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Three cosmic enigmas, one audacious answer [bye-bye to black holes?]
New Scientist ^ | March 9, 2006 | Zeeya Merali

Posted on 03/09/2006 8:34:42 PM PST by snarks_when_bored

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To: snarks_when_bored
Re: You've defined the word 'pastiche' for me...

Then you mean I employing a generally light-hearted tongue-in-cheek imitation of another's style; although jocular, it is usually respectful...

Wrong again, #2! snarks is saying your are Pastiche... A Tucson, Arizona, restaurant that celebrate your holidays with American cuisine with world influences - fabulous appetizers, salads, sandwiches, pastas, large entrees, and desserts. Gad! Everyone knows that!

81 posted on 03/10/2006 3:31:05 PM PST by Bender2 (Redid my FR Homepage just for ya'll... Now, Vote Republican and vote often)
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To: beezdotcom
I guess they would be "suborbitals"....and I strongly suspect the binding energy would be equivalent to that which binds a booger to a finger...

Is that binding energy measured in units of flick-strength?

82 posted on 03/10/2006 3:33:17 PM PST by snarks_when_bored
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To: Bender2

"By the time I get to Tucson, I'll be hungry..."


83 posted on 03/10/2006 3:38:35 PM PST by snarks_when_bored
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To: snarks_when_bored
Re: "By the time I get to Tucson, I'll be hungry..."

Thank you, snarks. And next on "American Idol" we have... Old Bones McCoy singing the Gerber Brothers' latest hit...

"My baby's dead..."

84 posted on 03/10/2006 3:48:15 PM PST by Bender2 (Redid my FR Homepage just for ya'll... Now, Vote Republican and vote often)
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To: Bender2

Bender2, you're too much!


85 posted on 03/10/2006 3:53:04 PM PST by peacebaby (what's so funny about it?)
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To: snarks_when_bored

Interesting. The interior of a dark energy star seen from inside might look like there had been a Big Bang 14.5 billion years ago.


86 posted on 03/10/2006 3:55:11 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
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To: chimera
Anyone else besides me see any resemblance?

Mostly in the eyes, forehead, and cheekbones...

Lisa Randall

Sarah Michelle Gellar

I mean, hey, as long as we're discussing heavenly bodies...

87 posted on 03/10/2006 4:20:41 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: snarks_when_bored; Physicist
All right, if I recall my reading of Kip Thorne correctly, there was controversy over whether black holes could have angular momentum (and attendant frame dragging, right?)

Didn't see that mentioned in this post of yours, snarks.

On other notes, two questions:

1) Wasn't it Chandrasekar who first predicted the necessary multiples of solar mass to lead to black holes vs. other fates? With that in mind, what is the proposed mechanism for one of these alternatives to black holes? Does this theory's requirements for the original stellar mass agree with conventional theory? (Complementarity principle on the one hand, another tool to differentiate between the theories on the other.)

2) Hate to ask this, since it's over my head. (Not that accomplishing that takes much...)

But we're always talking about reconciling quantum mechanics and general relativity. Can anyone point me to a concise description of where the contradictions occur?

I am wondering about the description of the interior of a black hole--if you reach a "singularity" then wouldn't tidal forces eventually become significant even over q.m. scales --e.g. what would that do in terms of commutation of q.m. operators, etc. etc.

No flames, please, it's Friday night and I'll just pour beer on them anyway :-)

Cheers!

88 posted on 03/10/2006 4:30:18 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: grey_whiskers
there was controversy over whether black holes could have angular momentum

There's no room for controversy, there. Angular momentum is conserved, and has to be, because we observe space to be isotropic. And that has to apply to a black hole. Observe: suppose we had a huge collection of dust particles, and that the collection had some amount of angular momentum. Suppose further that it was allowed to collapse, and that its mass was so large that by the time it achieved black hole density, it was still rather rarefied.

[Geek alert: The density of a black hole is inversely proportional to the square of its mass, so very large black holes can have very low density.]

To any observer inside the cloud--and thus inside the black hole, although he doesn't know it--the cloud still has its angular momentum. To any observer outside, all they see is an event horizon, but since the whole arrangement was generally isotropic (except for some flattening of the cloud during its collapse), and certainly space itself was, the angular momentum still has to be there. The observer will find it easier to measure this if the cloud had some charge, but it's still there either way, by symmetry.

But we're always talking about reconciling quantum mechanics and general relativity. Can anyone point me to a concise description of where the contradictions occur?

Consider the electron and its electrical field. As far as we can measure--and we can measure to incredibly small scales--the electron is pointlike. This poses a problem for classical electromagnetism: when you calculate the energy of the field, it's infinite. So in classical E&M, they cut the calculation off by assigning a radius to the electron, which can be calculated from the electron's mass.

Quantum field theory has the same infinite quantity, but because of symmetry, something miraculous occurs. The quantum field is represented by both real and virtual particles (photons). It turns out that both the real and the virtual contributions cancel each other, term by term, leaving a calculable residue that agrees with experiments to ten or twelve decimal places! The fundamental quantities are truly infinite, but the calculations of measurable observables yield finite quantities. This property is known as renormalizability.

A gravitational field carries two units of angular momentum for every unit of momentum. This means that any quantum field theory of gravity will be quantized into spin-2 particles, unlike photons, gluons, or the W and Z bosons of the weak interaction, all of which are spin-1 particles. The conflict is that no spin-2 field can be renormalized in four dimensions. Any possible 4-dimensional theory of quantum gravity necessarily yields infinite quantities from its calculations. So either the universe is very different from what Einstein envisioned, or the gravitational force cannot be described by quantum mechanics.

