Black holes, The Firewall Paradox & Gravitational waves.
By Johnathan Patrick Curran
Astronomy 120
Due by 04/16/2016
Black holes
It has been known for quite some time the existence of black holes. First predicted by Albert Einstein in 1916 along with his general theory of relativity, and not actually discovered until 1971; A black hole is a very massive star that collapses in upon itself creating a supernova. There are 3 types of Black holes: A Stellar black hole, a Supermassive black hole and lastly an Intermediate black hole.
-A stellar black hole is a black hole formed by the gravitational collapse of a massive star, the masses of these black holes ranges from about 5 to several tens of solar masses.
-A supermassive black hole is the largest of all the black holes having solar masses from hundreds of thousands to billions. This is also the type of black hole located at the center of our Milky Way galaxy named Sagittarius A. It is also the black hole found in the center of almost all known galaxies.
-A intermediate black hole is a black hole stuck directly between its peers. With solar masses ranging from 100 to One million, it’s more than a stellar black hole but significantly less than a supermassive black hole.
A black hole is generally a singularity point resulting from a star collapsing in on itself, meaning if I were to take our sun (which is relatively small compared to most) and condense it down to the size of a sugar cube; Theoretically our sun, which is now the size of a sugar cube would still retain most -if not all of its mass. This happening would result in a collapse of the space time around the star. This relates to Einstein’s theory of relativity. The heavier the object, the slower time will go the closer the distance between you and the object.
An example of this, if you were to stand near the great pyramids of Giza weighing 6.5 million tons, your time dilation would decrease more so than those standing away from the pyramids. You would be moving slower than the rest of the world but the time is very minuscule, almost not enough for you yourself to even notice the change. There have been examples and tests done using twins and a mountain. If you were to take a set of twins separate them from birth putting one near the sea and one on top of a mountain for their lives, if they were to meet finally at the age of 55 would there be a significant difference between the two? The answer most common among scientists is yes. The twin living on top of the superior structure of the mountain would have theoretically aged much slower than the twin living by the sea due to time dilation. Though I have heard people argue that maybe the air is cleaner on top of the mountain or fresher food caused the decrease in aging, but those people will generally argue anything.
So black holes were once a giant star becoming bigger and bigger until the core of the star collapses in on itself crushing the star into a single point. And due to this space time is warped slowing down the time around the black hole due to its massive weight and the weight does not stop there. Black holes are known as the destroyer of planets, they are constantly consuming more and more increasing the mass and size and there have been cases of black holes even colliding with one another creating one superior black hole.
Time Dilation & The event horizon
Since Black holes warp the time around themselves in the vacuum of space where would this start and end? Space is fixed. Meaning the objects behave when they move relative to one another. Time dilation describes how time will slow when you’re moving. The faster you move, the more time slows down and when you reach the speed of light (which I don’t recommend) time will stop. Time also slows down when you’re deep in a gravitational pull, like the one created by a massive star. When you get into a black hole, theoretically time will stop.
When I say time will stop I mean time will stop for you. If you and a friend were to take a vacation to a black hole (again not recommended) and you were to tie a rope connecting the two of you before venturing into a black hole. In the vacuum of space let’s say you have a good 10 feet of pull between each other and you were the first to start being pulled into the black hole horizon with your friend 10 feet away. Time as you knew it would change drastically, you would begin to move faster starting with the appendages farthest to the event horizon while your opposite appendages would move slower due to the time dilation from one part of your body to the other. You in theory,would most likely watch your body be split in two or as scientists call this (and I cannot make this up) Spaghettification.
Spaghettification is when an extreme tidal force pulls on an object with such force the object becomes almost noodle like but hey at least you weren’t atomized so really good for you. Now when this happens and you think the world has ended (which is has for you), you have a friend watching all of this happen from a distance and from his point of view, you have been pulled from existence; because to him furthest away from the event horizon time moves much quicker than it did for you, you might actually feel you are still being sucked into the black hole while to him you’ve been gone for hours. In my opinion you might even begin to trace meaning you moved with such force that an outline of your body falling is still present because the photons can not only escape the pull of gravity such a you but are stuck in the event horizon.
Quantum mechanics has defined and stated that black hole horizons aren’t really black. The horizon of a black hole glows like a live coal, but their glow is very faint and very cold. The glow of a black hole horizon means that it has a temperature. The temperature is related to how strong gravity is at the surface of the black hole. The larger the black hole is, the lower its temperature. A black hole doesn’t seem to be made up of little molecules whose vibrations can be classified as thermal or quantum. A black hole is made up of empty space, a horizon, and a singularity. If a pair of particles were to be created near a black hole horizon, then it can happen that one of the particles falls into the black hole while the other escapes, carrying energy from the black hole. This process is what gives a black hole its non-zero temperature.
