Ace of Spades HQ

March 31, 2005

Claim: Black Holes Don't, and Can't, Exist
— Ace

I might have spent my formative years studying the basic physics that would allow me to comprehend this article. Instead, I spent that time learning how to craft "your mother's a whore" jokes.

Kids: seriously. Study up. Or else this bullshit is your future.

Anyway, one scientist says that what we term black holes are just stars that have converted to "dark energy":

Black holes are staples of science fiction and many think astronomers have observed them indirectly. But according to a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, these awesome breaches in space-time do not and indeed cannot exist.
Over the past few years, observations of the motions of galaxies have shown that some 70% the Universe seems to be composed of a strange 'dark energy' that is driving the Universe's accelerating expansion.
George Chapline thinks that the collapse of the massive stars, which was long believed to generate black holes, actually leads to the formation of stars that contain dark energy. "It's a near certainty that black holes don't exist," he claims.
...
[A]s long ago as 1975 quantum physicists argued that strange things do happen at an event horizon: matter governed by quantum laws becomes hypersensitive to slight disturbances. "The result was quickly forgotten," says Chapline, "because it didn't agree with the prediction of general relativity. But actually, it was absolutely correct."
This strange behaviour, he says, is the signature of a 'quantum phase transition' of space-time. Chapline argues that a star doesn't simply collapse to form a black hole; instead, the space-time inside it becomes filled with dark energy and this has some intriguing gravitational effects.

This is certainly all very intriguing and exciting even if I have no idea what the hell is going on.

Like the first time I had sex. Or, to be honest, the last time I had sex, too.

There's another thing I could have spent my younger years getting good at.

Posted by: Ace at 08:53 PM | Comments (27)
Post contains 337 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Yeah, yeah, black holes..great.

Meanwhile, I've ripped a link off of Drudge that shows Pat Buchanan getting doused with salad dressing by some two-tone mohawk wearing freak.

While Cedarford is probably on the verge of worried tears over this assault on his idol, the rest of us should watch this video.

And read my blog entry, too.

Which I won't pimp here any further.

Posted by: Jack M. at March 31, 2005 08:59 PM (1W1ap)

2 but..but...i thought that's where my mail was going
or was it my taxes...
well i know my socks leave the dryer via the long plastic hose into an alternate dimension which scientists called the black hole.
mais non?
looks like it's back to the astro-physics drawing board for me.

Posted by: at March 31, 2005 09:07 PM (x0C8F)

3 You may have to recycle that "Dorks versus Gaywads" title when Drudge reports that Stephen Hawking was arrested for a suspected drive-by of the Lawrence Livermore lab.

Posted by: Alex_fs at March 31, 2005 09:09 PM (PpBGs)

4 'Dark energy'. Sure..

Makes me want to get out a crystal and start channeling the universe. Seriously, couldn't they come up with a better , more scientific term than 'dark energy'?

This is worse than even Chemistry's the 'squishability factor'. In other words, how squishy electrons are.

Posted by: Amy at March 31, 2005 09:24 PM (vrWof)

5 If this guy thinks Black Holes don't exist, then he's obviously never driven through Detroit.

Posted by: Blain at March 31, 2005 09:31 PM (nbvl/)

6 HOOOOO!!!!!!

Try the meatloaf, folks. He'll be here all week.

Posted by: Sir Fartsalot at March 31, 2005 09:35 PM (KgeNY)

7 If it still squashes you into the quark equivalent of raspberry jam when you get too close I'm not sure I see any practical difference.

Posted by: at March 31, 2005 10:12 PM (P6vXb)

8 I spent that time learning how to craft "your mother's a whore" jokes

oo..oo... Like the one the goes like "and your momma's a whore!"?

I LOVE that one. Kills me every time.

If blackholes don't exist, my entire plan for world domination just went down the shitter.

Oh well. Back to the kittens and crisco plan. Codename KnK.
you know.
Just to throw them off.

