Science Forums 2

[Boerseun]

Idsoftwaresteve:

Thanks for the extended reply.

However, and I mean this in all kindness, you haven't answered any of the issues I have with McCutcheon's premise.

Likening black holes to 'burnt out lightbulbs' is not only overly simplistic, but I think totally wrong. The bending of light by gravity has been proven, and the degree by which it is bent has been calibrated for the specific mass doing the bending. It therefore follows that the more mass is added, the more light (which follows space) would be observably bent. Up until a point where a black hole forms. With a 'burnt out light bulb' I can only imagine he's referring to a dead star, a brown dwarf or something similar. But even a dead star will turn into a black hole if you keep on adding mass.

I honestly think McCutcheon is trying to promote an understandable, simplistic view of the Cosmos in order to sell his book to the uneducated masses who can't follow complicated analogies and examples. He would, after all, have a much larger audience than Hawking, for instance.

He is to be commended for trying to bring science to the masses. But it doesn't help at all if he's flat out wrong.