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edward-mckeown
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   Posted 6/3/2007 3:18 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
not sure if this is on topic. I want to do a short where the main characters are approaching an event horizon but I don't know enough physics to know if what I am thinking has any merit.
If a vessel is going down the gradient, time slows down. Will the persons inside the vessel experience time as slowed down.



In short, two lovers are escapng capture as they plunge down into a black hole. Too outside view they are destroyed by tidal force of gravity in minutes. To them they fall for an eternity BUT do they experience that enternity or are their perceptions so slowed that they experience it as a few seconds.



Steven Hawking where are you??
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MysticWino
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   Posted 6/3/2007 8:24 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.

The way I understand it, they're dead long before that eternal moment. The Gravitational forces are simply unsurvivable.

Aside from that, it works how you want it to. To assume that they are in a ship possible of interstellar travel, though, is to assume that they have dealt with some of the physics dilemmas we have no answers for now. One possible solution - ever see Abyss? - is to have a bio-jelley atmosphere to create enough pressure to keep the ship from simply caving in like a beer can between your fingers. Flexible, but strong enough to resist destruction. What shape is the ship? Perfect sphere would do a lot to ease the G-force, but it'll warp like wax in a lava lamp at some point.

I would say that if they can remain alive - IF - they can have their eternal moment.

In a way, you could do the inversion thing to justify it. Basically, at some point, the theory du jour was that if you hit the singularity, you would simply turn inside-out and expand again. But if this were true, it might be more like a magnet than a funnel; that is, you simply go from a singularity of infinite gravity to one of infinite gravity, being pulled back into the black hole in a sort of fatal error infinite loop. If I were to write a story of this kind, I would go and read one of Brian Greene's books - The Elegant Universe. This guy actually makes advanced physics make sense.


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crystalwizard
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   Posted 6/3/2007 8:48 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
My problem is 'plunge down into a black hole'. Since black holes aren't really holes, but rather an area where gravity is so intense that even light can't travel through it (it avoids that problem by teleporting though), then nothing is really doing down into anything. Not like you would fall into a pit or drop through a crack.

And Steven Hawking is right here on his official website:

www.hawking.org.uk/home/hindex.html

it includes lectures on black holes and a way to contact him.


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MysticWino
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   Posted 6/3/2007 11:11 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Well . . . .
Since the primary attraction is gravity - what's the definition of down? The primary direction of gravity attraction, I would think. So, it becomes the relative down. Ergo, I would say that it is falling into. And light cannot NOT travel there. The reason the hole is black, it that light cannot ESCAPE, not that light can't travel through. We don't know about 'through', because modern physics/mathematics stops at the 'singularity'. Beyond which must be an increasing value. When you begin speaking of singularity, though, positive and negative become relative distance as opossed to plenty and penury.


Exile of my own dull vice. . .

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crystalwizard
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   Posted 6/4/2007 12:25 AM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
I found a good, and fairly easily understood, wiki page that discusses black holes and Hawking radiation

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation

for further research.


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Michael
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   Posted 6/4/2007 1:10 AM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Ow, wow, it get's into the math and everything!  I had a hard enough time following Hawking's A Brief History of Time ... let alone following the equations.  I must admit, however, that Michio Kaku's explanation of Hawking's theories in Hyperspace were a bit easier to understand.  It may have more to do with writing style there.
 
In any case, I'm glad you provided that link, Crystalwizard.  Something for further research, if I ever get around to writing that sci-fi series I've planned ...


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Jordan Lapp
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   Posted 6/4/2007 2:24 AM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Since light isn't able to escape the event horizon of a black hole, no one outside of the event horizon would "see" the lovers. The event horizon is basically a wall of nothingness for all intents and purposes.
 
As for what THEY would experience... it's pretty much well documented here.
 


Jordan Lapp
 
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crystalwizard
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   Posted 6/4/2007 2:34 AM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
excellent link Jordan, thanks for posting that.


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Jordan Lapp
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   Posted 6/4/2007 2:50 AM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
It's your one-stop-black-hole-shop!


Jordan Lapp
 
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MysticWino
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   Posted 6/4/2007 12:46 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.

