Black Holes No More -- Introducing the Gravastar 670
Mark Eymer observes: "From the Space.com article: 'Emil Mottola of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Pawel Mazur of the University of South Carolina suggest that instead of a star collapsing into a pinpoint of space with virtually infinite gravity, its matter is transformed into a spherical void surrounded by "an extremely durable form of matter never before experienced on Earth."' While these objects may abound in the universe, they also say that our entire universe may reside within a giant gravastar." This new theory attempts to fill holes in the currently accepted concept of the "black hole".
ah.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:ah.... (Score:4, Funny)
Which would mean the universe is already *in*
Re:ah.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I have no problems believing that.
Re:ah.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:ah.... (Score:3, Funny)
Does this mean that Darl is claiming rights over the universe? (No surprise there.)
Re:ah.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:ah.... (Score:5, Funny)
I was wondering what is this
However, when I tried to view it again all I got was gibberish. Please tell me how to view the complete works of Shakespeare through
Re:ah.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:ah.... (Score:5, Funny)
Actually I believe we're in
Re:ah.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:ah.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:ah.... (Score:3, Funny)
...but Gretzky grabs the rebound...
He shoots...
He scores!!!!!
Re:ah.... (Score:4, Interesting)
kind of like the russian dolls metaphor, eh?
Question: why would we assume that there is ever an outermost gravistar that holds the universe and then
Reminds me of Farnsworth's "universe in a box" experiment where each universe held a number of boxes each leading to a parallel universe in which Farnsworth had created a number of boxes which each holding a parallel universe
"Good news, everyone..."
Ow, my brain has just been subjected to a paralyzing blow -- think I'll take the rest of the day off and drink vodka tonics until the throbbing goes away.
Re:ah.... (Score:4, Interesting)
This may also help explain how the Wormhole theories work between Black Holes and White Holes (Black being an entrance and White being an exit)...maybe the White Holes are exits from another Gravistar? Thus crossing dimensions...
OOhhh...I want the movie rights! =)
Re:ah.... (Score:4, Funny)
This thread might also explain the popularity of mind-altering drugs among amature theoretical physicists.
Re:ah.... (Score:2)
Re:ah.... (Score:5, Funny)
In the beginning, God created the universe, and saw that it was good. And God created Man, and Man developed Windows 3.1. Angered, God sent a UDP packet flood filled with His wrath to destroy the sins of man.
Time went on, and once again mankind became wicked and corrupt. Arrogantly, a tower was built of such size and breadth that it was said that it would reach the Gates of heaven, and it was named the tower of Win32. God punished the wickedness of man by releasing a plague of worms o'er the land, and caused the tribes of men to be unable to interoperate. The tribe of Noob called their language Me98. The tribe of Sadmin called their language Entie2000, or Ekspee in certain regions.
And time went on in that manner for some time. But yet again, mankind became frought with sin, and God sent a savior, whom he named Linus. But the descendents of the tribe of Redmond had Linus berated under the rule of Pontius PHB.
And God spake, "fsck this", and made Linux the True System of the Universe. And he didst pipe all sinners into /dev/null, and he didst give those of kind spirit very high "nice" priorities.
We must look to the day when all zombie processes will rise from their slumber, and the monitors will go black, and the high-bandwidth pipes will run red as blood, and all directories in /home will be judged as fit, or...
DELETED!
Re:ah.... (Score:3, Funny)
Man, lacking a TCP/IP stack in his creation, missed out on this experience entirely. God, receiving no response from his fierce, packety wrath, believed he had won, then abandoned the Earth and spent the rest of eternity darning socks.
Durable Material (Score:4, Funny)
But can they make a new non-stick pan surface out of it?
Re:Durable Material (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Durable Material (Score:2)
All well and good but (Score:4, Funny)
Re:All well and good but (Score:2)
it's true (Score:3, Funny)
Come on guys! (Score:3, Funny)
I can't help myself (Score:4, Funny)
Ha Ha Ha! Your puny theory will never escape from the irresistible gravitic pull of this horrible pun...
