quote:

Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0 And while the existance of black holes and quasars is a quite common phenomenon, the existance of white holes has so far not even been hinted at. Infact, most physicist consider their existance very unprobable. Unlike a black hole, a white hole is in contradiction with the simple laws of thermodynamics. A white hole is spewing matter out of nowhere, while a black hole is gathering matter into a singularity, but at a same time radiating thermal energy equal in amount to the swallowed matter. When a wormhole is left with no matter around it to feed itself, it basically converts all of it's matter and energy into thermal energy which it radiates into the surrounding area, and eventually, it deteriorates itself to nothingness.

yes, i agree, though white holes can be considered an interpretation of schwarzschild's solution (negative square root solution inside the horizon), the possibility of their existence remains somewhat shaky. however, i must say i like the theory according to which the big bang is actually just a huge white hole taht formed in a different universe... even though it ignores the fact that white holes and big bang are two completely different solutions of the equation that cannot be converted into each other well, anyways...

___________________

if only i could get my hands on this time machine i would delete all lame threads (this one included ). For that matter i would get some Precogs to detect lame poster and send the lame police to arrest the would be poster at his home before he could send it to the TA.

___________________
GIGANTIC CUNT

Last edited by igottaknow on Apr-08-2003 at 02:26

i loved this thread to death! it's great.

about a quazar

black holes are invisible because it captures light.
shouldn't white holes (or quazars i think) be the brightest thing in the universe?

___________________
Thank You and Goodnight

actually, a quasar is not the same as a white hole. a quasar is a special case of a BLACK hole. when something approaches a black hole it gets torn apart by gravitational forces. the formed debris then starts to rotate falling into that black hole. as it gets closer to the event horizon, it speeds up and thus heats up (because of friction). so it begins to emit x-rays that can be detected. now, if a black hole itself is very big and if there is a lot of debris that spirals into it, such a black hole can become really bright and emit enormous amounts of high-energy matter. in this case, it's called a quasar.

also note that such an emission of energy is NOT caused by nuclear fusion that takes place in normal stars.

___________________

Last edited by Noisician on Apr-30-2003 at 23:07

i am more interested on any further developements of this story!

come on, wether you belive in time travel or not, id liek to see how he could make all that money on jsut "inside information" alone.

___________________
Fave Tune at the Moment: Mesmerizer - Taking Control

>>> Download my mix here <<< (Electro, Techno & Psy-Trance)

is the speed of light constant?

is there any way of slowing/accellerating the speed by weater, magnetic fields, beams of certain energy, etc?

___________________
Thank You and Goodnight

In addition to requiring infinite energy, isn't an object supposed to expand to an infinite two dimensional plane if it goes over the speed of light? I remember reading something to that effect in one of Ferris' books a year or two ago, but I'm too lazy to dig out the notes right now.

One other interesting factoid on black holes too, as has been stated, to an observer you'll never actaully cross the singularity. Say for instance that you're a safe distance away watching a cosmonaut with a watch on falling into a black hole and you could see the hands of the watch.

As said cosmonaut got closer and closer to the singularity the second hand of the watch would go slower and slower until it seemed to stop moving right before crossing the singularity.

At that point an image of the cosmonaut would appear to be frozen in time, and is theoretically going to exist forever, though in reality it's believed it would actually disappear from sight in relatively short order.

The actual cosmonaut in question is getting a much different view though, for them time never seems to slow down as they cross the threshhold of the singularity. They'd continuously fall, and start to find themselves stretched, eventually, over the course of days, being stretched into what Hawking termed 'human spaghetti'.

Cosmology on this level is largely beyond me, but just reading a touch of it is extremely interesting. I'll join occrider in saying that Timothy Ferris does some good stuff that's by and large understandable for the average person, if you take some time with it at least.

And on the origin of the original article, Weekly World News is a tabloid that prints all kinds of ridiculous stories ala "Demons from Hell Kill 11 in Church Attack!" and "Alien Supports Bush Election Bid", so never, ever, ever, take a story with that name on it as anything other than complete crap

quote:

Oriignally posted by djSlain is the speed of light constant? is there any way of slowing/accellerating the speed by weater, magnetic fields, beams of certain energy, etc?

of course u can change the speed of light. different evironments will yield different speeds. c=186,000 miles/second is the speed of light in a vacuum ONLY. for example, in water, its speed would be about 139,000 miles/second. if light goes through a piece of glass it slows down to approximately 125,000 miles/second, etc. but nothing can move faster than light in a vacuum.


