Thursday, March 09, 2006

Do black holes exist at all?

Three cosmic enigmas, one answer

Follow the link above to a New Scientist story about a new proposal to replace black holes.

I have been reading arxiv.org and Wikipedia articles about black holes, and this is not the first time it has been suggested that there may be something else that is causing similar effects in the centre of the galaxy. I had always wondered about this prediction for black holes:

Another problem is that light from an object falling into a black hole is stretched so dramatically by the immense gravity there that observers outside will see time freeze: the object will appear to sit at the event horizon for ever. This freezing of time also violates quantum mechanics. "People have been vaguely uncomfortable about these problems for a while, but they figured they'd get solved someday," says Chapline. "But that hasn't happened and I'm sure when historians look back, they'll wonder why people didn't question these contradictions."

I also wonder if this proposed replacement for black holes (called a dark energy star) has any implications for the possible creation of micro black holes in particle accelerators or the atmosphere. It sounds from the article that they would not have the same type of Hawking Radiation as black holes are predicted to; but then again, it seems they would spit out some of the matter they absorb.

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