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Do black holes exist?

In the 1979 movie "The Black Hole," the crew of the Palamino spaceship passes through a black hole and enters a world of confusion where space and time are warped.

Posted by C1ay
02 May, 2005 08:05:34

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But in reality, if the crew approached the surface of a compact object, which Einsteins theory of general relativity would identify as a black hole , they would all disintegrate, according to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory physicist George Chapline.

Chapline says that ordinary matter would break apart because the protons and neutrons in the matter would disintegrate. Further, Chapline says black holes do not really exist. Instead, he proposes that the mass of compact astrophysical objects consists of the same dark energy that makes up 60 percent of the mass of the universe.

According to general relativity, a black hole results from the death of a massive star and its eventual collapse under its own gravity to a single point; space and time switch places inside a boundary called an "event horizon." Quantum mechanics, however, dictates that space and time continue to play their usual roles inside compact objects, causing a whole barrage of strange behavior - behavior that Chapline says occurs in a dark energy star as well as on Earth when studying quantum critical phenomena. In such phenomena, small changes in the external conditions of a material can cause dramatic and anomalous changes, called quantum phase transitions, in the materials properties.

"There has never been direct evidence of a black hole," said Chapline, while acknowledging there are objects that general relativity would predict are black holes at the centers of galaxies. "Ironically, Einstein also didnt believe in black holes even though he created general relativity.

"Quantum critical phase transitions are not just possible but have actually been seen in the Laboratory," he said.

High temperature superconductivity is an example of quantum critical behavior. Chapline said that plutonium may be another example of an earthly quantum critical system; indeed it is the only example of a pure element that displays quantum critical behavior.

Just how general relativity and quantum mechanics are incompatible has intrigued Chapline for more than 20 years. But it wasnt until the summer of 2000 when Chapline was working on an assignment at Los Alamos National Laboratory that he ran into Nobel laureate and former Livermore physicist Robert Laughlin and the two discussed how a quantum phase transition could represent a surface where time stands still.

Chapline and Laughlin pointed out how the behavior of space-time in dark energy stars is very similar to how a superfluid confined to a vertical column might behave. The pressure in the superfluid increases with depth, and if at a certain depth, the speed of sound vanishes - sound becomes trapped in the fluid - then the physical behavior would be indistinguishable from the event horizon of a classical black hole, Chapline said.

"The key is that when the speed of sound goes to zero its a signature of quantum criticality," he said. "When sound waves cross this surface, there are very dramatic physics effects."

In a dark energy star, however, Chapline said elementary particles, such as photons, electrons, or quarks, crossing over the quantum critical surface - which replaces the event horizon in a classical black hole - will morph into particles with a large mass and become unstable. Inside the dark energy star, space-time is just like normal space-time except that the vacuum energy inside is much larger than the cosmological vacuum energy outside the star.

And though his theory has string theorists and general relativists scratching their heads, Chapline sees a future that might just offer an alternate explanation of what happened during the Big Bang, when the universe was created.

"This does go against the mainstream predictions of general relativists," he said. "When I came up with this idea, people just thought I was crazy for many, many years. But in ten years, this will be the orthodox belief. This explanation of dark energy stars will help explain dark matter. This could profoundly change our whole view of the universe."

Source: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Comments (6 posted):

Tormod on 02 May, 2005 07:40:52

"There has never been direct evidence of a black hole," said Chapline, while acknowledging there are objects that general relativity would predict are black holes at the centers of galaxies. "Ironically, Einstein also didn�t believe in black holes even though he created general relativity. Very interesting story, C1ay. There may not be direct evidence yet but there is plenty of indirect evidence. Here is an article from the Max Planck Society from February 2005: Black Holes in a radar trap European astronomers succeeded for the first time to confirm the signatures predicted near Black Holes by Albert Einstein's theory of Relativity in the light of the cosmic X-ray background. http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsDocumentation/documentation/pressReleases/2005/pressRelease20050223/index.html

paultrr on 02 May, 2005 10:11:52

Very interesting story, C1ay. There may not be direct evidence yet but there is plenty of indirect evidence. Here is an article from the Max Planck Society from February 2005: Black Holes in a radar trap European astronomers succeeded for the first time to confirm the signatures predicted near Black Holes by Albert Einstein's theory of Relativity in the light of the cosmic X-ray background. http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsDocumentation/documentation/pressReleases/2005/pressRelease20050223/index.html Its not that he's saying what we term BH's do not exist. What he's saying is we do not understand their full nature and the objects we term BH's may actually be something else. I once came across something simular when trying to model a zero point in relation to possible external dimensions. You get something akin to an event horizon where time stands still, in a sence. Interesting usage of phase transitions and superfluids. In short, it would be as if the internal region had something more akin to a false vacuum state where the energy is far higher than in our normal vacuum. But I'd also suggest that the concept would require alotof further research. Personally, on my own modeling there I rather disguarded such since there was no way to fully test such out. I think the only preprints left out there on the one I played with are on the Philosophy of Science archive. But aspects where simular.

Tormod on 02 May, 2005 10:35:54

Thanks, paultrr. I find this topic very interesting myself.

paultrr on 02 May, 2005 11:44:09

Thanks, paultrr. I find this topic very interesting myself. The problem I encountered in my own modeling was that you ended up with this pseudo-event horizon deep inside of a blackhole, but not at the center and not at what we could call the photon or observational event horizon. The model I used was trying to picture an enlarged zero point from out of QM and modern brane theory. But when you extended it to a BH picture you got something where the zero point itself enlarges. It made no sence to me at the time, especially when you think in GR terms so I abondoned the whole model. But, looking at the gist of this development it makes me wonder if I might have been on to something after all even though the model base was different. He's be right that some of the GR modeling would not match. It flat does not match at all. I agree, its interesting and suggests that perhaps I ought to relook at my own model again.

BlameTheEx on 16 June, 2005 10:41:31

Bobby on 21 July, 2005 12:43:44

Nice to note that somebody else is saying what i have been posting here for some time: that Einstein didn't believe in black holes and nobody has actually seen one. However Einstein would not have given the thumbs up to this particular theory. He argued that it was impossible to get an escape velocity of C. For that matter he was not a fan of quantum physics. The indirect evidence for black holes is not as conclusive as presented. What it boils down to is that there are dark massive objects out there that are black holes if the maths works that way, and just dark massive objects if the maths doesn't! It doesn't take much thought to realise that some sort of dark massive object is going to form if enough matter gets together - and that matter is inappropriate for fusion. Ether the result will be a black hole or it won't. Regardless from here it will appear the same, or rather it won't appear because it is black. My conclusion is that the physics of such objects is wide open for debate. The Einsteir Field Equations are a set of differential equations that are very sensitive to initial conditions. Depending on the selection of initial conditions, you can get pretty much any result you want. I do not claim to be able to solve thses equations but it seems to me that if you create a set of initial conditions that would not lead to the Universe as it is today, you are on the wrong path. I strongly suspect that some "scientists", especially those selling book, don't bother to check the "reality" of their initial conditions. Not more than a month ago I saw a "scientist" explaining how, if you went faster than light, the equations of Special Relativity says that you would be traveling back in time. Crap like this really irritates me. Apparently he believes that no one watching his program ever heard of imaginary numbers. The Lorentz equations seem simple enough to me. As anything approaches the event horizon of a "Black Hole", the light will become more and more red shifted and fainter and fainter until the light simply fades away. As to what happens to matter, does anyone really believe that any form of matter would survive a trip to the event horizin? If it would not, there appears to be only one alternative, namely the matter has taken the form of energy and has simply faded away.