This is what I’ve gathered from my reading of books ranging from the works of Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan to my inconsistent dabbling of quantum mechanics but now there is a new theory that has physicists everywhere arguing and presenting paradoxes and that is do black holes have firewalls? If they do where are they located?
The Firewalls of Black holes
If we go back to you and your friend who decided that vacationing to a black hole would be a good idea and you yourself were to be pulled into the event horizon, not only would you be spaghettifeid but now you’re facing bigger problems as a new study has emitted claiming that you would be subject to a “Fiery inferno” that is a ring of fire just within the event horizon. As stated earlier black holes hold some amount of heat. As the theory of quantum mechanics states everything (even an iceberg) relays some kind of radiational heat but this is more than a small temperature of heat.
While most Astrophysicists can agree on this theory, it seems to have raised a lot of concerns resulting in a paradox. There are three theories relating to this.
One theory- If you are in a free fall while crossing the horizon, there is no difference in your free fall than your inertial motion. You by theory should not feel the effects of extreme gravity
Second theory-Unitarity. In quantum physics Unitarity is defined as a restriction on the allowed evolution of quantum systems that ensures the sum of probabilities of all possible outcomes of any event is always 1. This relates that any information that falls into the black hole is not irretrievably lost.
Third theory-Normality. Physics works as expected far away from a black hole even if it breaks down at some point within the black hole (whether it be at the singularity point or the event horizon).
These three theories combined with the newly arisen Firewall creates a paradox, if firewalls exist then one of these theories is not correct and has to go. A string theorist from the University of Santa Barbara has said “The simplest solution is that the equivalence principle breaks down at the event horizon, Thereby giving rise to a Firewall”. Although we do not know how to make sense of quantum mechanics without unitarity, that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Quantum mechanics doesn’t allow both to be there. If you lose the entanglement between the in-falling and the outgoing observers, it means you’ve put some kind of sharp kink into the quantum state right at the horizon. You’ve broken a bond, and that broken bond requires energy. This tells us the firewall has to be there.
There are many theories on how a firewall is created and one being that a black hole ages, and with that age loses half of its mass. Now due to old age if we were to take the singularity point of the black hole and move it to the event horizon it would create a collision resulting in a firewall. My question to this theory is if you move the singularity to the event horizon would you also be moving the mass of the black hole and wouldn’t that create another black hole or rift in space time? I’ve answered this question with the black hole itself would still have mass from everything it has accumulated. So in conclusion the black hole should still have a gravitational pull even if the singularity point is now almost nonexistent, because of the mass from all the matter pulled into the black hole originally so in theory you could have a firewall caused by the colliding of the singularitypoint and a gravitational pull, so to me personally the only theory that does not belong is the theory of normality.
Gravitational waves
Also predicted by Albert Einstein, Gravitational waves have lately been the topic of conversation to a large amount of the population whether interested in science or not. Gravitational waves are defined as ripples in the curvature of space-time that propagate as waves, generated in certain gravitational interactions and traveling outward from its source. How do this correlate with black holes? Earlier in 2016 a team of scientists announced that they had recorded two black holes colliding with one another a billion light years away! When two black holes pull on each other, they will circle each other until they eventually form into one massive black hole and because they are such super structures intertwining they create ripples in the fabric of space time. This also shows that space time is able to stretch, shrink, and jiggle. And it is a confirmation that the nature of black holes are bottomless gravitational pits where light itself cannot escape.
The gravitational waves measured showed the flow of time speed up, slow down then speed up again. According to the equations physicists have settled on, Gravitational waves would compress space in one direction and stretch it in another as they traveled outward. When these waves for the record were recorded they were so small they could barely be measured above the other vibrations of earth which shouldn’t be a surprise considering these vibrations traveled the speed of light one billion light-years away. Also these gravitational waves ripple at a frequency smaller than a normal atom.
Even more compelling with this discovery is the theory that with this information to unify all quantum mechanics that time travel is now mathematically possible! Einstein predicted the possibility of traveling through time, by the virtue that space and time are inextricably intertwined. Though as any theory that’s arisen, Stephen hawking has spoken against the possibility of time travel stating that we could only go as far back as the invention of the time machine or it would create a paradox collapsing the linear motion of time itself. I would like to say in relation to time travel that Tachyons are interesting on the subject because they seem to move forward and backward in time even quicker than light itself but it’s also just a theory and perhaps another 5 page paper itself.
