Those Black Holes Revisited

I’ve noted in earlier essays that someone crossing over the Event Horizon of a cosmic Black Hole does so from a personal perspective of one second per second – normal time. An outside observer would see that same crossover event as one frozen in time for all eternity. That implies a paradox in that something cannot happen at one second per second and yet take an infinite amount of time to happen. The paradox might be resolvable if it were only the image of the happening frozen in time. Alas, that too has issues. 

I’ve read several times some scientific author suggest that to an external observer, someone (or something) that’s on a bullseye path toward an astronomical Black Hole, well someone will not only be travelling at a time rate slower and slower by the external observer’s clock as they (let’s call that person a pilot) approach the Event Horizon, but in fact at contact with the Event Horizon, the pilot’s time, again as recorded by the external observer, will have stopped. In other words, the external observer will never witness the pilot’s crossover from outside the Black Hole’s Event Horizon to inside the Black Hole’s Event Horizon. The pilot will appear to be frozen in time at the Event Horizon, as witnessed by the external observer for all eternity, yet as far as the pilot is concerned, everything is normal in terms of time flowing at one second per second. The pilot, from the pilot’s perspective, crosses the Event Horizon as easily as driving to the local supermarket.

Now that’s a major paradox. The pilot can’t be crossing the Event Horizon at one second per second, while at the same time being frozen in time while crossing, which is the case according to our external observer. Of course the paradox is bullshit. To an external observer, time only comes to a screeching halt from their point of view for someone external to them if they witness that someone travelling at the speed of light. Firstly, that’s a physical impossibility. There’s no reason to believe that our cosmically Black Hole bound pilot is crossing the Event Horizon at light speed. There’s no absolute requirement that our pilot is crossing the Event Horizon at the speed of light. The pilot in fact might have fired retro-rockets to slow down just prior to crossing the Event Horizon in order to better savour the moment (just like crossing the equator for the first time)! So, in actual reality, our external observer will see the pilot cross the Event Horizon, albeit at a way slower rate than the pilot will because the pilot is travelling, hence doing the Event Horizon cross-over, though at less than the speed of light but still at some subluminal velocity relative to the external observer. Any velocity incurs some slowing of time when viewed by an external observer; the faster the velocity, the greater the slowdown.  IMHO, some ‘experts’ need to go back and redo Physics 101.

Only here’s the expert’s explanation which explains why there is no paradox. 

Space is a thing and mass (hence gravity) can warp space, twist space around its little finger. The most extreme form or amount of gravity is contained within a cosmic Black Hole from which not even light can escape – hence the blackness of the Black Hole. Because space is a thing, the Black Hole or the super ultra intense gravity of a Black Hole can suck in space (as well as matter). Okay, so a Black Hole can gobble up space.

Issues arising #1: IMHO, space is not a thing but a concept. Gravity therefore cannot interact with space. Gravity is a thing; matter is a thing; light is a thing, so interactions between gravity and matter and light (representing energy which is just matter in another form) are not an issue.

Issues arising #2: presumably that means that anything that has gravity (like you) will suck in some amount of space since even the tiniest amount of gravity will warp space to some degree.

Meantime, back to the expert: Space (as a thing), gets sucked towards a cosmic Black Hole at less that the speed of light, but speeds up as space gets closer and closer to the point of no return (the Event Horizon). When space crosses the Event Horizon, it is travelling at the speed of light. Once inside the Event Horizon, space falls down the gravity gurgler at a speed greater than that of light, which is okay since space, albeit a thing doesn’t have any mass. Anything with mass cannot travel at superluminal velocities since anything with mass can’t cross the speed of light boundary from subluminal to become superluminal.

Any physical object crossing the Event Horizon will be giving off and/or reflecting light (or any other form of electromagnetic energy) at the speed of light. But the Event Horizon is that exact boundary between space being sucked in at less than light speed and being sucked in at greater than light speed so light being given off at the Event Horizon is escaping at the same velocity that it is being sucked in. It’s like you running on a treadmill at the exact same velocity but opposite direction to that of the treadmill. To an external observer you are running yet standing still, and would appear so for all eternity.

