Comment Re:spinning black holes (Score 5, Informative) 28
Since black holes are considered points in space, and a point can't spin, are they still considering spinning black holes (which is essentially all of them) "ringularities"?
It is considered to spin because it is considered to have a very large size, the boundary at which light cannot escape. It’s considered spinning because material that passed the horizon imparted rotational kinetic energy and its large enough to keep dragging space along with it as it rotates. It does in fact have a ring as a central singularity shape, but that’s only from simplistic mathematical perspective and is quite possibly not real.
And it would seem that angular momentum is likely to increase with each merger, since they're going to tend to orbit each other in the plane of their spinning? And when they merge, that will add to their angular momentum in that plane?
Its possible, but yes the angular momentum essentially gets combined. If they are spinning opposite directions it tends to cancel, there is no up or down or preferred direction in space that’s been rigorously established so it’s not like they all face only one way.
Lastly, I haven't read any discussions regarding "theoretical limits" to how fast a black hole can spin. Would anyone care to elaborate on that? Are we talking about the event horizon dragging approaching the speed of light? I thought there was nothing that said that SPACE can't move faster than c? (or was that the *expansion* of space?) And wouldn't it just be getting closer and closer to c and not ever getting there anyway? (a problem of limits)
You add to the energy of the system when you add angular momentum. More energy means more mass equivalence and that means the radius at which light can’t escape expands. It’s a linear relationship too, twice the energy means twice the radius and 8 times the volume. Thats why a barely formed black hole of a few tons or less is about the most dense thing possible in physics while the largest black hole on record is around 400 times less dense than air at sea level.