Black Holes Can Behave Like Quantum Particles (space.com) 42
Black holes have properties characteristic of quantum particles, a new study reveals, suggesting that the puzzling cosmic objects can be at the same time small and big, heavy and light, or dead and alive, just like the legendary Schrodinger's cat. Space.com reports: The new study, based on computer modeling, aimed to find the elusive connection between the mind-boggling time-warping physics of supermassive objects such as black holes and the principles guiding the behavior of the tiniest subatomic particles. The study team developed a mathematical framework that placed a simulated quantum particle just outside a giant simulated black hole. The simulation revealed that the black hole showed signs of quantum superposition, the ability to exist in multiple states at once -- in this case, to be at the same time both massive and not massive at all.
The best known example of quantum superposition is the legendary SchrÃdinger's cat, a thought experiment designed by early 20th century physicist Erwin Schrodinger to demonstrate some of the key issues with quantum physics. According to quantum theories, subatomic particles exist in multiple states simultaneously until they interact with the external world. This interaction, which could be the simple act of being measured or observed, throws the particle into one of the possible states. Schrodinger, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933, intended the experiment to demonstrate the absurdity of quantum theory, as it would suggest that a cat locked in a box can be at the same time dead and alive based on the random behavior of atoms, until an observer breaks the superposition. However, as it turned out, while a cat in a box could be dead regardless of the observer's actions, a quantum particle may indeed exist in a double state. And the new study indicates that a black hole does as well. The new study was published online in the journal Physical Review Letters on Friday.
The best known example of quantum superposition is the legendary SchrÃdinger's cat, a thought experiment designed by early 20th century physicist Erwin Schrodinger to demonstrate some of the key issues with quantum physics. According to quantum theories, subatomic particles exist in multiple states simultaneously until they interact with the external world. This interaction, which could be the simple act of being measured or observed, throws the particle into one of the possible states. Schrodinger, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933, intended the experiment to demonstrate the absurdity of quantum theory, as it would suggest that a cat locked in a box can be at the same time dead and alive based on the random behavior of atoms, until an observer breaks the superposition. However, as it turned out, while a cat in a box could be dead regardless of the observer's actions, a quantum particle may indeed exist in a double state. And the new study indicates that a black hole does as well. The new study was published online in the journal Physical Review Letters on Friday.
I feel like I know where this is leading. (Score:5, Funny)
Quantum improbability drive anyone? The hard part is just getting the cat in the box.
Re:I feel like I know where this is leading. (Score:5, Insightful)
The hard part is just getting the cat in the box.
What is hard about that? Just make the box look like a random discarded packaging box, rather than like a pet carrier.
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Properties of Black Holes (Score:5, Insightful)
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Black holes in General Relativity are completely described by three parameters, their mass, their spin and their charge.
Note: this is the no-hair theorem [wikipedia.org] (or no-hair conjecture). It's not proven, but that doesn't mean it's not an actual property of the universe. An interesting example from the wiki is that a black hole made of antimatter would be externally identical to a black hole made of normal matter.
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Um... (Score:2)
So what you are saying is that Bethany is part black?
Re: Um... (Score:2)
And...? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:And...? (Score:5, Informative)
"They slow time so much people would die of boredom before you turn into spaghetti."
Only to an outside observer. Your personal clock continues on until you meet the tomato sauce.
WOnder how that jibes with locality (Score:4, Insightful)
You have a black hole being observed by a telescope thousands of light years away, when exactly does it's wave function collapse?
If you have an intelligent life form on a planet much closer that invents the telescope after you have observed the black hole but before the light cone could make it back what do they see ?
Re: WOnder how that jibes with locality (Score:1)
Being observed from within the influence of a black hole I think is the same way domains are described. The the existence of one is defined by the relationship of the points inside the domain yet it cannot be defined as a domain except from a point outside the domain. From another domain in other words....
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You have a black hole being observed by a telescope thousands of light years away, when exactly does it's wave function collapse?
You can't observe black holes.
(that's why they're called "black")
Re:WOnder how that jibes with locality (Score:5, Informative)
You have a black hole being observed by a telescope thousands of light years away, when exactly does it's wave function collapse?
You can't observe black holes.
