"It's a near certainty that black holes don't exist"

[blike]

Nature is running a story about a physicist who claims that black holes do not exist. George Chapline, of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, says that he believes the collapse of stars does not lead to black holes. Instead, the space time contained within the star becomes filled with dark energy, which causes intruiging gravitational effects.

 

"If the dark-energy star is big enough, Chapline predicts, any electrons bounced out will have been converted to positrons, which then annihilate other electrons in a burst of high-energy radiation. Chapline says that this could explain the radiation observed from the centre of our galaxy, previously interpreted as the signature of a huge black hole."

[ecoli]

Interesting... Best of luck to this guy... often times, scientists that go against the norm get ripped to pieces by their collegues, and only until after find out they were right.

[Anarchaus]

This would be most interesting, it also means that if we could ever get to a "black hole, we might be able to study dark matter in high concentrations! and i also never liked the idea of black holes being gateways to other universes and times, that makes a already complicated universe even more complicated, who wants that?

 

but for now im staying a skeptic.

[Mokele]

It's a neat hypothesis, but how do we test it? Physics/astronomy people?

 

Mokele

[Kygron]

Sounds like a question of philosophy to me. I'm not apposed to philosophy, especially if it gives a good point of view to use as a basis for further understanding, but I don't see the use here.

 

He seems to be saying: "My" black holes are exactly like traditional ones, except that instead of a "singularity" they have "dark energy". Singularity is more or less a mathmatical term for "I don't know". Dark energy is more or less a cosmological term for "I don't know". This is why I call this philosophy.

 

The nature article is very unclear.

[Martin]

 

The nature article is very unclear.

 

the original article by Chapline is also unclear.

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0503200

 

Chapline gave a talk at Harvard, some of the reaction and questions raised are detailed in this blog:

 

http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html

[ed84c]

They better exist otherwise a number of papers that I have written are incorrect.

 

At least this will FINALLY put to bed the idea of time travel if it turns out to be true hopefully......

[Dave]

It's interesting... but I don't think I can quite take it at face value. One thing's for sure - he must be pretty convinced about it, otherwise he's going to be throwing his career down the toilet rather rapidly.

[Martin]

... never liked the idea of black holes being gateways to other universes and times' date=' that makes a already complicated universe even more complicated, who wants that?

...[/quote']

 

 

I dont know about "gateways" but black holes may be big bangs

when quantum gravity is used to model the two situations, what was formerly a singularity is removed and the two things look rather similar

 

see bojowald et al

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0503020

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0503041

and references therein

 

it just carries on the copernican revolution by suggesting

why should "our" bigbang be the only one?"

[Martin]

It's interesting... but I don't think I can quite take it at face value. One thing's for sure - he must be pretty convinced about it, otherwise he's going to be throwing his career down the toilet rather rapidly.

 

unfortunately he has linked up with Robert Laughlin an old nobel laureate turned loose cannon. These older guys can "succeed" in a certain sense outside the discipline of peer review by GETTING LOTS OF ATTENTION with ideas that may seem simplistic, halfbaked, apocalyptic, on the inside but play well on the outside----as to this Nature journalist.

 

I fear that in the US theoretical physics scene the toilet is clogged up.

 

(string hype and new age pseudoscience is in part responsible but other kinds of breakdown in the elite establishment, and our strange new politics, are contributing as well)

 

Chapline may not necessarily be throwing his career down the toilet, he may actually be gaining from this, as long as he can grab enough publicity.

[vrus]

Interesting. I'm not saying that I agree with him, but I support anyone who goes against convention. Correct me if I am wrong, but I am supposing that this dark matter is anti-matter, like Positrons and co.

[Guest DoobliKhan]

This guy really pushes the envelope but he's got good ideas about it.

[alt_f13]

It's a neat hypothesis' date=' but how do we test it? Physics/astronomy people?

 

Mokele[/quote']

 

Poke it with sticks.

[AzurePhoenix]

Poke it with sticks.

That never fails to provide valuable insights, but where do we get long enough sticks?

 

But what are these "Dark Stars" anyway? A hole torn by a collapsing star through which this dark energy flows? Some featureless blob? I'm facinated but utterly clueless.