--
Was it the sheep climbing onto the altar, or the cattle lowing to be slain,
or the Son of God hanging dead and bloodied on a cross that told me this was a world condemned, but loved and bought with blood.
Warning (Score:2, Funny)
Stoner philosophy (Score:3, Funny)
"Dude... what if, like... our whole universe... is just one tiny atom... in the toenail of some giant dude?"
"Woah, dude."
Re:Stoner philosophy (Score:5, Funny)
"Woah, dude."
Man, you should write scripts for the Matrix!
Re:Stoner philosophy (Score:2)
Reminds me of Animal House (Score:4, Funny)
"So what you are saying is that an atom inside our fingernail..."
"That atom could contain a teeny, tiny universe."
"Woah!.................Can you sell me some pot?"
It's turtles all the way down! (Score:4, Interesting)
+1 karma to anyone who gets the title of this post
Re:It's turtles all the way down! (Score:2)
Which is maybe just inside a little jar!"
--Yakko Warner, "Yakko's Universe," Animaniacs
Re:It's turtles all the way down! (Score:3, Funny)
Feinman talks with an old lady who won't listen to anything he says, she is convinced that the earth really rests on the back of a giant turtle. When he asks what that rests on, she replies something like "Buddy, it's turtles all the way down."
-Tyler
tjw19@columbia.edu
Re:It's turtles all the way down! (Score:5, Interesting)
The title comes from the retelling of a story in Carl Sagan's Broca's Brain where a 17th century philosopher/physicist (which one I can't remember) is giving a lecture on how the Earth moves in the Solar System, floating in space. A woman stands and claims the theory is ridiculous. She states everyone knows that the Earth rests on the back of a giant turtle. To which the scientist asks, "Well then, what is the turtle resting on?"
Her reply? "Very clever young man, but it's turtles all the way down!"
It's a great book.
Sig: I'm sorry but your opinion seems to be wrong.
Re:It's turtles all the way down! (Score:5, Funny)
The last thing that gets sucked into the gravastar is the gravastar itself, which results in the formation of what scientists call a kleinstar, a four-dimensional construct where the inside is the outside (and vice versa). This neatly avoids any issues arising from the concept of having the universe contained within something that is itself within the universe, by moving the whole discussion into the realm of mathematical topology -- which nobody understands, but which we're all too embarassed to admit.
Remember to stock up on Klein bottles [kleinbottle.com] now, so you'll have something to drink out of once the kleinstar forms. ;-)
Looks like a joke (Score:2)
So the real question is.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So the real question is.... (Score:3, Funny)
The "other side of" the same gravistar. (Score:5, Interesting)
The "other side" of the same gravistar.
It's like "what's beyond the north pole" on a sphere.
On the surface of a sphere there is no "beyond the edge". Inside a kliensphere there is no "beyond the rim", because there is no rim.
Imagine the space in the universe is the 2-D surface of the water hanging from a dripping faucet. You're on the new-forming drip. Then the drip comes lose. The surface you're on closes into the surface of the drop. In 2-D there IS no beyond - you need an extra dimension for that.
Now consider a dripping faucet in 4-space, where the "surface" of the 4-D drop is the 3-D space of our universe.
Re:The "other side of" the same gravistar. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Infinite Recursion (Score:3, Interesting)
If you truly try, you will find both concepts equally awkward. You will also find we have few facts that ultimately support either. I can not make a case for either concept, but I can make a pretty good case for ignoring most people that insist they know the answer to which is true.
TW
Re:Infinite Recursion (Score:5, Funny)
When I try to think of time having already existed forever, then, I start to think about how some random configuration of particles that looked exactly like me has randomly been in this same spot, doing the same things I am doing...