In conclusion, Black holes are endless pits of information. They are created by supernovas which is a wave goodbye from its star form to an endless giant consuming its surroundings. They can change time and they can say hello to Earth by a symphony of gravitational vibrations. And if you ever get the chance to go visit a black hole, please don’t.
Questions
When speaking of firewalls I struggled grasping the theory that if you were to take the singularity point of a black hole and move it to the event horizon that it would collide and create a firewall. The reason I struggled with this is because I imagine that the singularity point is in the center of the black hole with almost infinite mass, and if you were to move that center singularity you would also be moving the black hole itself. In my mind, moving it to the edge of the black hole would collapse space time creating another black hole or rather two black holes that would eventually merge and the singularity would be back to the center collecting more mass from surrounding matter. My question is, physicists are certain in this theory that when a black hole ages it loses half of its mass but how could it lose its mass when it is constantly accumulating surrounding matter? The only explainable answer I have been able to come up with is black holes have so much mass they have ripped an opening in the fabric of the universe or in other words to every black hole collecting matter there is an opposite end spewing matter back into space, almost a wormhole type object.
Now my question to the answer to that question, whenever I myself think of the universe I imagine it to be a flat object forever expanding. But when thinking about a black hole with two openings (one end gathering and one end protruding) that would mean that the universe and space time is curved. If you think of a black hole being so heavy that is has ripped itself a second opening then you have to accommodate the universe as being curved into itself and that the second opening is also in our universe.
Earlier in the paper it was shown that black holes are so heavy in mass that they can warp space-time and that the closer you get to a black hole the slower time goes this is one of the theories of relativity. My question is if humanity were to venture out into space and find an exoplanet with a dying star as the sun (which would have a heavy iron core) or near a black hole would that planet warp our perception of time? The answer I have to this question is we would need a comparison. If I were to move to this planet near a heavy dying sun and my twin brother were to stay here on earth, my five years could be his 50 or more.
My final question, When we look at the sun we are looking at it 8 minutes ago because that’s how long it takes for the light to reach the earth. Now when the gravitational waves were measured they were radio frequencies traveling at the speed of light one billion light years away, so does this mean that the collision between the two black holes happened one billion years ago and the information is just now reaching us?
By Johnathan Patrick Curran
Astronomy 120
Due by 04/16/2016
Black holes
It has been known for quite some time the existence of black holes. First predicted by Albert Einstein in 1916 along with his general theory of relativity, and not actually discovered until 1971; A black hole is a very massive star that collapses in upon itself creating a supernova. There are 3 types of Black holes: A Stellar black hole, a Supermassive black hole and lastly an Intermediate black hole.
-A stellar black hole is a black hole formed by the gravitational collapse of a massive star, the masses of these black holes ranges from about 5 to several tens of solar masses.
-A supermassive black hole is the largest of all the black holes having solar masses from hundreds of thousands to billions. This is also the type of black hole located at the center of our Milky Way galaxy named Sagittarius A. It is also the black hole found in the center of almost all known galaxies.
-A intermediate black hole is a black hole stuck directly between its peers. With solar masses ranging from 100 to One million, it’s more than a stellar black hole but significantly less than a supermassive black hole.
A black hole is generally a singularity point resulting from a star collapsing in on itself, meaning if I were to take our sun (which is relatively small compared to most) and condense it down to the size of a sugar cube; Theoretically our sun, which is now the size of a sugar cube would still retain most -if not all of its mass. This happening would result in a collapse of the space time around the star. This relates to Einstein’s theory of relativity. The heavier the object, the slower time will go the closer the distance between you and the object.
An example of this, if you were to stand near the great pyramids of Giza weighing 6.5 million tons, your time dilation would decrease more so than those standing away from the pyramids. You would be moving slower than the rest of the world but the time is very minuscule, almost not enough for you yourself to even notice the change. There have been examples and tests done using twins and a mountain. If you were to take a set of twins separate them from birth putting one near the sea and one on top of a mountain for their lives, if they were to meet finally at the age of 55 would there be a significant difference between the two? The answer most common among scientists is yes. The twin living on top of the superior structure of the mountain would have theoretically aged much slower than the twin living by the sea due to time dilation. Though I have heard people argue that maybe the air is cleaner on top of the mountain or fresher food caused the decrease in aging, but those people will generally argue anything.