As it turns out, there are only two spaces that permit spin-2 fields to be renormalized: one space has 26 dimensions, the other has 11. That's certainly different from what Einstein envisioned, and that's why the various string theories use one or the other of these spaces.

89 posted on 03/10/2006 5:10:22 PM PST by Physicist
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To: grey_whiskers
Oh, yes, almost forgot Calista.

Calista Flockheart

Lisa Randall

Something waif-like about both of them (in appearance, that is). Some sadness to the eyes.

Branes and beauty...

Cheers!

90 posted on 03/10/2006 5:32:55 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: snarks_when_bored

Dark matter is what my wife buys but I never see around the house...


91 posted on 03/10/2006 5:34:21 PM PST by Doohickey (If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice...I will choose freewill.)
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To: Physicist; snarks_when_bored
Thanks, that's exactly the level I was looking for.

Snarks, I now have the introduction to the readings on renormalization you gave me... :-)

Cheers!

Physicist, the "controversy" was in some reading from (oh, say) 25 or 30 years ago--and it was casual, not professional reading for me. Thanks for helping out !

92 posted on 03/10/2006 5:36:00 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: razorback-bert; snarks_when_bored; RightWingAtheist
So we will have wormhole warp drives in a few years?

From Motl's blog, the 2 billion K generator...

Starship Enterprise.

Any questions?

Yes, ...Scotty?

Cap'n, I dinna if the thread, she canna talk much more 'o this

Cheers!

93 posted on 03/10/2006 7:52:28 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: Alamo-Girl; betty boop

Hmmm.. black holes......crystals?...


94 posted on 03/10/2006 8:07:21 PM PST by hosepipe (CAUTION: This propaganda is laced with hyperbole..)
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To: hosepipe

Thanks for the ping!


95 posted on 03/10/2006 10:10:00 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: Physicist; grey_whiskers

Very nice post, Physicist.


96 posted on 03/11/2006 6:38:00 AM PST by snarks_when_bored
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To: grey_whiskers
Could be. How does Sarah Michelle measure up on the IQ factor? Superintelligence-types who are easy on the eyes have a certain appeal...
97 posted on 03/13/2006 8:09:01 AM PST by chimera
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To: Netheron

No, not $10,000, just $50 for his book. His breakthrough work is based on the Rydberg Equation, fractional possibilities thereof. You've heard of fractals, yes? About the same basic idea here, plus the spectrum of hydrinos has been found in the UV part of the solar spectrum, the same way helium was first discovered. Dr Mills theory predicts those spectral lines to within .05% of actual. Throwing brick bats won't make hydrinos go away. And if you didn't know, Dr Mills' hydrino-compound patent was denied in federal court upon spurious Bohr Radius grounds(big oil/vested interests behind the curtain). If he had gotten his patent, electric batteries with 500 times the energy density of lead acid batteries(5000w-h/#)would now be on the shelf.


98 posted on 03/13/2006 3:12:53 PM PST by timer
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To: timer

Actually I went online and looked at hydrinos.org. On there I found several links which purport to point to mathematical derivations of the principles. There is nothing. There are some things cribbed from other sites to add 'fluff', but other than pretty pictures, there is nothing.

He does include a few pictures which seem to describe the n=1/2 orbital. This is Barbra Streisand. There is no such thing. It is flatly impossible, due to the Planck constant, the electron mass and quantum mechanics. There is no n=1/2 orbital in the free hydrogen atom. You can derive the spectrum for the hydrogen atom in any quantum mechanics text and show it for yourself.

Now, you may say that I am arrogantly dismissing him because he has come up with a new method of doing things that is revolutionary. This is also completely impossible, since I, myself, have revolutionized my own fields of research several times in my own career.

I have found far more efficient ways of inverting the Eikonal equation than existed in the past.

I have found techniques for improving the understanding of plasma chambers (note, ions, electrons and nuclei, hint hint).

I have significantly improved the rate and accuracy at which simulated radar displays can be performed.

Each of these were confusedly understood at first by others, but I had demonstratable results that I could put on the table, along with code and experiments that everyone could examine. They are now all accepted standard practice. Each also has had a significant economic impact.

Now, as far as 'big oil interests' Dr. Mills doesn't know the first thing about protecting his intellectual property, or actually he does, since his I.P. lawyer must have told him. You do it this way:

1) Build the battery FIRST, while notarizing your lab notebooks.

2) Then patent it, while submitting notarized copies of your lab notebooks.

Now the scientific community and 'big oil' have an operating object to cope with and a paper trail that demonstrates that he did it. Mills may now collect his royalties and Nobel Prize.

EVERY scientist who has ever patented knows this. Dr. Mills has not done this, therefore he is a LIAR.

Now that you have demonstrated your ignorance in both basic science and intellectual property law, would you like to show it in any other fields?


99 posted on 03/14/2006 4:11:02 AM PST by Netheron
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To: snarks_when_bored
Interesting!

While black holes supposedly swallow anything that gets past the event horizon, quantum critical shells are a two-way street, Chapline says. Matter crossing the shell decays, and the anti-gravity should spit some of the remnants back out again. Also, quark particles crossing the shell should decay by releasing positrons and gamma rays, which would pop out of the surface.

Now, consider that the "steady state" universe theories require only a small amount of matter (a few atoms per cubic meter) "re-appearing" in interstellar space to account for the expansion factors: It's interesting to question whether these atoms could come from such stars. Or from Hawking's black-hole quantum centers.

To me, it makes no logical sense to follow a "pure math" black hole where everything becomes a point source. That's merely a mathematical convenience, not realty.

100 posted on 03/14/2006 4:26:04 AM PST by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but Hillary's ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
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