WORSE, that this thing that looks and sounds like me and has the same name, has already done some of the things I've been meaning to do, and then I don't feel like doing them, cause A, I already did them, and B, I'll just have to do them again.
At which point the only thing I care to think about is the infinite other versions of me that have existed through time, sitting on a Lazy Boy recliner watching Cartoon Network all day, and give him a double thumbs up. Cause, in the end, that's what it's really all about. And that would be the clincher folks, undeniable proof that I am right.
This theory sucks... (Score:2)
but wouldn't any of these attempts just collapse into the singularity as well??
Then all you're left with is Vincent and Bob [jeffbots.com]...
Misplacing things... (Score:2, Funny)
Bose-Einstein Condensate (Score:3, Interesting)
-Shadow
Re:Bose-Einstein Condensate (Score:3, Informative)
IANAP either... but here it goes.
Blackholes and the like are thought to (slow and eventualy )stop time inside the Schwarzschild radius, without time theres no movement, without movement (eg excitements of atoms) you have no heat.
Bingo
Re:Bose-Einstein Condensate (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bose-Einstein Condensate (Score:3, Informative)
Allowing myself to think about that, that means that making matter denser lowers the temperature at which a Bose-Einstein condensate will form. And once you start forming it at anything over 2 degrees Ke
P-Branes (Score:2, Interesting)
Call us when you work out those little details.
"Where are all these zillions of states hiding in a black hole?" Mottola said in a recent article in New Scientist magazine. "It is quite literally incomprehensible."
As I recall from reading Hawking's universe in a nutshell, if you consider black holes as being made of p-branes, waves in p-branes could encode all t
Universe in a gravastar? (Score:2, Interesting)
Basically, if you look at the density/matter distribution required to create a black hole, and extrap. outwards, it turns out that the density vs. size of the universe as a whole is really close to what you'd need to make a black hole.
Oh great! (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds similar to Lee Smilon's idea (Score:2, Informative)
The Life of the Cosmos. Very good read.
-Shane
The Onion reported a similar thing some years ago. (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone luckily stashed a PDF [gats-inc.com] of this (Copyright 1999 The Onion).
There you go.
Seven colors to choose from (Score:5, Funny)
Isle 3, womens's underwear. 5 for $2.00 - durable, breathable, washable, wearable.
Re:Seven colors to choose from (Score:3, Funny)
Golfer #1..."Ever since my wife found them in the glove box of my Mercedes..."
Old news (Score:3, Interesting)
CNN version [cnn.com]
Maybe there's a time dilation effect near a Gravastar?
Previous references (Score:5, Informative)
See these articles:
Black Holes Disputed [slashdot.org], 1/19/2002
Doubting the Existence of Black Holes [slashdot.org], 3/26/2002
There must be black holes. That's how articles in the editors' database mysteriously disappear so they can be duped later.
Re:Previous references (Score:3, Funny)
Another Link - Scientific American (Score:3, Informative)
Here's another link to a similar story at Scientific American if your interested:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?artob. futurama quote. (Score:4, Funny)
one pound of which weighs over TEN THOUSAND pounds!
Just like string theory (Score:3, Informative)
As someone who works on black hole astrophysics (Score:5, Insightful)
Usually these explanations are far more complex physically than a black hole, so until I see a compelling, scientifically verifiably alternative to the theory of black holes I'll apply the principal of Occams Razor. I.e. The simplest answer is most likely the correct one. Theories that are 30 times more complex than black holes but are not measurably different I'll continue to ignore.
I have a similar theory ... (Score:3, Insightful)
This article is TWO YEARS old. And a Dupe! (Score:3, Informative)
Just goes to show ... (Score:4, Funny)
Nearly two years old... (Score:3, Interesting)
Thick-Skinned Gravastars Vie to Replace Black Holes, in Theory
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 09:52 am ET 23 April 2002
Now c'mon, I can understand someone being dumb enough to post something from April 2003 and think it's news, from from 2002? And editors accepting it, damn...
if we're in a gravastar... (Score:5, Interesting)
The gravastar seems more weird than a generally accepted black hole.