[Gnieus]

Interesting... Best of luck to this guy... often times, scientists that go against the norm get ripped to pieces by their collegues, and only until after find out they were right.

 

 

And sometimes people just like to go against the flow to get some attention. Nature has a lot to answer for. All they do is sneak in commercialisation through the back door to sell their wee pamphlet.

 

While finding new stuff is of course commendable, what the hell can you trust these days. A scientific revolution every month/week/day to get some ads sold?

[metatron]

Sounds like a question of philosophy to me. I'm not apposed to philosophy' date=' especially if it gives a good point of view to use as a basis for further understanding, but I don't see the use here.

 

He seems to be saying: "My" black holes are exactly like traditional ones, except that instead of a "singularity" they have "dark energy". Singularity is more or less a mathmatical term for "I don't know". Dark energy is more or less a cosmological term for "I don't know". This is why I call this philosophy.

 

The nature article is very unclear.[/quote']

I think Black holes Have gotten a bad rap as being a destructive force.

Recently it has been theorized they formed first, and then organized the elements around it into stars.

 

Then stars organized the materials into planets, and then created an environment for life to form. It reminds me of the Hindu god indri. When Indri opens her eye the universe appears.

 

Seeing the cosmos while simultaneously creating it.

 

like some galactic Heisenberg principle.

[Mean-Hippy]

Ok, yeah most certainly interesting but I'll certainly watch for the counter-arguments. One thing I may point out, if someone could enlighten me, whats with the gravity becoming "negative" has the 'quantum phase transition' takes place. Who says dark-energy has "negative" gravity ( no vrus, dark matter is not anti matter, being that its supposed to be 90% of whats out there, we'd have quite the fireworks ).

 

Although that would be sweet, feel free to send me your ideas about using this as an energy source to power a new vacuum cleaner.

 

Listen, I am no phisicyst and he is so who am I to say but, the same theory that predicts black holes predict red, blue giants, a pallet of dwarves, neutron stars and whatever else. Those we know are there so . . . black holes have solid feet. Can this theory patch all the holes it creates ?

 

Anyway, if anything it certainly makes for interesting reflections ...

[Rakista]

Sounds like gravastars

[oatjay]

what physical evidence do we actually have for black holes? it seems to me that their existence has been essentially taken for granted... at least for as long as i've been around. maybe that's just a personal bias.

[quick silver]

what physical evidence do we actually have for black holes? (oatjay)

 

scienctists have been using the gravitational field, it's effects on a neighbouring star, to determine it's size.

[RoyLennigan]

i've read from several articles that dark energy creates a negative pressure and would therefore push all matter away from it. if what this guy claims is true, then how would it be possible that black holes appear to suck matter towards them?

[T-Nemesis]

i've read from several articles that dark energy creates a negative pressure and would therefore push all matter away from it. if what this guy claims is true, then how would it be possible that black holes appear to suck matter towards them?

 

I thought that dark energy had a neutral force.

[Royston]

In theory it has a repelling force (anti-gravity) so it explains the fact that the universe is expanding at an accelerated rate...plus dark energy supposedly makes up 70% of the energy in our universe. Look up the 'cosmological constant', and 'quintessence' for more on this...as well as obviously 'dark energy'.

 

The reason you still get black holes is because they are formed by large stars collapsing, so you get a concentration if you like of the attracting force of the gravity we know, in fact the larger the mass then obviously the greater the attraction of gravity. 'Dark energy' doesn't affect this because although there is more of it, it's impossible to have uniform shapes made of the stuff due to it repelling rather than attracting. So it has an affect on the overall cosmological background, but doesn't affect large masses being created or collapsing.

 

Basically there's expansion of volume between bodies, but when a body acquires a certain mass gravity is stronger. It's important to remember that stars are relatively sparce compared to the amount of dark energy / matter between them, so expansion is possible on large scales, but on smaller scales the other three forces come into play along with gravity, and

stops everything literally breaking up.

[sameer]

hey.... how can this affect photons????

i mean light contains nothing but phtons...

how can this dark matter attract photons ?????

[brad89]

Also, how does his theory account for the bursts of X-rays used to detect them in the first place? I don't know if he is smart or stupid, but if he doesn't act fast then he may be swallowed up by the black hole of anti-proof he is about to hit with!