(that's why they're called "black")
That's not entirely accurate [nasa.gov].
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Headline writers don't pay much attention to the science. You can't observe a black hole. You can only observe things happening outside the black hole, which is what that's a picture of.
That said, I've always wondered about charge and magnetic fields. ISTM those might be observable from outside (but I'm no expert in that area). This is tricky, because the magnetic fields would be generated outside the black hole, but one end could be swallowed by one. However magnetic fields aren't point particles, so
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You can observe a black hole. They interact with the exterior if only by their gravity. You "feel" the gravity coming form the mass of a black hole, not only the gravity of what revolves around. That is a direct observation.
By the way cool comment section on this article. :)
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You can observe a black hole.
Not in the quantum physics sense of the word "observe".
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You mean because gravitons are hypothetical ? So we cannot say we make a "measure" through them ? :)
Because to make a quantum measure you are not limited to photons or electrons.
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You mean because gravitons are hypothetical ?
Kind of.
Black holes are proof that gravitons aren't real. Gravity is just a distortion of spacetime.
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This image is also not entirely accurate, NASA artistically enhances images like these. The originals would be rather disappointing in comparison.
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You can make an observation about it's state. AKA it's spin, it's charge, it's mass. Hmmm If gravity quantized as particles how do they escape the event horizon?
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If gravity quantized as particles...
Black holes are proof that it doesn't.
You can feel the TOE in your GUT (Score:4, Interesting)
This is pretty huge. I've long hoped that in my lifetime we'd reach the Grand Unified Theory / Theory Of Everything. This and another thing [nytimes.com] and other stuff we've seen recently has put us, I reckon, within a few steps of the prize. To put it in fusion terms, let's give it 20 years?
Ultimately, everything is connected, there is no objective reality and the universe itself is likely the interior of a black hole.
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If the universe is the interior of a black hole, why is it expanding? This sounds like another take on the "gee, we live in a simulation" due to the holographic principle. That principle, from the aDS/CFT (anti-Desitter Space/Conformal Field Theory) correspondence, is merely a mathematical relationship between two theories. And ant-Desitter space has a negative cosmological constant whereas out universe has a positive cosmological constant. In addition, the anti-Desitter space is assumed to be described by
Re: You can feel the TOE in your GUT (Score:3)
If the universe is the interior of a black hole, why is it expanding?
Is it? Or is the frame of reference within the black hole (that which we cal "space") shrinking relative to the fixed(?) boundary of the enclosing black hole?
Way to completely misunderstand Schrodinger's cat (Score:2)
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Re:Way to completely misunderstand Schrodinger's c (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, it was proposed as an example of why something was wrong. So was the Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen (EPR) experiment. But the EPR experiment was done, and entanglement proved to happen. The Schrodinger's Cat experiment is a lot more difficult, though, so it hasn't been done yet in a convincing manner. (Nobody's figured out how to observe both states afterwards, the Everett, Graham, Wheeler explained why.)
Whole galaxy in superposition? (Score:2)
Makes no sense (Score:2)
But I bet the actual scientific work says something that makes more sense.
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That's my problem with any "massless" particle, such as photons. If it exists, it has to have mass. There is no way around it. If the photon is nothing but energy then E=MC2 comes into play which clearly indicates there has to be mass.
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Photons get around that by always moving at the speed of light. They are simply an exception, a hard-coded special case, so to say. If this universe was designed, photons would be an indication that the designer was unable to get things to work as intended without them and hence had to put them in. Special cases like this always screw up a lot of things (as the photon nicely demonstrates) so you always want to avoid them. One more indication that if there is a designer, it is somebody not very good at their
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It is my understanding that anything moving at the speed of limit should be infinitely heavy. That the faster you go, the heavier you become.
While photons are carriers, they exist with the physical realm. They must have mass.
If the simulations all behave the same... (Score:2)
It's a simulation folks (Score:2)
It doesn't 'prove' anything.
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Indeed. Too many people pray to the computer god though and believe it can do anything, including being smarter than people.
Considering the Cat Box (Score:2)
Where it starts to get weird is when you h
Who? (Score:3)
More like bullshit models ... (Score:2)
... produce bullshit simulations. Would not be the first time Physics has suffered that.