Possible Hole in Black Holes 495
jd writes "Researchers have found what they believe may be a MECO (Magnetic, Eternally Collapsing Object) inside of a quasar. MECOs are rivals to black hole theory and involve plasmas that never reach the state of being a singularity. The most obvious differences between them are that MECOs have a magnetic field and do not have an event horizon. The problem lies in that the Universe cannot have both MECOs and black holes — it can only have one or the other. If this object truly is a MECO, then black holes do not exist. Anywhere. (Furthermore, this would require Professor Hawking to return a year's subscription to Private Eye and give Professor Thorne a year's subscription to Penthouse.) On the other hand, if this thing isn't a MECO, it's behaving very very oddly for a black hole."
Okay, dumb question then. (Score:5, Interesting)
Singularities (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Slashdot experts (Score:5, Interesting)
> Apparently the experts are not conviced about this "interesting" observation but at slashdot the expert will come to a final conclusion. How many slashdot posters actualy are qualified to talk about these subjects?
The named researchers aren't neutral observers in some grand BH vs. MECO debate; they're the proponents of the MECO idea. See for example the bibliography at the bottom of this article [godofcreation.com]. (And while you're at it, notice the author's persecution complex, his attempt to dismiss scientific dating methods at the very end, and, of course, the curious URL.)
Doens't mean they're wrong, but it's useful to keep in mind that they're partisans in a debate, offering an interpretation of some observations that they think supports their side of the debate. They haven't convinced Reynolds, and the persecution complex displayed in the linked article suggests that they haven't had much luck convincing other people about MECOs in the past.
Question... (Score:5, Interesting)
Just askin', and my apologies if this is a stoopid question.
Quasars don't exist anymore (Score:2, Interesting)
Could someone with some knowledge explain... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Quasars don't exist anymore (Score:3, Interesting)
Does it? There is some debate going on about how constant the Constants of the Universe really were [space.com] in the past, so the GP might actually be on to something...
Re:Quasars don't exist anymore (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why... (Score:4, Interesting)
Though I have only known about MECOs for a few minutes, there's some things about black holes that never made sense to me.
Why the near-light speed ejecta from a spherical event horizon object. Where does all that lateral energy come from? A super strong magnetic field makes more sense as a method for ejecting material than matter at oblique angles to the ecliptic accelerated so much it collides (and 99% of the energy evens out due to the circular input field and the last 1% spitting the stuff out) with classical physics.
Instead, you get a south pole, and a north pole, and anything with any charge on each of those ends screaming in one direction or other.
It seems to me though that plasma would give off tons of light, and there ARE some cases where a BH was "speculated" to be present where it's pretty clear there isn't a light producing object there.
Re:Question... (Score:2, Interesting)
P.S. Slashdot stories this complicated shouldn't be posted until later in the day, I need coffee!
Re:Slashdot experts (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Why... (Score:5, Interesting)
That black holes do not, in some way, posess a magnetic field seems to be a debatable subject.
One of the articles, http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/dn9050/ [newscientistspace.com], concerns the effiency of black holes and has a representative picture of jets moving away from the black hole. The captions reads:
No where does it state that a black hole is mutually exclusive of a magnetic field.Quasars are certainly misunderstood objects. They appear to be very far away. No one can really conclude what these distances are. Strictly basing an assumption on redshifts is not, for me, conclusive.
When a star forms, there is a point before "ignition" where there appears to be nothing. We can see these globules in many photographs of nebulae. According to theory, anywhere that you see what looks to be a perfect cirlce of black is a candidate for star formation.
Now, quasars are theorized to be precursors to galaxies. Why is it not possible that we are observing the same effect on a huge scale? The matter in the center of the quasar is simply reaching the critical point and in the end we have a galaxy with a core that is burning brightly and outer arms that would be the equivalent to the planets orbiting our sun?
For a good example of what this would look like, anyone can take a look at a picture of M104-the Sombrero Galaxy. Of course, there are many other spiral galaxies that one can observe, as well. The point is, the universe is very fractal in nature. We can compare the classical view of an atom to that of the solar system. Why can we not simply extend this to a view of a galaxy?
The event horizon is something that any object with mass has, as well. Of course, not on the same scale as a black hole, yet, come to close to the sun and you are doomed. A comet slammed in to Jupiter and disappeared. It will never be seen again. Our moon is stuck to the earth. Without adding energy to the system, the moon will always be a part of the system. The event orizon of a black hole is important because light cannot ever leave the system once inside this critical boundary. That does not mean that other systems possess no event horizon.
