black holes

[Rhah]

They believe that at the center of every galaxy is a blackhole. My theory is that every blackhole is like beads of water on a waxed car hood. Over the emmense scale of time, the larger beads (blackholes) suck up the smaller ones until there is just one huge blackhole containing everything, all gas, matter, etc in the universe. In a fraction of a second that blackhole explodes in a BIG BANG and the cycle starts all over again.

Black holes only suck up what crosses the event horizon. So that wouldn't happen. It couldn't get enough mass to be big enough to suck in another since they are so far apart. Black holes are just too dense.

[dedalos]

Black holes only suck up what crosses the event horizon. So that wouldn't happen. It couldn't get enough mass to be big enough to suck in another since they are so far apart. Black holes are just too dense.

I mean, seriously?  How did you come to that conclusion?  Did you run the numbers? 

[Buzzard7]

Black holes only suck up what crosses the event horizon. So that wouldn't happen. It couldn't get enough mass to be big enough to suck in another since they are so far apart. Black holes are just too dense.

What about when two galaxies collide? Wouldn't the two eventually unite into one single larger galactic core?

[moot]

yes because we simply can't see one. the only way to find out is to go to one, and the clossest known black hole is at the center of the galaxy.

it would take us nearly 1000 years to get there, and that's at the speed of light

Milky Way core is in the tens of thousands of LY away.  There's closer black holes than Sagittarius @ the core.. Like Cygnus X1 and probably others closer still.  Also IIRC there's some funny physics to falling past event horizon... don't recall exactly, but time slows down for at least part of your fall.  Not sure if it's at the same time your legs turn to spaghetti.

And yet, they claim that Gama ray bursts come out of them, in the same show.

Sounds like what matter doesn't get to event horizon but gets caught in the polar jets.

[Ripsnort]

A black hole is a government-funded program.
A black ho is...um, nm.

[Lepape2]

Guys come on! Seriously, get your numbers and facts straight I can't stand what I'm reading here!
Our Galaxy's center is ~27,000±1,000LightYears away.
There is a lot of factors to account for when two galaxies collide. Bunch of simulations and observations on that subject. I suggest you look around. M31 Andromeda might not even collide with ours in 3-5Billions years because all we know is that it is closing in on us at 120km/s but following an unknown vector.

Why is it that the more information is available (web, books, TV), the more people speculate and appear less informed when they ask/answer questions??   Since google exists, people don't look for answers anymore its depressing.

Sorry, rant of the month for me.  

[dedalos]

Sounds like what matter doesn't get to event horizon but gets caught in the polar jets.

    .  Jets out of a black hole that nothing can escape?

[Lepape2]

  .  Jets out of a black hole that nothing can escape?

Oh you think?????

[dedalos]

Oh you think?????
(Image removed from quote.)

Google sarcasm for me foo    That is exactly my point.  In the same show the know it all scientists tell us that nothing can escape a black hole and then they go on to show us the Gama ray emissions from it    Then they go on to tell us that they only speculate that there is a black hole somewhere because something did not match their calculations.  I just think they need more constants that they pull out of you know where and then they will be able to explain everything 

[Lepape2]

Google sarcasm for me foo    That is exactly my point.  In the same show the know it all scientists tell us that nothing can escape a black hole and then they go on to show us the Gama ray emissions from it    Then they go on to tell us that they only speculate that there is a black hole somewhere because something did not match their calculations.  I just think they need more constants that they pull out of you know where and then they will be able to explain everything 

Thanks, now I can have a good night's sleep 
There are a lot of these so called "Science" shows with lots of cool CG and music and "ohhh!" "ahhh!" but you never learn anything remotely educative after their 10min-diluted-to-1hour program. I can't watch them anymore... they just here to make money like the shows about sharks and tornadoes...
 

[Penguin]

Guys come on! Seriously, get your numbers and facts straight I can't stand what I'm reading here!
Our Galaxy's center is ~27,000±1,000LightYears away.
There is a lot of factors to account for when two galaxies collide. Bunch of simulations and observations on that subject. I suggest you look around. M31 Andromeda might not even collide with ours in 3-5Billions years because all we know is that it is closing in on us at 120km/s but following an unknown vector.

Why is it that the more information is available (web, books, TV), the more people speculate and appear less informed when they ask/answer questions??   Since google exists, people don't look for answers anymore its depressing.

Sorry, rant of the month for me.  

Google is for looking for answers, the trick is not to type in keywords which will bring nothing but trouble (ie, CNN, FOX).  You are upset because fewer people look in books for answers, as you did and do.  This change frightens you, and this fear is normal but irrational.  

The internet is not out to get you, relax.  Just because the world is changing doesn't mean that it will go to pieces.  You and your generation made the world the way it is today, and your predecessors weren't happy about it either.  Let nature run its course, and trust the next generation to carry the torch into the murky unknown of the future.  

-Penguin

[Lepape2]

Google is for looking for answers, the trick is not to type in keywords which will bring nothing but trouble (ie, CNN, FOX).  You are upset because fewer people look in books for answers, as you did and do.  This change frightens you, and this fear is normal but irrational.  

The internet is not out to get you, relax.  Just because the world is changing doesn't mean that it will go to pieces.  You and your generation made the world the way it is today, and your predecessors weren't happy about it either.  Let nature run its course, and trust the next generation to carry the torch into the murky unknown of the future.  

-Penguin

My generation? Only 8 years separate you from me...

[moot]

  .  Jets out of a black hole that nothing can escape?

Ded the jet matter doesn't escape the inescapable.  Like I said, it did not make it past event horizon.  
Black Hole Jet Explained  

Some of the stellar-mass black hole candidates have bipolar jets of glowing gas (hydrogen and helium mainly, of course) extending several light-years from them. These jets emerge from close to the candidates at nearly the speed of light (FK-542).
The jets stream out along the axis of rotation.
Electric and magnetic fields that form in the accretion disk cause the jets in some way---and that is all we will say about that.
The energy for the jets ultimately comes from the gravitational potential energy of the material spiraling into the black hole candidate.
Some of this gravitational potential energy becomes the heat energy of the accretion disk and gets radiated away as X-rays and some becomes the kinetic energy of the jets.

http://www.physics.unlv.edu/~jeffery/astro/astro1/lec025.html#jets from black holes

Although the black holes swallow the matter, a part of matter is ejected from the vicinity of the black holes. Such ejected matter has high-velocity (nearly light velocity) and is collimated, so that it is called black hole jets.

http://www.nao.ac.jp/E/release/2010/10/25/hbkj.html


And now, a funny.

[RTHolmes]

dont know if BBC america shows them but Jim Al Khalili has done some excellent shows on physics for the layman over the last coupla years. the latest one had a fantasticly clear explanation of Duracs QFT and Lamb's experiment to verify it. literally an hour-long show about nothing

[moot]

Dedalos if you want a real counter intuitive quality of black holes, consider Hawking radiation

the Gama ray emissions from it

What do you expect from an astronomically sized train wreck like a black hole's accretion disk?  IIRC other massive objects like neutron stars have comparable energy discharges..