Posted by: krakatoa at March 31, 2005 10:59 PM (5Ui07)

9 cool link Ace! Rather than taking "Rocks for Jocks" to fulfill the science requirement in College, I took a couple of Astronomy courses, and in a bizarre twist of fate, I found that I love that sh!t - sure beats the hell out of contemplating my bizarre brethren here on earth (you all come to mind ...).

and now I have dark energy to contemplate .. coooooooooooooooooool!

Posted by: psflanagan at April 01, 2005 02:48 AM (BaqVc)

10 Ace,

Good one.

Funny comments by all, too.

But seriously...

If you are at all interested in learning about the origins of cosmology, Newton, Einstein, special and general relativity, entangled space, quantum "weirdness", spacetime, the nature of time, and string theory, read this:

The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Briane Greene.

Really.

I.am.not.joking.

It's written for the non-science major who has an interest in the cosmos.

That is all.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to finish reading about Jane Fonda soliciting hookers for three-ways with her first husband.

Out here.

Posted by: MeTooThen at April 01, 2005 04:00 AM (wE1Wv)

11 I think four perfect balls (gravity probe B) will answer many of our questions by determining if frame dragging really exists and that the LATOR mission will test Einstein's theory with incredible precision. We're getting closer and closer to a unified theory. Until then, it's turtles all the way down in my opinion.

Posted by: Kingslasher at April 01, 2005 04:22 AM (SOfML)

12 In related news, residents of Calcutta woke this morning to find that their city had disappeared.

Posted by: apotheosis at April 01, 2005 04:24 AM (KpdET)

13 As someone who spent a great deal of his formative years studying physics, I think that the guy is full of crap.

And yes, I played D&D in my spare time. If you look up "girl repellant" in the dictionary, I'm confident that my picture is still there.

Posted by: physics geek at April 01, 2005 04:29 AM (Xvrs7)

14 a strange 'dark energy' that is driving the Universe's accelerating expansion

Jeez, I could have told them that. I mean, haven't these people even seen Star Wars ... The Force, people. Hello?

Besides, if black holes don't really exist, then what the hell were they doing with that movie with the robots and Ernest Borgnine? Are you telling me that was a waste of time, too?

Posted by: George at Snapshot at April 01, 2005 04:37 AM (DiZv6)

15 The Star trek conventions just aren't going to be the same. Next you'll be telling me that teleportation isn't possible...you might as well go ahead and kick my dog too while you're at it...

Posted by: WindyCity at April 01, 2005 04:45 AM (OeJic)

16 Ace's comment:

"Like the first time I had sex. Or, to be honest, the last time I had sex, too."

And the title.

I love the smell of irony in the morning.

Posted by: Joe Mama at April 01, 2005 04:49 AM (l4adY)

17 Good grief. This reminds me of the heated argument I got into once about which really exists, centripetal or centrifugal force? And THAT always leads to the next question; what happened to me as a child?

Later,
bbeck

Posted by: bbeck at April 01, 2005 04:52 AM (qF8q3)

18 A Swedish physicist named Hannes Alfven, who won the Nobel prize in physics around 1970, developed an alternate science of cosmology known as plasma cosmology. He argued, among other things, that the Big Bang never happened (title of a book on the subject by Eric Lerner) and that there is no such thing as a black hole. Check out Lerner's book if you have the time, or google Alfven, if the subject interests you.

Posted by: Ira at April 01, 2005 05:06 AM (CaYlC)

19 Actually, Gravity Probe B won't demonstrate anything that hasn't already been proven by other means. The experiment was delayed so long it became redundant but the idiotic way NASA works insisted on still doing it.

We really need to get the government out of non-military space applications.