So black holes were once a giant star becoming bigger and bigger until the core of the star collapses in on itself crushing the star into a single point. And due to this space time is warped slowing down the time around the black hole due to its massive weight and the weight does not stop there. Black holes are known as the destroyer of planets, they are constantly consuming more and more increasing the mass and size and there have been cases of black holes even colliding with one another creating one superior black hole.
Time Dilation & The event horizon
Since Black holes warp the time around themselves in the vacuum of space where would this start and end? Space is fixed. Meaning the objects behave when they move relative to one another. Time dilation describes how time will slow when you’re moving. The faster you move, the more time slows down and when you reach the speed of light (which I don’t recommend) time will stop. Time also slows down when you’re deep in a gravitational pull, like the one created by a massive star. When you get into a black hole, theoretically time will stop.
When I say time will stop I mean time will stop for you. If you and a friend were to take a vacation to a black hole (again not recommended) and you were to tie a rope connecting the two of you before venturing into a black hole. In the vacuum of space let’s say you have a good 10 feet of pull between each other and you were the first to start being pulled into the black hole horizon with your friend 10 feet away. Time as you knew it would change drastically, you would begin to move faster starting with the appendages farthest to the event horizon while your opposite appendages would move slower due to the time dilation from one part of your body to the other. You in theory,would most likely watch your body be split in two or as scientists call this (and I cannot make this up) Spaghettification.
Spaghettification is when an extreme tidal force pulls on an object with such force the object becomes almost noodle like but hey at least you weren’t atomized so really good for you. Now when this happens and you think the world has ended (which is has for you), you have a friend watching all of this happen from a distance and from his point of view, you have been pulled from existence; because to him furthest away from the event horizon time moves much quicker than it did for you, you might actually feel you are still being sucked into the black hole while to him you’ve been gone for hours. In my opinion you might even begin to trace meaning you moved with such force that an outline of your body falling is still present because the photons can not only escape the pull of gravity such a you but are stuck in the event horizon.
Quantum mechanics has defined and stated that black hole horizons aren’t really black. The horizon of a black hole glows like a live coal, but their glow is very faint and very cold. The glow of a black hole horizon means that it has a temperature. The temperature is related to how strong gravity is at the surface of the black hole. The larger the black hole is, the lower its temperature. A black hole doesn’t seem to be made up of little molecules whose vibrations can be classified as thermal or quantum. A black hole is made up of empty space, a horizon, and a singularity. If a pair of particles were to be created near a black hole horizon, then it can happen that one of the particles falls into the black hole while the other escapes, carrying energy from the black hole. This process is what gives a black hole its non-zero temperature.
This is what I’ve gathered from my reading of books ranging from the works of Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan to my inconsistent dabbling of quantum mechanics but now there is a new theory that has physicists everywhere arguing and presenting paradoxes and that is do black holes have firewalls? If they do where are they located?
The Firewalls of Black holes
If we go back to you and your friend who decided that vacationing to a black hole would be a good idea and you yourself were to be pulled into the event horizon, not only would you be spaghettifeid but now you’re facing bigger problems as a new study has emitted claiming that you would be subject to a “Fiery inferno” that is a ring of fire just within the event horizon. As stated earlier black holes hold some amount of heat. As the theory of quantum mechanics states everything (even an iceberg) relays some kind of radiational heat but this is more than a small temperature of heat.
While most Astrophysicists can agree on this theory, it seems to have raised a lot of concerns resulting in a paradox. There are three theories relating to this.
One theory- If you are in a free fall while crossing the horizon, there is no difference in your free fall than your inertial motion. You by theory should not feel the effects of extreme gravity
Second theory-Unitarity. In quantum physics Unitarity is defined as a restriction on the allowed evolution of quantum systems that ensures the sum of probabilities of all possible outcomes of any event is always 1. This relates that any information that falls into the black hole is not irretrievably lost.
Third theory-Normality. Physics works as expected far away from a black hole even if it breaks down at some point within the black hole (whether it be at the singularity point or the event horizon).
These three theories combined with the newly arisen Firewall creates a paradox, if firewalls exist then one of these theories is not correct and has to go. A string theorist from the University of Santa Barbara has said “The simplest solution is that the equivalence principle breaks down at the event horizon, Thereby giving rise to a Firewall”. Although we do not know how to make sense of quantum mechanics without unitarity, that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Quantum mechanics doesn’t allow both to be there. If you lose the entanglement between the in-falling and the outgoing observers, it means you’ve put some kind of sharp kink into the quantum state right at the horizon. You’ve broken a bond, and that broken bond requires energy. This tells us the firewall has to be there.
