Eeyep, Bib, black holes can't by definition be seen, but they can be observed.
If Black Holes have never been observed to exist, how do you explain the IRS?
Problem is we keep thinking in terms of space and time as seperate enties but they are connected somehow. According to special relativity given two events seperated by a distance d and a time t there is an interval that seperates them. This interival is given by square root ( d*d - t*t ). The wird thing is that this interval is the same regardless of who looks at the events and how fast they are traveling.
damn. Mrs. SealPoet JUST drovew in the driveway. I gotta greet her, but I'll give you my thoughts on infinite staedy state when I get back...
Why do I have the impression that Mr SP is wearing nothing but saran wrap?
S'anyway... when I was a young and impressionable lad I read a theory (Fred Hoyle, the english astronomer and SciFi author?) that if there is the spontaneous creation of one particle per the volume of a VW minibus per century there is inough matter to sustain a steady state universe.
Now, the theory never said how this all would come about.
E=mC^2 and all that, energy equals matter equals energy. Suppose that this 'spontaneous' matter comes from some energy interaction that we haven't figured out yet.
There's the red-shift! alternately, we know that light interacts with matter... light traveling an infite distance interacting with infinite numbers of infintesimal particles would also account for the three degree blackbody radiation as well...
Babble babble babble.
The universe is very big
Way far bigger than I am
I can't explain, nor versify
It won't fit in an iamb!
SP..glad you came back, nice thoughts to ponder. And yes, we are so small and time and room are limited here
Also, for those not always on top of the news from NASA, etc =This month Chandra shows hot air escaping from black hole, and for the last two years actually there have been many studies regarding those things "escaping" from black holes <besides this I remember something on XRays last year I think> and I think with these studies we are providing proof of their existence
Dec 02 Chandra
quinn, I remember the bits from black hole data. I think they saw a black hole against a field of stars/galaxy...... or something....
I remember that as well...seeing the light sucked in..didnt find it though, oh well...maybe its our overactive imaginations
maybe Ill try again later
nodding
The black hole bent the light and caused an aura (in effect) around a dark area. It's the same concept, I think, used to spot planets around distant stars.
Littlek:
Sorry cyber-sis, but to date there have been NO verified evidences for Black Holes in our Universe!
They still remain in the arena of speculation, wishful thinking, and of course, genuine scientific research; but to date they have not been proven to be Scientific Facts. They are still only mathematical and theoretical possibilities, which some astronomers believe they may have detected.
If you could post a URL link here to an article that has proven Black Holes to be Scientific Facts then I would love to read it. :wink:
Hubble Confirms Middleweight Black Holes Exist Sept 02
Its not the article Ive been looking for, but its a good one as well
It seems the news is right along our path ...Dec 18 Integral, the Black Hole Hunter launched in October has sent back its first images, in the next two years perhaps we'll have some stunning black hole information
Black Hole Hunter
Monger: Thanks for the links - here are my comments on them:
Space.com 16 October 2002
The author wrote a well-balanced article with statements for and against whether the latest Hubble observation was a Scientific Fact for the existence of Black Holes - one negative quote against the latest evidence said:
"Now, to actually say that it is a black hole is going to be very tough, since in order to do that we have to witness an event horizon -- the defining property of a black hole," Gebhardt told SPACE.com. An event horizon is a theoretical sphere surrounding a black hole through which objects pass into oblivion. "We are not there yet with this black hole or any other."
Discovery Channel 16 October 2002
The author dwelt more on the excited comments of the Hubble astronomers and gave no quotations from other scientists. The following is their possitive spin on their latest observations:
The latest work, published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, takes the voyage of discovery a stage further and, the authors said, is damning evidence that a "super-massive" black hole is at work."
In conclusion, believing and saying that an observation is "evidence" is one thing, but to make the huge leap, without further, full-proof evidentiary requirements that form the basis of Scientific Facts, is not good Science.
The Space.com report was well balanced and openly admitted this point by saying, "Now, to actually say that it is a black hole is going to be very tough, since in order to do that we have to witness an event horizon -- the defining property of a black hole."
This is my point entirely. ALL the evidence is not in...yet. When it is, then it would be appropriate to say, "Black Holes are Scientific Facts."
Just asked the hubby (Evil Genius, cosmologist/ astrophysicist) whether there are black holes. His answer:
Quote:sure, of course.
small ones, about the mass of our sun (but much smaller in size).
also big ones in the centers of galaxies, weighing between 1 million
and 1 billion solar masses (ours is about 1 million).
the evidence is not totally, totally ironclad, but it is very good
and nobody seriously doubts it.
Sozobe: Your hubby said,
[quote]"the evidence is not totally, totally ironclad, but it is very good
and nobody seriously doubts it."[/quote]
Ahem...can I be the first to seriously doubt it, and for the reasons which I spelt out in my previous post?
There's a difference between saying they don't exist and in saying that not all possible evidence is in. The nature of scientific inquiry is to test hypotheses -- one can say that absolutely nothing is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. But evidence points to something with varying degrees of certainty, and black holes have quite a lot of evidence supporting their existence. At what point is the balance tipped towards "scientific fact"?
A must must must read - LINK
Nov, 2002 BlackHole News