Edward,

First, I believe that in an infinite universe all things are possible. Second, I find some of the information on the Black-Hole FAQ page to be less than satisfactory. Scientists should refrain from saying that something is impossible simply because they cannot figure a way to test it in nature or laboratory. To say that it is expected to be nonexistent in nature is great, but denying the possibility simply due to our ignorance and inability to imagine exactly how it would work is, in my opinion of course, scientific blashpemy. If the math figures, then perhaps we simply misunderstand the answers. These guys - quantum physicists - are still stumped on 'dark matter' as they call it. What if 'dark matter' turns out to be the 'white hole' and wormhole substance they claim does not exist? Also, extreme conditions tend to make our understanding of physics look rather pedestrian; all our science can't explain a whole lot of what's out there.

Now, what happens if you escape into a dual event hirozon formed by competing black holes of opposite charge and/or rotation? Might there be a seam of eternal stasis where the horizons meet? Perhaps some weird electro-magnetic cushion through which they might travel into either some unknowable place or simply their immortal moment of love?

I guess my point is this: starting from the hard science is great, but what about the speculation part? It's your story; if you believe it could happen and you write that faith into your story, your audience will believe you. Those unable to suspend their own disbelief with any given work are simply not your target readers. So be it. If you believe it in the telling, others will believe it in the hearing. They may scoff later after thinking it through, but as long as you tell the story well, they will be transported to where it could happen - where it did happen: your imagination.



Exile of my own dull vice. . .

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Jordan Lapp
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   Posted 6/4/2007 1:20 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Saying that scientists don't know what dark matter is and then using that to posit wild theories is a little... dangerous, I'd say. Scientists have a pretty good idea what dark matter is NOT, and it's not a white hole. If a white hole is a region of space which pushes away everything that tries to enter, then it sure as heck isn't dark matter (which is a source of gravity).

As for a "worm hole substance": There's no such substance. A worm hole is a spinning black hole. You might be talking about so-called "exotic materials" which may make it possible to open a stable wormhole... but according to the laws of physics as we currently know them (and the authors concede that new discoveries may change this) generating a stable wormhole is so difficult as to be impossible.

An event horizon isn't some weird region of matter... it's simply the location that you cannot escape from. If you're talking about warped space time, it seems obvious that the two charges would cancel each other out if there were two black holes of opposite charge. if you were in the middle of these (and not actually in the event horizons of either), time might pass normally.

If two black holes meet, you would probably get a gamma ray burst similar to those that scientists now witness when two neutron stars collide or when a neutron star is devoured by a black hole. At the very least you'd get a gas jet millions of miles long.

I agree with you that hard sci-fi is a good starting point for fiction, but the market for hard sci-fi is fairly well defined. If you sell to these markets you need to only extend on our current knowledge, not go way out on a limb. Soft sci-fi markets are more forgiving.


Jordan Lapp
 
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MysticWino
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   Posted 6/4/2007 2:13 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Jordan Lapp said...
Saying that scientists don't know what dark matter is and then using that to posit wild theories is a little... dangerous, I'd say. Scientists have a pretty good idea what dark matter is NOT, and it's not a white hole. If a white hole is a region of space which pushes away everything that tries to enter, then it sure as heck isn't dark matter (which is a source of gravity).
Is it a wild theory? I don't think so. Baseless, yes, but no more wild than most theories going around the QP continuum already. As we are on the past side of the white hole, we would only 'see' the back end of it - the light would be passing away from us, and therefore appear as something we would not recognize - we don't see light moving away from us, we see it reflected back; perhaps the same principle works for 'dark matter' because of some misunderstanding we have between time and gravity. Which is to say that the substance in question would be the reverse portion of the particles emitted by a white hole. I also suspect that such a phenomenon would be undetectable to modern science because the velocity of such particles would be such that they would transcend light speed and therefore create no visible singularity. They would have a light horizon, which may or may not be such that it would appear as anything we could recognize. It is also likely that they would exist beyond our ability to see as the conditions necessary for these are likely only to exist at the birth of a universe.


Exile of my own dull vice. . .