There are many theories on how a firewall is created and one being that a black hole ages, and with that age loses half of its mass. Now due to old age if we were to take the singularity point of the black hole and move it to the event horizon it would create a collision resulting in a firewall. My question to this theory is if you move the singularity to the event horizon would you also be moving the mass of the black hole and wouldn’t that create another black hole or rift in space time? I’ve answered this question with the black hole itself would still have mass from everything it has accumulated. So in conclusion the black hole should still have a gravitational pull even if the singularity point is now almost nonexistent, because of the mass from all the matter pulled into the black hole originally so in theory you could have a firewall caused by the colliding of the singularitypoint and a gravitational pull, so to me personally the only theory that does not belong is the theory of normality.
Gravitational waves
Also predicted by Albert Einstein, Gravitational waves have lately been the topic of conversation to a large amount of the population whether interested in science or not. Gravitational waves are defined as ripples in the curvature of space-time that propagate as waves, generated in certain gravitational interactions and traveling outward from its source. How do this correlate with black holes? Earlier in 2016 a team of scientists announced that they had recorded two black holes colliding with one another a billion light years away! When two black holes pull on each other, they will circle each other until they eventually form into one massive black hole and because they are such super structures intertwining they create ripples in the fabric of space time. This also shows that space time is able to stretch, shrink, and jiggle. And it is a confirmation that the nature of black holes are bottomless gravitational pits where light itself cannot escape.
The gravitational waves measured showed the flow of time speed up, slow down then speed up again. According to the equations physicists have settled on, Gravitational waves would compress space in one direction and stretch it in another as they traveled outward. When these waves for the record were recorded they were so small they could barely be measured above the other vibrations of earth which shouldn’t be a surprise considering these vibrations traveled the speed of light one billion light-years away. Also these gravitational waves ripple at a frequency smaller than a normal atom.
Even more compelling with this discovery is the theory that with this information to unify all quantum mechanics that time travel is now mathematically possible! Einstein predicted the possibility of traveling through time, by the virtue that space and time are inextricably intertwined. Though as any theory that’s arisen, Stephen hawking has spoken against the possibility of time travel stating that we could only go as far back as the invention of the time machine or it would create a paradox collapsing the linear motion of time itself. I would like to say in relation to time travel that Tachyons are interesting on the subject because they seem to move forward and backward in time even quicker than light itself but it’s also just a theory and perhaps another 5 page paper itself.
In conclusion, Black holes are endless pits of information. They are created by supernovas which is a wave goodbye from its star form to an endless giant consuming its surroundings. They can change time and they can say hello to Earth by a symphony of gravitational vibrations. And if you ever get the chance to go visit a black hole, please don’t.
Questions
When speaking of firewalls I struggled grasping the theory that if you were to take the singularity point of a black hole and move it to the event horizon that it would collide and create a firewall. The reason I struggled with this is because I imagine that the singularity point is in the center of the black hole with almost infinite mass, and if you were to move that center singularity you would also be moving the black hole itself. In my mind, moving it to the edge of the black hole would collapse space time creating another black hole or rather two black holes that would eventually merge and the singularity would be back to the center collecting more mass from surrounding matter. My question is, physicists are certain in this theory that when a black hole ages it loses half of its mass but how could it lose its mass when it is constantly accumulating surrounding matter? The only explainable answer I have been able to come up with is black holes have so much mass they have ripped an opening in the fabric of the universe or in other words to every black hole collecting matter there is an opposite end spewing matter back into space, almost a wormhole type object.
Now my question to the answer to that question, whenever I myself think of the universe I imagine it to be a flat object forever expanding. But when thinking about a black hole with two openings (one end gathering and one end protruding) that would mean that the universe and space time is curved. If you think of a black hole being so heavy that is has ripped itself a second opening then you have to accommodate the universe as being curved into itself and that the second opening is also in our universe.
Earlier in the paper it was shown that black holes are so heavy in mass that they can warp space-time and that the closer you get to a black hole the slower time goes this is one of the theories of relativity. My question is if humanity were to venture out into space and find an exoplanet with a dying star as the sun (which would have a heavy iron core) or near a black hole would that planet warp our perception of time? The answer I have to this question is we would need a comparison. If I were to move to this planet near a heavy dying sun and my twin brother were to stay here on earth, my five years could be his 50 or more.
My final question, When we look at the sun we are looking at it 8 minutes ago because that’s how long it takes for the light to reach the earth. Now when the gravitational waves were measured they were radio frequencies traveling at the speed of light one billion light years away, so does this mean that the collision between the two black holes happened one billion years ago and the information is just now reaching us?