Posted by: Eric Pobirs at April 01, 2005 08:47 AM (Iq1OO)

20 Dark energy? Pishaw. That guy has no idea what he's talking about.
It's all about the Time Cube.

(Please tell me Ace has already seen this one)

Posted by: Sue Dohnim at April 01, 2005 10:09 AM (rE+jU)

21 TimeCube?

I had no idea. Everything makes sense now. A veil has been lifted from my eyes. Sage words:

"Ignoring Cubium indicts you evil."

Perhaps he was also responsible for:

"ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US"

I won't admit to being a geek; but, when I heard about this teleportation 'stuff' which IBM is doing I almost dropped my TI calculator:

http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/9712/10/beam.me.up.ap/

Posted by: TheShadow at April 01, 2005 10:27 AM (1R0Ae)

22 IBM doing teleportation? Please. The Pacific Rim will put them out of business in five years with teleporters that fit on your wrist and get you there in a quarter of the time.

Of course Microsoft will write the operating software, and 50% of the population will be scrambled or teleported into walls every time they come out with a new version.

Then you'll have the pencil-necks putting Linux on theirs and bragging that they can not only teleport but astral project too. They won't tell you that you need to do the "Funky Monkey" and "Electric Slide" to activate functions, though.

The prettiest teleporter, the iBeamer, will be Apple's, and will cost three times more than everyone else's. Wearers won't ever shut up about how superior their teleporters are, even though it's just as slow or slower than the IBM one.

Posted by: Sue Dohnim at April 01, 2005 11:27 AM (rE+jU)

23 Whoa, do you realize what this means? It's earth shattering. I am going to have to rethink everything I know.

"Like the first time I had sex. Or, to be honest, the last time I had sex, too."

Ace had sex more than once?

Posted by: GregS at April 01, 2005 11:55 AM (FVNT+)

24 We really need to get the government out of non-military space applications.

Like Hubble, Chandrasehkar, Compton X-Ray observatory, Apollo Program, Mars Rovers, Cassini, Voyager, Viking, Venus probes, Jupiter mission???

No quarterly corporate profit in any of that!

Is is worth doing?

3 areas I do have problems with NASA on.

1. Forgoing aeronautics, military R&D, and hard science for funding the International Space Station.

2. Bush's bonehead "Man to Mars" trillion dollar boondoggle which will suck the oxygen out of the rest of NASA. 2nd Gen Rovers look like 500 days on Mars will be a cinch. Soon we will have 3rd Gen Rovers and a sample return mission getting the info we need. Equip one of the probes with a US Flag to plant on Mars and you have done all a manned mission could do.

3. NASA has 240 astronauts on their payroll. Most will never go into Space, but they are valuable to train other astronauts with the skills most will never use. Give half of them M-16s and send them to Iraq while they are waiting for the mission that may never come.

Posted by: Cedarford at April 01, 2005 12:17 PM (M7kiy)

25 Sorry for the confusion. Both sentences referred to the same event.

Posted by: ace at April 01, 2005 12:17 PM (Q6+G6)

26 Sorry for my confusion. First sentence of my last post was a quote from Eric Pobirs, the rest of my post, a response.

Adding ---Mars is worth a manned mission someday IF we plan on staying. That assumes (1)we have functioning fusion power plants by then (we need beaucoup energy because Mars is very, very cold and to mine critical minerals and elements for processing, and solar and every other energy source just won't cut it (though breeder reactors might be an alternative if we still can't make fusion work for reliable power production) , (2)assuming we have located life-essential elements that are in perhaps only unsalvagable trace amounts on Mars - like nitrogen.

No trillion, 2 trillion bucks for a 10 day stay, flag raising, and a few rocks that past robots & sample return missions overlooked, to take home.

Posted by: Cedarford at April 01, 2005 12:28 PM (M7kiy)

27 Ace: Like the first time I had sex. Or, to be honest, the last time I had sex, too.

This is the same incident, right?

Ace, never ever talk about your sex life in the same post as the words "black hole."

Posted by: DeeDaGo at April 01, 2005 02:11 PM (Hj9yW)

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