[HN Gopher] New maps of the chaotic space-time inside black holes
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       New maps of the chaotic space-time inside black holes
        
       Author : rbanffy
       Score  : 93 points
       Date   : 2025-02-25 16:15 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.quantamagazine.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.quantamagazine.org)
        
       | achille wrote:
       | > "At the beginning of time and the center of every black hole
       | lies a point of infinite density called a singularity"
       | 
       | my understanding was that this was disproven mathematically
       | incorrect:
       | 
       | - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38636225
       | 
       | - sabine's take: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz55jONtFAU
       | 
       | edit: disproven -> mathematically incorrect
        
         | JumpCrisscross wrote:
         | > _my understanding was that this was disproven_
         | 
         | To the extent anything in this discussion can be absolute, it's
         | the wrongness of your statement. _Nothing_ about singularities
         | has been empirically proven (or disproven).
        
           | oneshtein wrote:
           | We can empirically prove that gravitation cancels out in the
           | gravitational center of an object, if we will dig into Moon.
        
             | mr_mitm wrote:
             | What does this have to do with singularities? No one
             | expects any kind of singularity anywhere around or in the
             | moon.
        
               | oneshtein wrote:
               | Singularity is not possible at 0G, isn't?
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _Singularity is not possible at 0G, isn 't?_
               | 
               | One divided by zero is a singularity. Singularity,
               | mathematically speaking, means your math breaks. Calculus
               | gets around this problem with limits. But there is
               | absolutely nothing about physics that prohibits
               | singularities, even gravitational singularities, in a
               | zero G space because by definition a gravitational
               | singularity _per se_ has an undefined G.
        
               | oneshtein wrote:
               | Singularity means that at least some barions will be at
               | the same place in the same time, which against nature of
               | fermions.
               | 
               | Moreover, it hard to imagine that Higgs bosons will act
               | at same place and time with same effectiveness.
               | 
               | So, I cannot believe in a singularity unless it will be
               | physically demonstrated.
        
               | mr_mitm wrote:
               | Sounds like you mean fermions. Bosons absolutely can
               | occupy the same quantum states, look up the Bose-Einstein
               | condensate.
               | 
               | Also, no one serious claims that singularities exist when
               | taking quantum mechanics into account. It's completely
               | unknown territory.
        
               | oneshtein wrote:
               | I wrote <<barions>>, but yes, you are right, I meant
               | <<fermions>>. Fixed.
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | They're mixing up barycentres [1] and baryons [2].
               | 
               | [1]
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barycenter_(astronomy)
               | 
               | [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryon
        
               | oneshtein wrote:
               | Anyway, I propose to dig tunnel to the center of the Moon
               | with plasma cutters and make a lab there. IMHO, the
               | result will be worthy.
               | 
               | As non-native speaker, it's hard for me to argue with
               | native speakers (especially when I sick, tired, in army,
               | and at war), and I refuse to use AI to translate, because
               | I suspect that such messages will be automatically
               | rejected by future archivists.
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _Singularity means that at least some barions will be
               | at the same place in the same time_
               | 
               | The singularity in a black hole has no conception of
               | baryons, hadrons or fermions. Those are quantum
               | particles. The singularity is in general relativity.
               | 
               | Also, 0G doesn't mean zero gravity. An object in freefall
               | is still subject to gravity despite experiencing 0G.
               | 
               | (Side note: fermions can occupy the same place at the
               | same time. They cannot occupy the same state. This
               | seeming mathematic fuckery goes on to describe many real-
               | world weirdos like neutron stars.)
        
           | credit_guy wrote:
           | You don't seem to be new around here, so this quote from this
           | forum's guidelines is more for the benefit of others
           | > When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of
           | calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be
           | shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
        
             | JumpCrisscross wrote:
             | You're right. My apologies to OP and y'all. Can't edit, but
             | the snark was uncalled for.
        
         | biimugan wrote:
         | Your first link goes to a 2023 arXiv pre-print that never
         | landed in any journals as far as I can tell (could be wrong
         | though). And there seems to be some controversy about whether
         | Kerr's math shows what he says it shows.
         | 
         | This is the danger of trying to sensationalize science and
         | putting any special weight on science influencers, especially
         | ones who very often seem gung-ho about any story that
         | challenges the status quo despite the evidence.
        
