What are Black Holes?
by CS WagnerI have no interest in becoming an astrophysicist, but I do find the general concept of understanding space interesting. Black holes, in particular, are a real fascination. What are they and what happens to all the stuff they suck up?
To understand a black hole, you have to understand that all matter (the stuff you can touch) is residing in an energy field. If that energy field were spread out wide and (mostly) flat, you would find that all matter we know of is on one side of the field and many scientists believe that there is some sort of anti-matter on the other side. I have a stong feeling there is too. This field is commonly represented as a wide trampoline. Heavy matter objects press down hard on the trampoline, making nearby objects slide towards them. If you've seen anything about Einstein's theory of relativity, you've seen this example. They just tend to forget to mention that the trampoline is a field of impossibly pure energy. Actually, it isn't really energy, but a limit of energy.
Understanding the field is important. All stuff (since there is no name for both mass and energy) consists of a ratio of mass and energy. It is well known that mass and energy are the same thing, just in a different form. Your body is mostly mass, but it does have a lot of energy. There is no such thing as mass with absolutely no energy. It is like claiming that you are not moving because you are sitting in your chair. You are on the face of the Earth and it is spinning very fast, so you are moving. I also feel that it is impossible to achieve 100% energy. There is always that last speck of matter, which we see in the photon. Stuff that is mostly energy resides very close the field mentioned above. Stuff that is mostly mass resides very far away from the field. You can get your mass closer to the field by simply moving a bit, but it isn't enough of a change to notice anything.
Black holes are very massive and contain more energy than any star. So, they make an incredible indention in the field and they are very close to it. To see what happens to the field, just take any old garbage bag. Pull it tight and press on one tiny spot with your finger - harder and harder. It stretches and stretches and then it breaks.
Can the field supporting all of the energy and matter in space break? Why not? What would happen if it did? I began answering those questions by realizing that space is expanding. Why? What if the field isn't just a flat field but a bubble? What if all of matter and energy is inside the bubble pressing out on it? What if something pokes a hole in that bubble? Wouldn't it just make a new bubble? You get one bubble with bubbles growing off it. Then, bubbles can grow off those bubbles.
Now, it is easy to see what happens to the stuff that is sucked into a black hole. It just slips out of one bubble and into another. Exactly what happens isn't too nice to think about. To make the jump, it must pass through, nearly touching, the field. Anything close to the field is nearly pure energy without any mass. Is it possible to convert mass to energy and then back to the same mass structure? Not that I know of. So, if you tried to jump through a black hole, all of your matter would be converted to energy and that energy would spew into the new bubble. Eventually, that energy will become high energy particles, which join into subatomic particles, which make atoms, which become parts of new things - just not you.
This all brings me back to the beginning of space - the Big Bang. Was it a bang or a pop? Is space just a bubble created by a black hole in another bubble? The only argument against it is the theory that the amount of matter in all of space is constant. Of course, nobody has ever actually went out and added up how much matter there is. There could be a little hole off in space somewhere that leaks energy in while black holes leak it back out. Eventually, the incoming hole will run out of energy to leak in. Then, all of our energy and matter will eventually leak out and all that will be left is a deflated bubble.
2002-04-15
I have to take some stupid physics classes at the College of Charleston. One of the physics professors read this and he says that if I continue with this view of space, I will have a very difficult time with real physics.
2004-01-07
Well, it is possible that I'm not as stupid as I sound. Pawel Mazur from the University of South Carolina has released a theory that black holes may be wrapped in some sort of field like a big bubble and all of space as we know it may be wrapped in some black hole.
2004-04-16
I just read an article on the Picard topology of the Universe. In a nutshell, it claims that the Universe is really wide, finite, but expanding on one end. On the other end, it is a narrow pinpoint. It is explained in laymen terms as a long horn shape. However you explain it, this fits with the idea that the universe is being fed through a black-hole pinpoint on one end and expanding out like a big bubble on the other.