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Don’t black holes exist? But then what will popular culture do?

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black hole
supermassive galactic black hole (artist)/NASA, JPL-Caltech

From Phys.org:

Black holes have long captured the public imagination and been the subject of popular culture, from Star Trek to Hollywood. They are the ultimate unknown – the blackest and most dense objects in the universe that do not even let light escape. And as if they weren’t bizarre enough to begin with, now add this to the mix: they don’t exist.

By merging two seemingly conflicting theories, Laura Mersini-Houghton, a physics professor at UNC-Chapel Hill in the College of Arts and Sciences, has proven, mathematically, that black holes can never come into being in the first place. The work not only forces scientists to reimagine the fabric of space-time, but also rethink the origins of the universe.

“I’m still not over the shock,” said Mersini-Houghton. “We’ve been studying this problem for a more than 50 years and this solution gives us a lot to think about.”

Many physicists and astronomers believe that our universe originated from a singularity that began expanding with the Big Bang. However, if singularities do not exist, then physicists have to rethink their ideas of the Big Bang and whether it ever happened.

The main thing to “think about” is not whether the Big Bang happened, but whether anyone will now take seriously wa culture dump like: There are no black holes.

Pop culture rants, raves, and peeves have somehow found their expression today as “science.” Black holes as a must-have. Darwinian evolution as magic. Global warming as the apocalypse. This stuff doesn’t change; it just acquires science labels.

As always in pop culture, it’s the label that separates the Joe Cool from the classless mass.

Today’s must label is, of course, the multiverse. This no-black-holes story must fit in there somewhere. Otherwise, it’s doomed.

See also: Big Bang exterminator wanted, will train

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Comments
Where would Hawking be without his non-existent black holes?
Now even he claims there is no black hole.the bystander
September 29, 2014
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There is a very simple reason that black holes do not exist and there is no need to bring complex math into the explanation. Black holes do not exist simply because they lead to an infinite regress. In fact, the very basis of black holes, Einstein's general relativity, is fundamentally wrong for the same reason. It predicts infinite gravity when the radius r approaches 0. Which means, if Einstein was right, there should be a black hole inside every particle. It's pathetic, really. I hope this will put an end to Stephen Hawking's irresistible urge to share his flawed opinion with the rest of the world. Where would Hawking be without his non-existent black holes?Mapou
September 27, 2014
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There have been recent headlines claiming that black holes could not form from stars. However, even if true, there seems to be good evidence that they exist: Finally, there are observations consistent with black holes, quite independent of any theories of their origin from stars. They tend to attract matter that forms an accretion disc around the equator. This matter falls inward and releases much gravitational potential energy. In fact, this is an extremely efficient mass-to-energy conversion process, turning 40% of the mass into energy, compared to only about 1% with thermonuclear fusion. This can be observed as a strong X-ray source. The process also results in powerful relativistic jets from the poles. This would explain X-ray binaries: a black hole sucks matter away from a companion star. There are also observations consistent with supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies, including our own. A certain star (S2) orbits around something in the galactic centre at a distance of 17 light hours (about three times that of Pluto), and period of only 15 years (Pluto’s is 248 years). This is consistent with the gravitational pull of 4.1 million solar masses. Furthermore, if this object were not smaller still, the star would collide with it; it’s likely only to be 6.25 light-hours, not much more than Pluto’s orbit. But the only object known to theory that could compact over 4 million solar masses into such a small volume is a black hole. http://creation.com/black-holes-lilithChristian-apologetics.org
September 27, 2014
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As long as wormholes still exist pop culture will be fine.Mung
September 27, 2014
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Entropy of the Universe – Hugh Ross – May 2010 Excerpt: Egan and Lineweaver found that supermassive black holes are the largest contributor to the observable universe’s entropy. They showed that these supermassive black holes contribute about 30 times more entropy than what the previous research teams estimated. http://www.reasons.org/entropy-universe Roger Penrose – How Special Was The Big Bang? “But why was the big bang so precisely organized, whereas the big crunch (or the singularities in black holes) would be expected to be totally chaotic? It would appear that this question can be phrased in terms of the behaviour of the WEYL part of the space-time curvature at space-time singularities. What we appear to find is that there is a constraint WEYL = 0 (or something very like this) at initial space-time singularities-but not at final singularities-and this seems to be what confines the Creator’s choice to this very tiny region of phase space.” “Einstein’s equation predicts that, as the astronaut reaches the singularity (of the black-hole), the tidal forces grow infinitely strong, and their chaotic oscillations become infinitely rapid. The astronaut dies and the atoms which his body is made become infinitely and chaotically distorted and mixed-and then, at the moment when everything becomes infinite (the tidal strengths, the oscillation frequencies, the distortions, and the mixing), spacetime ceases to exist.” Kip S. Thorne – “Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy” pg. 476 Needless to say, the implications of this ‘eternity of destruction’ should be fairly disturbing for those of us who are of the ‘spiritually minded’ persuasion! excerpted from: Special Relativity, General Relativity, Heaven and Hell https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_4cQ7MXq8bLkoFLYW0kq3Xq-Hkc3c7r-gTk0DYJQFSg/editbornagain77
September 27, 2014
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I am a black hole skeptic in that I don't believe they are black or a hole. Is it possible that whatever these things are, they could be a massive object that is made up of the heaviest or densest material in the universe. For example the heaviest elements are sinking deeper into the centre of earth due to gravity and pressure, could the same be happening in areas of the universe.logically_speaking
September 27, 2014
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Actually there is more evidence for Black holes than just Hawking radiation, How Can Black Holes Be Detected? - video http://www.space.com/10257-black-holes-detected.html NASA's Black-Hole-Hunter Catches Its First 10 Supermassive Black Holes - Sep. 9, 2013 — http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130909154918.htmbornagain77
September 27, 2014
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