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Rob Santa
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   Posted 6/4/2007 2:25 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
I'm somewhat in agreement with Dave here. Current physics says a lot, but it can't possibly be the end-all-be-all of the universe. I'm reminded of Flatland and how two-dimensional inhabitants would see a three-dimensional encounter. Outside of our current thinking is exactly that; outside it. We cannot believe some physics could happen, yet (as in the case of dark matter - postulated now for decades yet still unproven. Same with string theory which many esteemed physicists believe is a crock) they might if we were able to remove the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle from our observations (in simplest terms, our mere observation of an event causes it to change). We cannot KNOW such-and-such is impossible, though I am willing to suspend my disbelief.

Regarding black holes and the postulate for Edward's story: what's holding you back? Apply what math is considered common knowledge and take it beyond into speculation. Isn't that our job as speculative fiction writers? As long as the math isn't fuzzy and the story is sound, it will be great science fiction. Nobody knows for certain about black holes but many have a pretty good idea of getting close to them. Two counter-rotating black holes with overlapping event horizons? Brilliant! Best of luck thinking that one through.



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MysticWino
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   Posted 6/4/2007 2:37 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Is that a guanlet I see before me?


Exile of my own dull vice. . .

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crystalwizard
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   Posted 6/4/2007 3:45 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Rob Santa said...
they might if we were able to remove the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle from our observations (in simplest terms, our mere observation of an event causes it to change). We cannot KNOW such-and-such is impossible, though I am willing to suspend my disbelief.



It would also help if the esteemed scientists stopped trying to measure everything in terms of 'physical'.

Light, for example. It acts like a wave or a particle. I read a report of an experiment not long ago where they 'proved' that just thinking about how to measure it, caused it to become one or the other.

That experiment went this way:

They set up the experiment for a wave. Then at the last second, measured it as a particle. Well what do you know. The thing became a particle.

poppycock. All they did by their measureing it as a particle was produce the particle effect. All they know, with all their experiments is how to create a specific effect...wave, particle or both. They still don't know what it is...because they keep trying to measure a totally non-physical <insert noun> as something physical.

A long time back I read a number of papers on gravity, various light experiments and some other physics stuff and I remember thinking then that all of the 'effects' being studied were just specific manifestations of the same thing. Different ways of making something much more basic behave in certain ways when interacting with the physical realm. I still think that.
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Michael
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   Posted 6/4/2007 4:27 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
I have to agree with some of the responses here that speculation is just as important as the science.  I want it all!  And, don't forget, since we are talking about fiction, strong characters!  Put it all in the bowl, mix it up real good, and voila!  You just might have a good story.
 
Remember, sci-fi isn't theory, it uses theory as background...


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Frank
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   Posted 6/4/2007 5:27 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Someone else may have mentioned this (I'm not reading the entire thread) but Fred Pohl covered some of this territory in his Gateway series.
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MysticWino
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   Posted 6/4/2007 8:49 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Experiments prove that light is both a wave and a particle. This is what drove the creation of Heidleburg's theory of uncertaintly.
The observers' expectations as a causal effect is calle the Hawthorne effect, as that is the name of the guy who first studied it after realizing that physicists were getting proof of seemingly untenable theories from different experiments (such as light proven as wave as well as particle). Most of what science proves on the theoretical horizon is that we know too little about some things to even ask the intelligent, that is educated questions. We have a great many intelligent questions, such as the one posited causal to this thread.
The question is not whether it is so, but whether it could be so. We may start with hard scientific fact or theory, but when we follow it logically, can we make a case for the speculation in question? For the matter of black holes, white holes, dark matter, and many other phenomena or theoretical phenomena, we haven't enough evidence really to say what the hard science is - it's all speculation with mathematical evidence at this point. We can't rule dark matter out - and we can't rule out the possibility that it is somehow the result of particular expulsion from a white hole. How could we measure it? Our failure of imagination, logic, or science to prove any given speculation is no basis for judging it as impossible. How long ago was globe vs flat world impossible? How long ago was it impossible for man to fly; to reach the moon; to reach Mars; and ad infinitum?
Hard science is great. But on the level of quantum physics, there is more to prove that so-called impossibilities exist somewhere in the megaverse than there is to prove that anything is impossible. It may be WAY improbable, but improbable is not impossible.


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crystalwizard
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   Posted 6/4/2007 11:18 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Bitter Hermit said...
Experiments prove that light is both a wave and a particle.