We have to assume that the material object itself can’t be crossing the Event Horizon at the speed of light (that’s not allowed), nor will it travel at or beyond the speed of light once inside the cosmic Black Hole and dropping down it’s gravity gurgler. Though the material object crosses the Event Horizon at less than light speed, the visual image of that object will travel at light speed, but light at the Event Horizon is like the runner on the treadmill. It’s a balancing act in that the image from the object is escaping from the Black Hole’s Event Horizon outward bound at the exact same rate as it is being sucked into and past the Event Horizon by space itself.

Issues arising #3: IMHO, the Event Horizon must be extremely thin, since the Event Horizon by definition is that boundary where a velocity just a tiny, tiny, tiny (add some more ‘tiny’ here) fraction under the speed of light becomes just a tiny, tiny, tiny (add some more ‘tiny’ here) fraction above the speed of light. Or, the Event Horizon is that boundary that marks the speed of light exactly (and any tiny, tiny, tiny deviation either side is no longer the speed of light). The Event Horizon must in fact be the shortest allowable thickness that’s allowed by quantum physics, which is the Planck Length (which is so small in length, or thickness, not even the most powerful of microscopes could resolve it).

The implications revolve around the fact that any image, like that of our pilot in their spacecraft, is going to be massively larger than the thickness of the Event Horizon. In actual practice our outside observer will more decidedly not see the image frozen at the Event Horizon for all eternity. Part of the image will have to be above the Event Horizon and thus be able to escape away from the Black Hole. Part of the image will be below the Event Horizon and sucked into the cosmic Black Hole never to be seen again. Any remaining image is one Planck Length thick – invisible to the human eye and the most powerful of microscopes. Even that tiny remnant won’t last long due to ever present quantum fluctuations. The Event Horizon has the tiniest of jitters but it’s enough to disrupt the remaining bit of image from remaining for very long. The upshot is that the frozen image of the pilot and the craft as witnessed by the external observer will be fleeting at best.

Issues arising #4: When it comes to those astronomical Black Holes, we are all external observers. If our expert is correct, and images are frozen for all time at the Event Horizon by objects consisting of matter and energy that cross the Event Horizon, then absolutely anything and everything that has crossed over the Event Horizon since the creation of any specific cosmic Black Hole – since the year dot probably – well their images collectively should still be, well, visible. Each individual image would be piled on top of the next one top of the next on top of the next and so on. Somehow I very much doubt that’s the case. It should be bleeding obvious through our astronomical telescopes. And so, I repeat that IMHO, some ‘experts’ need to go back and redo Physics 101.

More Cosmic Random Thoughts

* In our Universe there are two kinds of astronomical objects. There are cosmic faucets like stars and anything else that gives off or reflects electromagnetic (EM) waves. That’s the cosmic “In Tray”. Then there are cosmic sinks and drains that absorb electromagnetic waves – Black Holes, the cosmic “Out Tray”.

It would seem to me that over the course of 13.7 billion years, an awful lot of EM (light, IR, UV, radio, microwave, gamma-ray, etc.) photons, not to mention neutrinos and cosmic rays, would have gobbled up and removed from the Universe’s inventory by being sucked into and forever residing in the insides of Black Holes. Since all astronomical observations, hence conclusions about the state of the Universe, rely on the detection of that which is emitted or reflected by cosmic faucets, then it stands to reason that in order to arrive at valid conclusions, what cosmic sinks and drains remove from the Big EM Picture must be taken into account. But is it? I’ve never read any account where the removal of EM photons from the Universe’s inventory has been considered.   

One example that springs to mind is the minor temperature variations in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) – perhaps those slightly cooler spots are due to a large Black Hole between our measuring device and the CMBR that is sucking up those microwaves before they reach our measuring telescope or space probe or high altitude balloon. I seem to recall cosmologist George Gamow back in the 1940’s making a theoretical prediction that the (then undetected) CMBR would be somewhere between 5 to 7 degrees Kelvin, instead of the roughly 2.7 degrees Kelvin that eventuated. Perhaps, the overall cooler than Gamow expected CMBR is due to Black Holes sucking up lots of those CMBR photons over all those billions of years.