           | monocasa wrote:
           | To be fair, it's written by literal Roy Kerr.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Kerr
        
         | ziddoap wrote:
         | PBS Space Time's take on Kerr's paper:
         | 
         | https://www.pbs.org/video/what-if-singularities-do-not-exist...
         | 
         | Echoing JumpCrisscross' sentiment, though. "Disproven" is way
         | too strong of a word.
        
         | empath75 wrote:
         | Sabine doesn't even say it's disproven, and the paper doesn't
         | claim that it's disproven, it just claims that one of the
         | earliest proofs that it was a singularity was incorrect.
         | There's an important distinction there. If someone points out a
         | flaw in a proof of the pythagorean theorem, that doesn't mean
         | the theorem is disproved, it just means that the proof was
         | wrong.
        
         | spwa4 wrote:
         | Layman opinion here: If a black hole forms, the point where it
         | forms is an event horizon, but not a singularity. Then, while
         | things get worse, it disappear from the universe.
         | 
         | So why would a singularity ever form? And what can't be formed,
         | can't exist.
        
           | rbanffy wrote:
           | I have the (layman) impression that there is no inside - that
           | spacetime is so stretched around the event horizon that there
           | is no spacetime beyond it.
           | 
           | But, then, I've never seen anywhere that the mass of the
           | black hole (which is very much a real thing that exists in
           | spacetime) is distributed over the event horizon, which would
           | be at the biggest amount of mass a given region of spacetime
           | can hold, and is not concentrated on a point with infinite
           | density inside it.
        
             | nh23423fefe wrote:
             | black holes have an interior, you wouldn't notice if you
             | passed the event horizon of a large enough black hole.
        
           | mr_mitm wrote:
           | Cosmologist here, the event horizon is not a true
           | singularity. There is a singularity in certain coordinates,
           | but it goes away when doing a coordinate transformation.
           | There is nothing physically strange going on at the event
           | horizon. The physical singularity is only at the center.
        
         | uoaei wrote:
         | A more diplomatic and uncontroversial way to put it is that the
         | event horizon is the only thing we have any evidence for.
        
           | oneshtein wrote:
           | _Two_ event horizons, because gravitation cancels out in the
           | center of a black hole.
           | 
           | ps. Energy is sucked up from the center by second event
           | horizon, but matter is pushed inside, forming a dense and
           | cool crystal, a solid foundation for second order effects to
           | play.
        
             | uoaei wrote:
             | That assumes there is gravity, or even universe, "inside"
             | the black hole. We don't have any evidence of that.
        
               | oneshtein wrote:
               | Occam's razor says that you must present a proof that
               | they are not existing in a black hole.
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _Occam 's razor says that you must present a proof that
               | they are not existing in a black hole_
               | 
               | Occam's razor absolutely doesn't predict that the weird
               | thing that breaks physics occurs twice and then
               | precipitates a crystal.
        
               | oneshtein wrote:
               | Physics is fine, it just model, which breaks.
               | 
               | However, we can see that stars are eaten by black holes,
               | and then can be partially released back years later, so
               | it's proven that 1) <<an event horizon>> exists, 2)
               | matter can pass the <<event horizon>> in both directions,
               | 3) light cannot pass the <<event horizon>> in one
               | direction.
               | 
               | I do not introduce a new physics, like a <<singularity>>,
               | without any evidence. Occam's razor is in my hands now.
        
               | zardo wrote:
               | > 2) matter can pass the <<event horizon>> in both
               | directions
               | 
               | Where was this proven?
        
               | mitthrowaway2 wrote:
               | The comment you're responding to didn't assert that it is
               | _proven_ , but regardless: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
               | Hawking_radiation#Emission_pro...
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | Hawking radiation is almost painfully constructed to
               | avoid the problem of anything, even information, crossing
               | back through the event horizon.
        
               | oneshtein wrote:
               | See there:
               | https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/10/black-
               | hole-bu...
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | These are ejecta from the black hole's accretion disk.
        
               | oneshtein wrote:
               | Of course, but it looks like this accretion disk was
               | below the <<event horizon>>, because speed is much
               | higher, 50% of speed of light, instead of typical 10%.
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _it looks like this accretion disk was below the
               | <<event horizon>>_
               | 
               | No it doesn't.
               | 
               | > _because speed is much higher, 50% of speed of light_
               | 
               | Spin the singularity.
               | 
               | I'd love to see a source for the authors claiming they
               | believe matter exited the event horizon. That's literally
               | Nobel prize groundbreaking.
        