Re:if we're in a gravastar... (Score:4, Interesting)
Ah... If this theory is true, then there are more than 4 dimensions. If you look at some of the string theory stuff, you'll see that it's quite possible it's inside a new "brane" (a special case string than is a mem'brane'). This is but one answer.
It's also quite possible if you look at the universe, we are not "expanding" at all, in fact it is just as likely that we are imploding. (that faint sound you hear is the "BIG SUCK", not the big bang after-all !)
Some of the "dark matter" observations may be explained by this kind of theory.
Actually discovered in 1983 I think... (Score:3, Funny)
I am Gravastar! I hunger! Run, Coward!
Run! Run! Run!
The bet is off (Score:4, Funny)
(if you don't get it, move along. There is something to "get" and your mod points are needed elsewhere. Thank you.)
A more thorough article... (Score:3, Informative)
on the subject can be found in the New Scientist journal or...here:
http://www.sciforums.com/t5376/scd6aa1f3497a9a8949 43c2c19febdb24/thread.html
You can also possibly view the Mazur and Mottola submission (preprint) at:
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/grqc/0109035
A google search on gravistars turns up several sources that are perhaps better than the space.com readers digest article.
Now people, get a hold of yourselves. Most, if not ALL, of you are fully unqualified to poo-poo the idea just as you are unqualified to critique black hole "science". It is downright stupid to poo-poo the idea and hold the classic black hole idea as sacrosanct. No one. NO ONE has seen a black hole. They are ENTIRELY ghosts of the imagination INFERRED from observations that are wholly in accordance with the idea of gravistars OR black holes.
Claiming that the idea of gravistars requires too much "hand waving" ignores the fact (stone cold fact, that is) that the idea of a black hole itself requires an incredible amount of hand waving and eye covering to get past its very real problems.
The jury is still out on black holes. If another idea accounts for the same observations while at the same time avoiding the many problems that black holes create...well, it would end up being a better theory outright. The gravistar deserves a real chance to germinate and grow on its merits and math and must not be tossed out the door on the principal that it violates the holy black hole doctrine.
This isn't really a "new" idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:where is the peer review? (Score:5, Informative)
It was an interesting article, but they seemed to be a ways off from anything solid...so to speak.
Re:where is the peer review? (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone's gotta take chances, and just because they don't have a long dignified history of work doesn't mean their words are invalid from the get-go.
Newton Ate Mercury (Score:5, Funny)
Newton did go crazy, from (among other alchemical things) the mercury he ingested.
-kgj
Re:Newton Ate Mercury (Score:3, Funny)
Besides, if Newton ate Mercury Einstein would not have had to publish his theory of General Relativity to explain the discrepancy that Newton's theory of Gravity predicts for Mercury's orbit and Mercury's real orbit!
Re:where is the peer review? (Score:5, Insightful)
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
-- Carl Sagan
Re:where is the peer review? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:where is the peer review? (Score:5, Informative)
But I found these [arxiv.org] papers for Emil Mottola and these [arxiv.org]for Pawel Mazur.
Re:where is the peer review? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:where is the peer review? (Score:3, Funny)
Inflations a bitch, ain't it?
Re:where is the peer review? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:where is the peer review? (Score:3, Interesting)
The double-edge sword of innovation. Do you spend the money on R&D or do you go with what works? Do you wait to follow the coat-tails of your competitor or do you lead your competitor by your coat-tails? Not easy questions to ponder when the costs are real and measurable. It's a gamble, not unlike the lottery, but your odds are better with the quality of your research and the theories you build on.
