Hawking Changes His Mind on the Nature of Black Holes

Associated Press ^ | Jul 15, 2004 | Jane Wardell

[The Scourge of Yazid]

Riiiiiight.

But when I posit a theory on quantum mechanics, the liberal media is all like: "Sure. We'll get right on that one...dumb-ass!"

Man, "Sky and Telescope" and "Astronomy" will be hearing from my attorneys, I can assure you of that much.

Stephen Hawking?

Pffft!

So I don't hold the Lucasian professorship in mathematics at Cambridge, whaddya gonna do 'bout it?

Greatest physicist since Sir Isaac Newton.

Big friggin' whoop!

[snopercod]

Oh, I thought this was a Whoppi Goldberg thread. Sorry.

[Phsstpok]

I've never really bought the whole idea of light bending. I'm willing to accept the idea of the mean free path between reflection or refraction being so minuscule that the path looks curved, but I'm not quite sold that it actually bends.

The light doesn't bend. The spacetime it is passing through is bent (or warped) by the hypergravity enough that it is easily noticeable.

All gravity wells do this to one degree or another. It's been demonstrated with observations of bodies as small as our Moon. It's only recently that we've had instruments sensitive enough to detect the "bending" with anything less massive than a (presumed) black hole or a galaxy.

The light is still going "straight" as ever, whatever that really means. It's the reality around it that is shifting.

[ez]

No, he said black HOLES, not black ho's... ;7)

[mict42]

My thoughts exactly.

[.cnI redruM]

I actually went to a talk once on Gravitational Lensing. The phenomena is similar to some of the optical effects that you get when you observe visible light. The visual images the professor showed me reminded me of Sun Dogs, Halos etc....

I'm not sure it's the light being bent as much as it being refracted and reflected an innumerable number of times between the observer and the emitter. A black hole would leave a rather impressive absorption/scattering "footprint" from it's physical size alone.

[RadioAstronomer]

A link you might like.

http://astron.berkeley.edu/~jcohn/lens.html

[Grig]

"astrophysicist Stephen Hawking backpedaled Thursday"

Hmmmmmmmmmmm is he a Kerry supporter by any chance? :)

[RightWhale]

as it being refracted

It looks like a lens has been formed out of space in the vicinity of a massive object. It looks like refraction to me, but we have been operating under Kant's system for a long time now: the object in itself can never be seen, but what we see conforms to our pre-conceived ideas. That is, objects conform to our concepts rather than our concepts conforming to objects. You can see only what your mind is ready to see.

[Euro-American Scum]

We are well met, indeed. Looking forward to future palavers, if it do ya. After all, we deal in hard calibers and hot lead.

[Askel5]

=== galactic traps may in fact allow information to escape.


Hey, just like my posts.

[AndrewC]

C'mon now RA.

spec·u·la·tion    ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (spky-lshn)
n.
 
1.

Contemplation or consideration of a subject; meditation. 
A conclusion, opinion, or theory reached by conjecture. 
Reasoning based on inconclusive evidence; conjecture or supposition.  

[VOA]

"A black hole only appears to form but later opens up and releases information about
what fell inside. So we can be sure of the past and predict the future."

Looks like Hawking is angling for a TV/movie deal; maybe a revivial of "The Time Tunnel".

(spoken in jocularity by a guy who isn't worth to tie Hawking's shoelaces...)

[RadioAstronomer]

Ok sorry. Was a bit testy last night.

[Deb]

And I'm pretty sure a freakin' Black Hole ate my green sweater and let NO INFO THRU!!!!!

And where's the liberal media? Nowhere, Baby, nowhere.

[lainie]

Saw another version of this story.. with a more inflammatory headline.

Hawking: I was wrong for 30 years

[LiteKeeper]

veritas

[The Scourge of Yazid]

That happened to you too?(!)

Damn, those things are a pain in the ass!

They really should do something about them before someone gets hurt.

[Eagle9]

I actually went to a talk once on Gravitational Lensing. The phenomena is similar to some of the optical effects that you get when you observe visible light.

I've been fascinated by how sound waves affected the following photograph, taken by Chris Rossi. This is Richard Noble's ThrustSSC, piloted by Andy Green at Blackrock, Nevada, on October 15, 1997, as it it set the world's first supersonic speed record. See the clearly visable waves above the car?

Source of photo: http://www.andrewgraves.biz/ssc_stuff/SSC_pics.htm
Official ThrustSSC Web Site

[Eagle9]

...as it it set the world's first supersonic speed record.

Correction: ...as it set the world's first supersonic land speed record.