edited because i can't spell

___________________

Last edited by Noisician on May-01-2003 at 17:06

According to Einstein, faster than light travel is possible only if repulsive gravity existed. This is the basis of the theory of cosmic inflation. A Portuguese physicist named Joao Magueijo (I can't type the accents on the letters) has another idea about this. If the speed of light were faster in the past, it would also fit the theory. So, light might not be what we think it is...

quote:

Mack & DrUg_Tit0 id love to have a smoke with u guys

decode, come over to Canada, marijuana is gonna be decriminalized soon

quote:

but the term worm hole in its simplest term i guess would be a shortcut thru space by the folding of space. Like for example, if u are at one end of a piece of paper and u want to get to the other side in the quickest possible time, the best way to do it would be to fold the piece of paper in half and just step across.

good analogy, that is the simplest way of explaining it, I read that off some website some years back. It may seem easy enough, but the wormhole is very unstable, and quantum sized.

quote:

though white holes can be considered an interpretation of schwarzschild's solution (negative square root solution inside the horizon

acid junkie, I thought a negative square root solution for the schqarzschild equation meant the existance of wormholes?

quote:

is the speed of light constant?

nope. light's "constant" speed of 300,000 km/second is only true in a vacuum. when travelling in other mediums, it can be slowed down somewhat. Recently I heard a report that a group at Caltech slowed down light particles to a halt in a controlled Cesium gas chamber, not too sure about the details though. But the speed of light in a vacuum is regarded to be the maximum speed of anything in the universe(to our knowledge right now..its not concrete because nothing is for certain)...but this explains why time starts to behave strangely(along with events) when approach light speed.

Also, astronomers use this feature of light to detect anomalies in space without directly viewing them, by calculating how the speed of light emitting from a star variates from a different star almost equivalent in distance, to show that perhaps a large planet nearby is bending the light due to its enormous gravitation pull on light. This deviated path can illustrate a vivid picture itself. Light(in every aspect of the spectrum) helps us to understand the universe where our instruments permit is to do so.

quote:

According to Einstein, faster than light travel is possible only if repulsive gravity existed. This is the basis of the theory of cosmic inflation.

zarathustra,
Are you talking about dark energy? The "anti gravity-like" forces that are literally tearing the universe at an exponential growth?? If so, wasn't einstein's formula the first to show mathematically that this expansion of the universe is taking place? of course he coughed it as an error and added a cosmological constant because he did not believe that the universe was expanding(energy is apparently coming out of nowhere to drive this expansion, which contradicts the energy conservation laws of newtonian physics). Later on of course, he was disproved by visual proof, and he then dubbed his mistake of adding that constant as the "biggest blunder in his life"

quote:

I did a research project on Isaac Asimov and he states (or theorizes) that wormholes are open randomly throughout space for only fractions of MORE fractions a second. I'm guessing that if we ever want a chance to ride into one, we need to slow down time so we can see and enter the wormhole, and see where it leads to

slain, yes
or another theoretical solution that was proposed a while back. To reiterate what I said before..
The problem with a macroscopic wormhole is that it is not a static structure. What that means is that the wormhole can expand from a zero throat radius to maximum radius and back within few moments of time, so fast than even light cannot enter it. In order to maintain the maximum throat radius of the wormhole, it would need to be 'fed' with matter containing negative energy density. Such matter does not exist to our knowledge and is often referred to as exotic matter. Although we do not know how to obtain exotic matter, we have several indications that such matter may exist. For example, between two metal plates there can be field fluctuations that have negative energy density relative to field fluctuations in a free vacuum. Evaporating black holes also show negative energy density. But to obtain a finite amount of negative energy density matter is a far road ahead in terms of experimentation. However, just recently a new light has been shed on this topic. According to a Russian theorist by the name of Sergei Krasnikov, a wormhole may large and stable enough to conduct intergalatic travelling. He came up with an equation that shows that his wormholes can create its own abundant supply of exotic matter, allowing the wormhole to feed off this and making it possible for entering and exiting. But, this is still up for discussion as the theory is still fresh and many physicists are working on it to get some possible progress or to be able to refute the claim. With this in mind, we can understand that this technology may be possible in the future



we should make this thread the all purpose physics/astronomy threads im liking it !

Cheers!

___________________

how come if:
you have a flashlight
a metal box with a removable top
u flash the light into the box, then suddenly you close the box and seal it.
is there still light inside the box and once u open it the light escapes and whatever. .
i have weird questions eh?

___________________
Thank You and Goodnight