[HN Gopher] Math proof draws new boundaries around black hole fo...
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       Math proof draws new boundaries around black hole formation
        
       Author : EA-3167
       Score  : 91 points
       Date   : 2023-08-16 14:54 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.quantamagazine.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.quantamagazine.org)
        
       | raydiatian wrote:
       | Here's a fascinating question:
       | 
       | If an LHC collision were to form a blackhole,
       | 
       | 1. How long would it last
       | 
       | 2. Could we detect it
       | 
       | 3. How much mass would need to be collided to suck in Earth?
        
         | dumbfoundded wrote:
         | It's not a practical possibility. The black hole wouldn't last
         | long and would be too small to actually absorb anything. It's
         | the equivalent of asking if a nuke would set the atmosphere on
         | fire.
         | 
         | Even a "large"ish primordial black hole would probably just
         | pass straight through the Earth without anyone noticing.
         | 
         | Strange matter on the other hand...
        
           | EA-3167 wrote:
           | Remember that Strange matter is only dangerous assuming a
           | specific range of values for its surface tension, otherwise
           | it's harmless and doesn't catalyze the conversion of normal
           | matter into Strange matter.
        
         | consilient wrote:
         | > How much mass would need to be collided to suck in Earth?
         | 
         | A significant fraction of the mass of the Earth. Black holes
         | don't "suck" any harder than other objects of the same mass.
        
         | YetAnotherNick wrote:
         | 1 kg black hole will last 8*10^-17 seconds[1]
         | 
         | [1]:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation#:~:text=The%...
        
           | marius_k wrote:
           | Could it find some equilibrium environment to be able to suck
           | as much matter as it radiates. So it could last longer (?)
        
             | thfuran wrote:
             | It only has the gravity of a 1 kg object and is extremely
             | small, so it's not likely you'd be able to find an
             | environment where mass is going to be getting jammed into
             | it at quadrillions of tons per second even ignoring the
             | fact that it's sort of a continuous nuclear explosion --
             | it's radiating all its mass energy at a rate a few million
             | times higher than the output of the sun in the ballpark of
             | a star actively going nova.
        
       | kitanata wrote:
       | [flagged]
        
       | blovescoffee wrote:
       | The article says 4+ dimension black holes can exist. Just curious
       | about an oddball idea from complete laymen perspective - could a
       | blackhole with a time dimension/component exist then? I'm sure
       | someone's thought about that before me :)
        
         | Paul-Craft wrote:
         | I haven't read the paper, but I suspect the whole concept of a
         | 4, 5, 6, or 7-dimensional black hole is nonphysical, but the
         | math works out if you just close your eyes and assume such a
         | thing can exist. The reason I suspect n=7 is as high as it goes
         | is because the volume to surface area ratio of an n-dimensional
         | sphere is r/n, which means that the higher n you have, an
         | n-sphere of radius r has a much larger boundary for the same
         | volume. Conversely, that means that for a given surface area,
         | you have less volume, so, for a constant mass density, you're
         | enclosing less "stuff" inside.
        
           | akomtu wrote:
           | What prevents the formation of many sub-universes with
           | different space-time configurations? We happen to live a
           | large 3+1 one, but others may exist. Speculating further,
           | some black holes could be bridges between e.g. a 3+1 world
           | and a 4+3 world. The observation about 7-dimensional spaces
           | would mean that above that level there are no such boundaries
           | between world, they all become one universe.
        
         | seeknotfind wrote:
         | Came to comment about the same thing. It's funny - higher
         | dimension black holes can confidently exist in a model, but
         | because the model isn't tied to reality, it's not a very
         | meaningful statement.
         | 
         | Time ends at black holes. They stretch out time infinitely,
         | from an outside perspective.
        
           | SanderNL wrote:
           | Time ends at black holes. Is it even possible to empirically
           | validate such a thing?
        
             | make3 wrote:
             | only for outside observers... you can validate it if you go
             | in :)
        
             | BSEdlMMldESB wrote:
             | > Is it even possible to empirically validate such a thing?
             | 
             | I wouldn't think so because empiricism implies experience
             | which implies time
        
             | bmitc wrote:
             | I think what they meant by end is that time _appears_ to
             | stop at the event horizon for outside observers. As
             | something approaches a black hole event horizon, time
             | appears to infinitely slow, for an outside observer, such
             | that a frozen image of the object gets stuck on the event
             | horizon. But this image can 't be seen because it gets
             | infinitely red shifted such that no detection device can
             | keep up with the longer and longer wavelengths.
        
         | antognini wrote:
         | Black holes already have a time component since they exist in a
         | universe with 3-dimensional space and 1-dimensional time. The
         | equations include both the spatial components and the temporal
         | components.
         | 
         | One of the curious features of black holes is that they reverse
         | the roles of time and space in a sense. In ordinary space we
         | have freedom to move around in space, but are constrained to
         | only move forward in time. Different reference frames may move
         | forward at different rates relative to us, but they always move
         | forward.
         | 
         | By contrast, once you pass the event horizon of a black hole,
         | these properties swap. It's possible to "move freely" in time
         | in the sense that you can find reference frames that appear to
         | move backwards in time. But all these reference frames are
         | constrained to move forward in space.
        
