Another thread on Creation and OTHER questions COME AND ANSW

Yes, the universe is expanding. The rate of expansion is actually increasing.

It would not be correct to say that the universe was ever "nothing." We don't know what existed prior to the big bang, but there are a number of theories. None of the theories require a creator, and postulating a creator is scientifically pointless since we are still left with the questions of how and when did the creator come into existence, where did it get the knowledge, ability and desire to create a universe, and what "stuff" did it make the universe out of.

Creation "science" (otherwise known as "poofism") fails to acknowledge the improbability that a creator just happened to exist with exactly the right knowledge of what constants and physical laws would be required to construct a universe suitable for life, just happened to want to put life on one particular planet out of billions, and just happened to have the magical ability to create something out of nothing.

Black holesare not infinite. They have a finite mass and event horizon radius. They are "bottomless" in the sense that there is no limit to the amount of mass that they can accumulate (with a corresponding increase in their size), but the idea that they could be portals to another universe (wormholes) is speculative.

Re: Another thread on Creation and OTHER questions COME AND
I'll take the easy part...

Theoretically, yes. Since the Universe is considered infinite, than there would have to be an infinite amount of matter and there is no limit to how much matter a Black Hole can attract. The more it attracts, the more powerful it becomes. Most now believe there is a Super Massive Black Hole in the center of many, if not most Galaxies, serving to hold them together... much like the Sun holds our Solar System together. The Black Hole in the center of our Milky Way is estimated to be 2.6 million times more massive than the Sun.

Squashed like you can't even begin to imagine if you haven't read up on these things. Will explain more in a minute.

Highly unlikely and IMO impossible.

Remains, yes. Any and all matter sucked in adds to the mass of the Black Hole. Exit? Only by way of the Black Hole getting sucked up by a more massive Black Hole. Theoretically; a more massive Black Hole could be catapulted into the Universe by an even more massive Black Hole.

Explanation: I'll try to sum up what little I've learned to clarify…
A star shines because it is experiencing an ongoing nuclear reaction, not unlike an Atomic Bomb. Eventually it runs out of nuclear fuel and goes Super Nova, which is a final explosion before it collapses under its own gravitational pull. When a Star, like our own Sun, goes Super Nova it collapses into what is known as a White Dwarf. When this happens to our Sun, which is currently about 330,000 times the size of the Earth, it will shrink to approximately the same size as our earth (though earth will have long been swallowed by the Sun by then). Here's the tricky part: It will retain the majority of its mass but will simply take up less space since its gravity is so incredibly strong that it condenses that much. In Earth terms; the density will be about 10 million times that of water.

Now if the Star is just a little bigger than our Sun, upon going Super Nova it will collapse down even further because its larger Mass has a greater gravitational pull. Imagine an object that is only 12 miles in diameter with Mass equivalent of one to three of our Suns. In Earth terms; the density will be about 100 to 1,000 trillion times the density of water (Really). So, the more massive the Star is before Super Nova, the smaller and denser it will be after.

So what happens when a really massive star goes Super Nova? You guessed it; a Black Hole. Any Star that is 5 times the mass of our sun, upon Super Nova, will collapse into a Black Hole. At this point it will be so dense that its gravitational pull will stop any particle or photon that gets near it in its tracks… even light, which travels at 186,000 miles per second. The proximity to the Black Hole where this happens is called an Event Horizon. We can't actually see a Black Hole, because anything that gets this close cannot escape to be detected or seen. We can, however, detect the objects that are orbiting the Black Hole and reasonably conclude there is no other explanation for said object's behavior. If you've ever seen a twinkling Star on a clear night, it may well have been one that is orbiting a Black Hole at a ludicrous pace… in it's death throws as its Mass is being sucked into the Black Hole. This type of binary system has been detected many times.

Now if the density of a White Dwarf at one Solar Mass is 10 million times that of water and the density of a Neutron Star at 1 to 3 Solar Masses is 100 to 1,000 Trillion times that of water, what do you suppose are the odds of anything escaping the gravitational pull of a Black Hole? Just for fun; now imagine the density of matter and the gravitational pull of the 2.6 million Solar Mass Super Massive Black Hole believed to be at the center of our Galaxy. I don't think its any kind of Portal.