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* To be honest, I reject the idea that space itself is expanding. To me distant galaxies are expanding farther and farther apart throughout an already existing space. That makes way more sense. Expanding space appears to me to be a case of getting a free lunch – something from nothing – in violation of standard conservation principles.

Further, I see nothing in Einstein’s relativity equations that turns space into stuff. That is, how do Einstein’s relativity equations give space the property of elastic fabric or of rubber? It’s nonsense. I mean you can move through space without hindrance.

Is there any actual observational evidence that proves conclusively that it is space expanding and not cosmic flotsam and jetsam moving apart through existing space? Not to my knowledge but I can think of a possible test that might conclude the issue. Two objects receding apart, like the Earth and the Moon (due to tidal forces) are going with the expanding space grain and should be separating more rapidly than otherwise would be the case due to tidal forces alone. The experiment, measuring the increasing Earth/Moon separation should be a relatively easy experiment to do. Due to the reflective mirrors left on the lunar surface by the Apollo moonwalkers we know the Earth-Moon distance to extreme precision. It should be straightforward whether the Moon is receding from the Earth faster than tidal forces can account for.  

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BINGO! EXPANDING SPACE? NOT!

In an effort to explain about the concept of expanding space, astronomer Philip Plait inadvertently presented the exact opposite argument which is that space can’t be expanding (and therefore the expanding universe must be expanding throughout existing space), a point of view I’ve been advocating seemingly forever. Here’s Plait’s extract.

“Space expands, but this expansion can be countered by gravity. You might expect that, say, two stars orbiting each other will get farther apart as space expands between them. However, that’s not the case. Since the two objects have gravity, and they are bound to each other – that is, their gravity holds them together – space doesn’t expand between them.” [Plait’s emphasis.]* 

*Plait, Philip; Death from the Skies! These Are the Ways the World Will End…; Viking, New York; 2008; p.278: 

So, taken to its logical conclusion, space is not expanding between the Earth and the Moon. Space is not expanding between the Earth and the Sun. Space is not expanding between the Sun’s solar system and the triple star Centauri system. Space is not expanding between the Sun and the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy, space is not expanding between the Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy, space is not expanding between the local group of cluster of galaxies (containing the Milky Way and Andromeda) and the nearby Virgo Cluster of galaxies, etc. Any two bits of matter have mutual gravity and so therefore there can be no expanding space anywhere, since gravity is everywhere.

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* If an electron acquired enough mass (say by being accelerated to near light speed), would it become a Black Hole, and if so, would the ‘inside’ still be an electron, which after all, is considered a fundamental particle? 

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* Space is not the final frontier. The ultimate challenge is to ‘boldly go’ past the event horizon of a Black Hole and see what’s to be seen. 

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* Why is there something rather than nothing? Let’s say there’s a 50-50 probability between a universe that contains nothing and one that contains something. Or even make the ratio 60-40 or 99-1 or even odds of a billion to one, as long as the probability of a something universe isn’t zero. Then, well that’s something to be said for a something universe. Now a nothing universe isn’t bio-friendly and a something universe can be, so since we’re a friendly bio-entity that must mean we live in a something universe. So, as far as we are concerned, that’s what there is something rather than nothing, because if there was nothing we wouldn’t be here to ponder the issue.

UFOs and Our World War Two Atomic Weapons

A rarely seen, ‘long lost’ Walt Disney UFO documentary titled “Alien Encounters from New Tomorrowland” hosted by Robert Urich, is a program that’s pro-UFO as in UFOs being the product of extraterrestrial intelligences. Unfortunately, though while I have relatively little bone to pick with the general content, it did repeat what IMHO is a fundamental error which is the relationship between our use of nuclear weapons in WW2 and the arrival of the aliens (if aliens there be) in 1947. 