They prove nothing of the sort. Experiments prove that whatever causes light can produce the effect of both a particle and a wave. That's all that can be measured.

Bitter Hermit said...

This is what drove the creation of Heidleburg's theory of uncertaintly.
The observers' expectations as a causal effect is calle the Hawthorne effect, as that is the name of the guy who first studied it after realizing that physicists were getting proof of seemingly untenable theories from different experiments (such as light proven as wave as well as particle). Most of what science proves on the theoretical horizon is that we know too little about some things to even ask the intelligent, that is educated questions. We have a great many intelligent questions, such as the one posited causal to this thread.


Which is the exact point. Nothing is measuring light itself. or gravity for that matter. Everything is measuring the END RESULT, and since that end result can change as the experiment changes, everyone scratches their heads and goes 'I dunno'.



Bitter Hermit said...

The question is not whether it is so, but whether it could be so.


The question is whether all the experts will stop looking at the individual pieces, put all the data together and take a look at the much bigger, more basic underlying reality. I don't expect that any time soon.
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MysticWino
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   Posted 6/5/2007 8:47 AM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
crystalwizard said...
Bitter Hermit said...
Experiments prove that light is both a wave and a particle.


They prove nothing of the sort. Experiments prove that whatever causes light can produce the effect of both a particle and a wave. That's all that can be measured.
It was formerly held as proof of both. But science found it untennable, and so they backtracked. You're right.
 
Bitter Hermit said...

The question is not whether it is so, but whether it could be so.

The question is whether all the experts will stop looking at the individual pieces, put all the data together and take a look at the much bigger, more basic underlying reality. I don't expect that any time soon.
This is a good example of the challenge they face: it's hard to agree on solutions if you're asking different questions. And so much depends on your approach. I was asking the question in relation to writing fiction. Seems to me CW is point out a problem with micro-attention versus systems thinking - 5th Discipline stuff (which is a very good point to bring in).


Exile of my own dull vice. . .

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Rob Santa
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   Posted 6/5/2007 9:22 AM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
I have this sense that we are all in violent agreement with each other.



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tchernabyelo
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   Posted 6/5/2007 10:16 AM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
No we're not!!!

:)



Back to the original point:

Time dilation - time "slowing down" is relative. Someone travelling at a close fraction of the speed of light will experience only minutes while an "external" observer would experience years. Has time "sped up"? "Slowed down"? The whole point of relativity is that those terms have no absolute meaning. The static observer thinks that the moving observer has somehow sloweddown time. The moving observer thinks that the static observer has somehow sped up time. Neither is actually true. Both have experienced the right amount of local time. Time is, indeed, local.

The whole "experience eternity just before the moment of death" thing isn't going to happen, either for an inside or an outside observer. Both experience time as "normal" for them, it's only when they compare that they find any kind of anomaly, and you're not dealing with a situation where these people can meet up again afterwards to compare notes.


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MysticWino
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   Posted 6/5/2007 10:40 AM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
tchernabyelo said...
No we're not!!!

The whole "experience eternity just before the moment of death" thing isn't going to happen, either for an inside or an outside observer. Both experience time as "normal" for them, it's only when they compare that they find any kind of anomaly, and you're not dealing with a situation where these people can meet up again afterwards to compare notes.
I feel compelled to disagree. Or maybe it's simply my relative gravity . . .
Here's the thing: if the conditions were normal, one would indeed sense no difference. I think that we percieve time more physically than we know, measured greatly by our own metabolism. If the metabolics are the same, the perception of time should remain the same. One likely explanation for the 'eternal moment' phenomenon, though, could be the release of endorphines and/or adrenal bursts due to fear/wonder/amazement of the anticipated outcome. Here, we harken back to the Hawthorne effect; they experience their final moment as one eternal embrace - or the observers experience it vicariously as such - because they expect it to be that way. Most of our experiences have nearly as much to do with internal percipience as with external stimuli.
Watch any psychotic for a day and you should be able to comprehend just how true this is.


Exile of my own dull vice. . .

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edward-mckeown
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   Posted 6/5/2007 8:26 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Wow- you all worked hard on this thank you. I will print it all out and sort through it. Cheers Ed


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WRJames
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   Posted 6/11/2007 1:52 AM (GMT -4)