               | oneshtein wrote:
               | > > it looks like this accretion disk was below the
               | <<event horizon>>
               | 
               | > No it doesn't.
               | 
               | It is, because of the silence before the sudden <<burp>>.
               | Something consumed all the radiation produced by the
               | accretion disk. I know the only one possible solution:
               | the <<event horizon>>.
               | 
               | Astronomers says that they are not sure:
               | 
               | > "Black holes are very extreme gravitational
               | environments even before you pass that event horizon, and
               | that's what's really driving this," Cendes said. "We
               | don't fully understand if the material observed in radio
               | waves is coming from the accretion disk or if it is being
               | stored somewhere closer to the black hole. Black holes
               | are definitely messy eaters, though."
               | 
               | but I can use this as evidence that the center of black
               | hole contains a dense and cold crystal. Why not?
               | 
               | Moreover, if fractal theory is right, then we are inside
               | infinite number of black holes of increasing sizes (or
               | other objects). But, if we are inside a black hole, why
               | sky is black and space is cold then?
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _I know the only one possible solution: the <<event
               | horizon>>_
               | 
               | Try the unstable region between the ISCO and EH.
               | 
               | > _Astronomers says that they are not sure_
               | 
               | They're not sure where outside the EH.
               | 
               | > _I can use this as evidence that the center of black
               | hole contains a dense and cold crystal. Why not?_
               | 
               | You're bordering on trolling, but simply, it's because
               | the evidence doesn't work.
        
               | mr_mitm wrote:
               | Black holes are a prediction of general relativity. The
               | same theory predicts that all properties of spacetime
               | exist up until the singularity. You cannot simultaneously
               | believe in black holes and some sort of discontinuation
               | of spacetime before the singularity.
        
               | uoaei wrote:
               | That is a theory that makes predictions, not evidence. As
               | you may note in my comments above, I am speaking
               | exclusively to evidence.
        
               | mr_mitm wrote:
               | It doesn't make sense to talk about black holes outside
               | the context of GR. What do you even mean by black hole if
               | you can't describe it in the language of GR?
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _What do you even mean by black hole if you can 't
               | describe it in the language of GR?_
               | 
               | You're right. But playing devil's advocate, there are QM
               | objects that look like black holes [1] as well as
               | observations of a supermassive object at Sagittarius A*.
               | 
               | [1] https://arxiv.org/html/2307.06164v2
        
               | uoaei wrote:
               | The parts of GR we trust in order to interpret the data
               | from our instruments is trusted precisely because there
               | is evidence to back up _those parts of the theory_. We
               | have no idea if that theory holds on the other side of a
               | boundary across which no causation can occur.
        
           | GoblinSlayer wrote:
           | We don't have evidence for event horizon. Black hole is a
           | hypothetical object to begin with, it exists only in
           | mathematics, what evidence.
        
         | mr_mitm wrote:
         | They are singularities in the framework of general relativity,
         | i.e. while ignoring quantum mechanics. I think most people
         | expect the right version of quantum gravity to make the
         | singularities go away, but studying classical GR is worth it on
         | its own, so it's often ignored like in this statement you
         | quoted.
        
           | goatlover wrote:
           | What if gravity is non-linear and thus collapses the wave
           | function? I think Penrose has suggested gravity as an
           | objective collapse interpretation. The measurement problem
           | still hasn't been resolved, but we observe a classical world
           | around us, despite the fact that decoherence simply spreads
           | the superposition of interacting quantum systems to the
           | world. Gravity could be what prevents the linearity of
           | quantum systems from putting the entire universe into
           | superposition.
        
             | mr_mitm wrote:
             | Gravity _is_ non-linear (as in: the Einstein field
             | equations are non-linear differential equations).
             | 
             | That has nothing to do with the measurement problem. Also,
             | the measurement problem is only a problem of the Copenhagen
             | interpretation. It doesn't exist in the many worlds
             | interpretation.
        
         | pdonis wrote:
         | In the GR model of black holes, the singularity is at the _end_
         | of time inside the hole, not the beginning.
        
           | Twisol wrote:
           | I think the "singularity at the beginning of time" being
           | referenced here is the one postulated before / at the instant
           | of the Big Bang.
        
             | pdonis wrote:
             | Ah, I see, I was parsing the sentence wrong.
        
       | ck2 wrote:
       | trying to find the PBS Space Time for that but meanwhile enjoy
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/@pbsspacetime/search?query=hole
        
       | gunian wrote:
       | can confirm just delivered an amazon package in one
        
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