either. The latter is a special case of the former.
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Faster than light? (Score:2)
Contradiction (Score:2)
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Gravitons are a proposed quantum paritcle, and black holes and quantum physics haven't been reconciled yet. The warping-of-space-time explaination do
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More precisely, a black hole warps space in the sense that if you had a flashlight right on the event horizon and pointed it parallel to the event horizon, the light would travel in a great circle on the event horizon.
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Hence the phrase 'open up' an ergosphere, not 'create' one.
It's clear you have no idea what you're talking about so I won't even bother to type a whole big thing about what scientists who know what they're talking about think about how large singularities are regardless of how far out the event horizon is. It's either a simple physics statement that it's infinitely small but large enough to exist because if it
Size differential (Score:2)
Well, since a 747 is significantly less massive than a black hole (except for very few - if any - primordial black holes, and even then, after swallowing Pluto they'd definitely be more massive), and BBs are significantly bigger than most particles, I'd say trying to deflect a 747 with BBs would actually be much, much easier. Assuming you have the correct angle, of course... :P
(Never mind the fact that by the time said black hole swallowed up Pluto it'd already have totally destroyed our orbital trajector
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I'm being nitpicky, but isn't it the case that any black hole that was only as massive as a 747 would evaporate in milliseconds? IIRC Hawking radiation takes care of small black holes at a rate inversely proportional to the surface area of the event horizon.
I think you are correct (Score:2)
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You are right, you can make a black hole of any size. But they lose mass quickly [wikipedia.org] if they're small. From the Wikipedia article: "A 1 second-lived black hole has a mass of 228,000 kg." This is only about half the maximum take-off weight of a 747 [wikipedia.org], so my guess that it would last only milliseconds was wrong - it would last over a second before exploding into gamma rays.
Re:why spinning it good (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's also 1 kHz (Score:2)
The way you use RPM, I'm guessing you're comparing it to an engine.
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OK, fine. But picture a car spinning at 1KHz. A Bus. A air craft carrier. A planet. By the time you're talking about a black-hole spinning at 1KHz, you're talking about an absolutely enormous mass spinning at an asounding rate -- big things don't move that fast without flying apart.
Yes, there are smaller things which can spin faster. The point is, this is the fastest enormous thing we've ever discovered. Picture the kind of forces req
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Re:If we could make a rom like blu-ray out of Gama (Score:2)
If a gamma ray from far away could play today a blu-ray, then I would say that gamma ray was sellable on e-bay.
(and before an anonymous coward makes a "funny" response, no I am not gay...)
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