Re:where is the peer review? (Score:3, Insightful)
However, research into conecpts that turn out to be wrong or seemingly useless can be valid and useful, provided the hypothesis is founded in some modicum of real scientific observation. Even if the hypothesis turns out to be bunk, the observation is still valid, and the question is still valid. Therefore, the reserach that was done simply demonstrated what was incorrect. We can apply some of the lessons learned
Re:where is the peer review? (Score:3, Interesting)
While conventional thinking won't get you put in a nuthouse, nor will it solve the dilemmas of physics. Even physicists say this.
That may well be true, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
And I suspect the ratio is something more like 10000 to 1 for the "real crackpot" to "misunderstood revolutionary" ratio.
So remember-- while the occasional nutty theory turns out to be the new revolution, the truth of the matter is that most nutty theories are just nutty theories. Even if this is the ONLY way we get revolutionary theories, it doesn't change the fact that most
Re:where is the peer review? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, anyone can upload papers to the archive (the main site is now at www.arXiv.org). There's no peer review involved -- that's why it's called a _preprint_ archive -- and no respectability is conferred by simply uploading a paper to it. The fact is that there's a lot of crap on arXiv (though not as much as you might expect), and there are also a lot of people who don't use arXiv.
But apart from that, your comment is irrelevant anyway since these two do have plenty of articles on the server, as seen in a previous reply to your post.
Who modded this over "1"? RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
Second: Anyone involved with the scientific community in the least, should know that peer review is actually quite a contentious issue and by no means considered as accounting for "all fault-finding".
Third: The theory itself resolves some troubling issues with black hole theory. The latter has become so fashionable that even lay men speak of them without seeming to question some of the root concepts that stretch all but a seasoned physicist's imagination. A quote from a related article: Physicists have struggled for years to account for the huge entropy of black holes, and largely have failed. Unlike their black hole counterparts, Gravastars would have a very low entropy.
Finally: This link [lanl.gov]is to the Los Alamos release
Re:where is the peer review? (Score:3, Insightful)
I know several idiots with college degrees.
The same skills that make one a brilliant theorist, artisan, thinker, etc. are not necessarily the ones that help you complete a degree program.
Re: where is the peer review? (Score:3, Informative)
> einstein suffered terribly in school, guess that makes him a moron too, eh?
While popular culture holds that Einstein was a drop-out, a lowly patent-office clerk, and an outsider who stood the scientific world on his head, he was in fact the equivalent of a modern PhD candidate in the last year of a PhD program. In 1900 he graduated with the equivalent of a bachelor's degree or higher, qualified to teach both math and physics at the university level. When he published his famous papers in 1905 he was
Re:where is the peer review? (Score:3, Informative)
Insightful? (Score:2)
Re:First Post! (Score:2)
Re:I am confused by the article (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I suspect that what we're looking at is the conservation of information--the indestructable info-quantum.
Re:Bad News for Hawking? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Easily proven false (Score:3, Informative)
No, you can't .... and for the same reason that you can't use that argument to search for black holes. The hole/gravistar itself must be very cold, but matter surrounding the hole/gravistar would be heated during infall, emitting a large amount of energy. The physics of this are quite interesting, and covered in many introductory texts in general relativity and astrophysics; search for information on "accretion disks".
Re:Gravastar (Score:4, Funny)
Gravastar. What is that all about? Is it good or is it whack?
It's a minivan. You've been skipping over the commercials again, haven't you?
Re:Theories from Stephen Hawking (Score:3, Informative)
Has he come up with anything unique? What?
Hawking came up with the idea of Hawking radiation, which is a quantum-mechanical mechanism for matter to escape from a black hole. The basic idea is this: a quantum fluctuation creates a matter/antimatter pair of particles near the event horizon of a black hole. The antiparticle falls in, destroying some of the mass of the black hole, while its partner escapes. The net effect is as if the black hole had emitted a particle.
What I don't understand about this co
Re:Can someone clarify the X-rays? (Score:3, Informative)
If this happens at the event horizon, one particle gets sucked in, the other particle ejected.