Black-Hole Billiards Won't Destroy the Universe
Scientists
have simulation-tested the universe to destruction, and found that it
holds together even under the most violent cosmic collisions. Recent
tests include smashing two black holes together at close to the speed
of light, and if you can think of something more violent than that, then
welcome to Earth, Ultimate Galactus, and thanks for not eating the place.
A
black hole is a collapsed star so utterly crushed by its own gravity
that the laws of physics break down. The heart of every black hole is
thought to be a "singularity", a point of infinite density at which
everything we know about reality faints and every equation is
overloaded. Every black hole we know about has an "event horizon", a
one-way barrier which nothing can escape - matter can get sucked into
the vast vacuum cleaner, but no mass, energy or even information can
leak out to us. This means we can't ever actually see the singularity,
which is good, because we probably wouldn't know what the hell we were
looking at.
The simulations attempted to create a naked singularity without such a shield by basically smashing things together as violently as possible, a widely respected scientific technique also used at the Large Hadron Collider and by children performing Fundamental Conkers Research worldwide. The virtual void violence was an unthinkably titanic collision, where 14% of the masses of the black holes were converted into gravitational ripples - the impact was so incredible it actually shook spacetime.
But when the digital dust settled, the new and larger black hole formed came complete with a new event horizon, and at no point in the proceedings did we get to see up the singularities skirt. The team now seems convinced that nothing will convince a black hole to give us a peek into its heart, but they will continue to investigate. Some may have issues with trying to use simulations (based on what we know) to see something fundamentally new (which we don't), but these guys tend to know what they're doing - and until someone comes up with a black hole gun outside of Mega Man 9, it's the best we can do.
The simulations attempted to create a naked singularity without such a shield by basically smashing things together as violently as possible, a widely respected scientific technique also used at the Large Hadron Collider and by children performing Fundamental Conkers Research worldwide. The virtual void violence was an unthinkably titanic collision, where 14% of the masses of the black holes were converted into gravitational ripples - the impact was so incredible it actually shook spacetime.
But when the digital dust settled, the new and larger black hole formed came complete with a new event horizon, and at no point in the proceedings did we get to see up the singularities skirt. The team now seems convinced that nothing will convince a black hole to give us a peek into its heart, but they will continue to investigate. Some may have issues with trying to use simulations (based on what we know) to see something fundamentally new (which we don't), but these guys tend to know what they're doing - and until someone comes up with a black hole gun outside of Mega Man 9, it's the best we can do.
What crap. We already know it's possible to create naked singularities. And smashing two black holes together certainly would never do it. If anyone thought it would: WTF were you THINKING?!
Posted by: Richard | October 07, 2008 at 01:20 PM