One common mythology surrounding the rational for UFOs arriving at Planet Earth in 1947 has to do with human civilization advertising itself to the cosmos as the nuclear new boy on the block in 1945. Planet Earth becoming a nuclear power would obviously be upsetting to extraterrestrials, so the mythology goes, akin to how countries like the United States, Great Britain, Australia, etc. get nervous about North Korea or Iran going nuclear. However, unless aliens were already in spitting distance of Earth*, that scenario (the link between 1945 atomic blasts and the 1947 arrival of extraterrestrial UFOs) is blatant nonsense for several reasons - distance and glare.

Now I like the UFO ETH (ExtraTerrestrial Hypothesis) as much as the next person, but our WW2 atomic bomb explosions are not why they’re here, initially or otherwise.

Let’s start with distance. I assume any extraterrestrial intelligences will be housed on a planet around a star. The nearest stellar system to Earth is the Centauri System, Alpha Centauri, etc. Unfortunately, the Centauri System is over four light years away, and that’s your best case distance scenario. Light, including the flash from an atomic bomb, travels at one light year per year. So, a 1945 atomic blast wouldn’t register at the Centauri System until latter 1949, or several years after the initial 1947 origin to the modern UFO phenomena.

But that’s not the end of the distance issue. Even if our hypothetical Centauri aliens saw those WW2 atomic blasts from a planet around Alpha Centauri in 1949 our time (those four years it took that atomic light to reach the Centauri system starting out in our 1945), they, the aliens, still have to travel from their Centauri system to our solar system and Planet Earth. They can’t do that in less than four years. We couldn’t do it (Earth to Centauri) with our current rocket technology in under 10,000 years! So, even assuming our alien friends could rocket at the speed of light, and that’s a hell of a big assumption, they ain’t gonna get here until 1953 minimum in response to our 1945 atomic bomb explosions, even if they leave their Centauri system post haste upon viewing our use of nuclear technology. That’s hardly the 1947 when the modern UFO era started.

Secondly, there’s glare. Viewed from even the nearest Centauri System, the separation of Planet Earth from the Sun is so small that Earth would be 100% lost in the glare of the Sun, just like you probably couldn’t see a BB just immediately off fractionally to the side of a powerful spotlight. Now the light from an atomic bomb is miniscule relative to the faint sunlight reflected off by Planet Earth itself, our planet itself lost in the far, far, far brighter light emitted by the Sun itself. Translated, there is just no way to see the flash of a WW2 atomic explosion from over four light years away, and that’s assuming the alien home planet is even that close. So, something’s screwy somewhere and that something is the assumed relationship twixt the arrival of the ‘flying saucers’ in 1947 and the start of our nuclear era in 1945.

Distance and glare collectively rule out aliens arriving on Earth in 1947 due to having witnessed a 1945 atomic bomb explosion, unless of course they were already within spitting distance.

So there is however that pesky Star Trek scenario (see below) that aliens just happened by sheer coincidence to be nearby when we advertised our destructive atomic bomb technologies big time. However, IMHO, the odds that aliens would just happen to be in the neighbourhood when our first atomic bombs went off is as likely as you being at ground zero when something extraordinary dramatic event happened. It might happen once in your lifetime – say you were in the bank when the bank robbers rushed it. But if your lifespan is paralleled with the duration Planet Earth has been around to date, what odds that the bank robbery (the parallel to the WW2 atomic blasts) and your presence in the bank (the parallel to aliens being in the neighbourhood) would coincide? Aliens passing by could be at any old time in Earth’s general history, just like your banking visits could be any old time in your general history. But the atomic blasts, and the bank robbery, were at one very specific time. Yes, the two timelines, the general and the specific, might intersect just so, but you’d probably be safer betting your money on the lottery than betting on that likelihood.

You might argue that perhaps aliens a long time ago set up nearby automatic on-station monitors to monitor for that very event – Earth’s transition to a nuclear planet. However, it would still take four years for that automated message to reach the hypothetical aliens around the Centauri system, and of course the time needed for the trip from Centauri back to Earth.

Myth busted.

*Akin to how the Vulcans happened to be passing by in near Earth space just as humanity set off its first warp drive signature attracting their attention as related in the film “Star Trek [TNG]: First Contact”.