My apologies if I got carried away. I needed a distraction.

This thread says it is a thread on Creationism. Yet, most of the initial post and all of the responses are about science. We have lots of threads where modern science is held up and then shot at. Another thread like this doesn't interest me especially since most of these threads don't even get science right (they make supposedly scientific "claims" that aren't correct according to science).

What I would like to see is something different...

Let's see if we can create a theory of Creationism that meets the facts that we observe

Should we start with the Biblical creation story from Genesis, or should we just start with the assumption that there is an intelligent creator?

This will be a very interesting discussion.

Ok. I can't reconcile the biblical Genesis story with the observed facts even with the assumption of a magical omnipotent being without assuming that the creator was insane.

So I'm gonna start farther back and just assume an intelligent creator. Here's my 'theory of Creationism that meets the facts that we observe':

An all-powerful omnipotent creator 'poofed' everything into existence ten minutes ago. The creator created everything including a physical history and including our memories of life before ten minutes ago. The entire Universe is completely seamless in it's apparent age and history. It is a flawless representation of a Universe with a natural history, yet is was created by magic (or super-technology), mere moments ago.

nice theory.

10 minutes.

That's my theory and I'm stickin with it

You are absolutely right. That's the drain, and we're circling it :wink:

So with the black holes, where does the matter , that enters it, end up? Things can't simply cease to exist right? There has to be some waste product or something.

The mass of infalling matter adds to the gravitational size of the black hole.

It's a black hole. But the hole has an event horizon which is related to its gravitational field and reflects the mass 'consumed' by the hole.

A tv program on discovery said that these supermassive black holes release energy. That the mass that is caught in the gravitational pull will transform to energy as it reaches the speed of light close to the center of the hole. That everything that is sucked into the black holes is converted to energy and then consumed..

But this was a few years ago...

There is a distinction to be made about how any black hole 'releases' energy.

In the quote above, the release of energy which is implied is the release of energy by infalling material before it crosses the event horizon. The discinction of 'before', is critical to understanding the relevance of the evnet horizon.

As matter falls toward a hole, it is accelerated and shredded by gravitational gradients. Some of the energy released from this shredding escapes as gamma rays and xrays 'before' it crosses the event horizon and is captured by the black hole.

The only other way a black hole can 'release' energy is by Hawking radiation, which is a result of quantum effects along the event horizon. The slow release of quantum particles is theorized to lead to 'evaporation' of black holes. But I don't think this has been proven yet. I think this whole theory is mostly the result of the mathematic models Hawking used with quantum gravitational event.

Other than that, nothing can escape an event horizon once it has gone in. The event horizon is the point at which, even something traveling at the speed of light (as fast as anything can go), can not overcome the pull of the black hole.

Theoretically, a Massive Black Hole that was catapulted through the Universe by a Super Massive Black Hole could pass by a Black Hole and absorb some of it's material. Two passing by at the same moment in time could split its material between them. Low odds, I'll grant you, but given enough time...

Really? I'm not sure of that. It seems to me that once the event horizons of two black holes (no matter what their size) overlapped, they would never escape each other. The big one would eventually consume the smaller one, even after a lot of orbits where the two gravitational wells slowly merged.

Two black holes of similar size however, might orbit each other for a very long time however, and at very high speeds at small distance. What a little engine that would be.

This is a silly discussion of an outlandishly unlikely event... but it is nonetheless possible. Imagine an equation consisting of a Black hole in the process of being eaten by a Massive Black Hole. Now, just as material is sucked from the accretions disk; imagine another Massive Black Hole traveling by (that had been slingshot from a Super Massive Black Hole). Theoretically; is it not possible for these two object's event horizons to overlap briefly, while both are lacking sufficient gravity to latch on to the other in full?

With precise timing; two Super Massive Black Holes in a near miss collision course could literally tear a less massive Black Hole in half. To wrap your head around this; imagine the objects in GRS 1915n105 being a binary system consisting of two Black Holes instead of the less massive stars they are. Now you need only imagine the 3rd Black Hole racing past at the precise time and distance for the event to take place.