           | cyberax wrote:
           | > By contrast, once you pass the event horizon of a black
           | hole, these properties swap.
           | 
           | Sigh. No. They do not. Moreover, nothing special at all
           | happens to you when you pass the event horizon.
           | 
           | In fact, if you are free-falling then you should not even be
           | able to detect the crossing using only local experiments.
           | 
           | > It's possible to "move freely" in time in the sense that
           | you can find reference frames that appear to move backwards
           | in time.
           | 
           | Nope.
           | 
           | What happens is that your spatial directions become more and
           | more constrained, until they collapse into a single point
           | (the singularity). And then you'll just exist in this single
           | point forever, according to GR.
           | 
           | From your viewpoint, it'll look like the singularity becomes
           | an infinite plane that cuts off most of your field of vision.
           | You'll be falling towards this plane, but until the last
           | moment you'll be able to receive signals from outside of the
           | black hole.
           | 
           | If someone puts a stationary clock outside the black hole's
           | event horizon, you won't see it going faster or slower. And
           | for any realistic black hole, your trip to the singularity
           | will consume only a short time according to that clock.
        
             | dvt wrote:
             | > Sigh. No. They do not.
             | 
             | Technically, GP is right that they (mathematically) swap,
             | but yeah, it has a meaningless physical effect (the
             | geodesic is always smooth). It's akin to describing the
             | rotation of a kicked ball with imaginary exponentiation and
             | thinking something spooky is going on.
        
               | antognini wrote:
               | So I would agree with this for the Schwarzschild metric.
               | The swapping of signs in the space and time components of
               | the metric does not have any real physical consequences.
               | But when you move to a Kerr metric it absolutely does
               | because it permits the construction of closed timelike
               | curves.
        
             | Spivak wrote:
             | And to add to this a singularity is _predicted_ by GR, we
             | don 't actually know if such a thing exists and there are
             | models where it doesn't like LQG where black holes are just
             | a different kind of star whose collapse is opposed by a
             | repulsive force that is predicted to exist by the
             | uncertainty principle.
        
           | Zamicol wrote:
           | According to GR, time stops at the event horizon. It would
           | take infinite time to cross the event horizon.
           | 
           | Everything past the event horizon is speculative.
        
             | magicalhippo wrote:
             | Not really. It just appears to take an infinite amount of
             | time for an outside observer.
             | 
             | For someone falling into a black hole, it takes a finite
             | amount of proper time[1] to reach the event horizon.
             | 
             | For that infalling observer, the horizon is a boundry
             | where, once beyond, the singularity is always in their
             | finite future. No matter what you do inside, you _will_
             | reach it at some point.
             | 
             | [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proper_time
        
               | Zamicol wrote:
               | How long does it take a infalling observer to cross the
               | event horizon of a black hole?
        
               | EA-3167 wrote:
               | From the perspective of the person falling, it happens
               | from one moment to the next. You as the person being
               | accelerated don't notice any change in your own proper
               | time, only distant observers will see that.
        
               | magicalhippo wrote:
               | If you were to fall radially inwards towards a non-
               | rotating black hole, that is not spiraling around it but
               | "straight in", it would be the same as with plain
               | Newton's law[1].
               | 
               | There's a nice graph in the midde of this[2] page that
               | shows the difference between the proper time and the
               | aparent time observed by the outside observer. At r = 2m
               | you can see the aparent time goes to infinity and the
               | quickly back again.
               | 
               | [1]: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/718222/p
               | roper-ti...
               | 
               | [2]: https://www.mathpages.com/rr/s6-04/6-04.htm
        
               | antognini wrote:
               | Yes, this is correct. If you look at the Schwarzschild
               | solution to the Einstein field equations you'll find that
               | there are two apparent singularities: one at the center
               | of the black hole, and another at the event horizon.
               | However, the apparent singularity at the event horizon is
               | not a true singularity because you can perform a
               | coordinate transformation in which it disappears.
               | Mathematically, this is doing what you describe: going
               | from the reference frame of an external observer to one
               | who is falling into the black hole. To the outside
               | observer you appear to take an infinite amount of time to
               | fall in, but from the perspective of the person falling
               | in, it happens in a finite amount of time.
               | 
               | The other singularity at r = 0 is different, though. It
               | is a true singularity because there is no coordinate
               | transformation you can make in which it disappears.
        
           | qubex wrote:
           | Aside: the fact that the radial spatial dimension towards the
           | centre of the black hole where the singularity lies becomes
           | time inside the event horizon is why all the drivel about
           | "what you'd see if you crossed the event horizon" is drivel.
           | You'd die instantly since circulating your blood or sending
           | nerve impulses would essentially become impossible because it
           | would involve reverse time travel -- i.e., blood moving
           | toward the centre would never be able to move out again
           | because that would involve it travelling back in time. Greg
           | Egan mentioned this in a short story of his.
        
             | antognini wrote:
             | This is not true. It is possible for two observers inside
             | the event horizon to send signals to each other. It's just
             | that those signals cannot be sent to any radius larger than
             | the radius they originated at.
             | 
             | The only danger to a human would be the tidal forces. For a
             | supermassive black hole, the tidal forces at the event
             | horizon are quite modest, so you really would not notice it
             | when you passed across the event horizon. It's only when
             | you get close to the singularity that the tidal forces tear
             | you apart.
        
           | Sniffnoy wrote:
           | The article explicitly says that it's talking about number of
           | spatial dimensions, it's not including time. It says the new
           | theorem shows that black holes can form into up to 7 spatial
           | dimensions (plus 1 for time). (This isn't to say they can't
           | form beyond that, just this new theorem doesn't show that.)
        
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       (page generated 2023-08-16 23:00 UTC)