Also, there is a lot of evidence for black holes in binary stellar systems. I don't see how these MECO's offer an alternative eplanation for events that we observe vitually in our backyard. The quasars are too far away to readily observe and coem to any conclusion (if the distances are correct).
The reason that it is so "easy" to accept the concept of a black hole is simply the fact that as the diameter of a body decreases while retaining mass, there is no choice but to have the system collapse to a singularity--given enough mass. If there is not enough "critical" mass, we end up with neutron stars, dwarves, etc.... What happens inside the black hole is anyone's guess.
DavidRe:Why... (Score:3, Interesting)
Space, as we know it, is a place in which matter and energy exist. Particles can be attributed a "position" within space relative to some other object in space, giving rise to the concept of "distance," which gives rise to all kinds of theories, relativity among them. In this model, we assume the existence of space and, ergo, the "position" of any given particle within space is an extrinsic property of that particle (i.e. assigned to it by an outside parameter, in this case, it's relative placement in space).
Flip that around for a moment and consider the opposite. Let's say for a moment that we don't assume the existence of space, but rather space as we know it is an illusion created by our perceptions. Since there is now no extrinsic parameter by which to assign a "position" to any given particle, the "position" of a particle must then be an intrinsic property (i.e. inherent to) of the particle which defines how we perceive it (or, more specifically, where we perceive it) in this illusion of space.
Now the question of the bounds of the universe is irrelevant, because space is an illusion generated by our perceptions of the intrinsic "positions" of particles.
Anyways, here's a page [sbcglobal.net] describing the theory in greater detail.
Re:Occam's Razor (Score:5, Interesting)
If you told me you had a horse in your back yard, I'd look at it and if it looked like a horse I'd believe what you said. If you told me you had a unicorn in your back yard, I'd take a good hard look at it, make sure the horn is attached, take DNA samples and analyze them
Another issue entirely is the fact that this whole MECO theory is based on the assumption that plasma might behave oddly/unexpectedly under extreme conditions. I have no problem with that idea. But to leap from that to saying that if plasma behaves in an unexpected way in extreme conditions it means that no black holes can exist... that's a stretch.
speed of light (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ha! (Score:4, Interesting)
With the interstellar travel system worked out by Kip Thorne. There's a funny story behind that. One of Thorne's pet peeves is science fiction stories that just hand-wave things like faster than light travel. One day, he and Sagan, who were friends, were talking, and Sagan tells Thorne he is writing a science fiction book, and sheepishly admits he is using faster than light travel and hand waved it. When Thorne finishes being outraged, Sagan asks him if he can fix it. Thorne tells him no, it's not possible--and then a bit later thinks of a way to do it, and works out the math. That's what appeared in the book.
Between the time he worked it out, and the time it appeared in the book, Thorne found another use for it. He put it on the final exam for the class he teaches on gravitation. Just the physics of the worm holes, not anything about how they could maybe be used for travel. He wanted to see if any of the students would see that, or if they would just solve the equations without thinking about or realizing what they mean. He was disappointed that the later is what happened.
I got this from a very interesting book Thorne was writing for the general public. He kept his drafts in 644 files in a 755 directory on a Unix system in the physics department, so all of us who worked there at the time eagerly read them. Some of that material ended up in his "Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy" book, but I don't recall if this Sagan story did.
space (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why... (Score:3, Interesting)
Eternally Collapsing...? (Score:1, Interesting)
What are you talking about? (Score:3, Interesting)
And its angular momentum will be unchanged. So what's the problem?
The math is difficult to reproduce on a slashdot posting, but I'll leave it to anyone interested as homework. Suffice it to say that for L = angular momentum, I = moment of inertia, and w = angular velocity, L = I * w. Also, for a uniform sphere, I = 2/5 m r^2, where m = mass of the sphere, and r = radius of the sphere. It's easy to show that if r (before) = 2 * r(after), then w(before) = .25 w(after) (where "before" and "after" mean before and after squashing the basketball). And since the velocity v of a point on the equator of the spinning sphere is v = 2 * pi *r *w, it's also easy to show that every time you halve the diameter of the sphere, the linear velocity of a point on the surface doubles. This means that when angular momentum is unchanged, the limit of the linear velocity of any point on the sphere is finite as the radius goes to zero.
In case it wasn't obvious, IWAPMIC (I was a physics major in college).
Sean
Re:Why... (Score:3, Interesting)
Observations of the universe are more uncertain. Perhaps the researcher made a mistake (not saying they did) or engaged in fraud (not saying they did). The identification of this particular object as a MECO is one interpretation of telescopic evidence. Perhaps there are mechanisms compatible with black holes that explain the observed phenomena? Perhaps not. This is why theories don't live or die on single observations.