Black Holes

[volumetricsteve]

I'm sitting here messing around with linux and the Mrs. has Cosmos on in the background..and it got me thinking about Black Holes and the role they play in the universe. Considering Baryon asymmetry, I'm starting to think it makes sense for Black Holes to be the closest that may exist to an actual "edge" of the universe. I'm thinking matter might pass into them and either achieve a deeper state of decay or begin some universal recycling process but in doing what they do, they may be dumping or converting energy in such a way as to account for the asymmetry, and the amount of asymmetry we see now may be a way to gauge the age of the universe. Have I gone full retard?

Any astrophysicists out there?

ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryon_asymmetry

[mallo]

I heard that these might not exist at all

[Trance]

Today I learned Wikipedia has an article on the currently unsolved problems in physics. That's a great read.

As to your question, I don't think you'll find any astrophysically-inclined people here of any greater expertise than the barest amateur. I've personally never heard of black holes being involved in the baryon asymmetry problem, but I have heard of the possible existence of micro black holes that may have formed in the extremely dense state of the very early universe which "evaporated" very quickly due to quantum effects just above the event horizon. These micro black holes, if they really formed back then, would account for more net energy released in the form of Hawking radiation than all the much larger regular black holes we have today, since energy emission from black hole evaporation increases as mass decreases.

Whether or not this would have any effect on the matter-antimatter imbalance I have no idea. It doesn't seem to me like it would, but I freely admit I know almost nothing about the math and mechanics of black hole evaporation.

[Big C]

Now that I think about it, wouldn't black holes fly in the face of the square cube law on a galactic scale? We're talking something that's smaller than a sun or maybe even Jupiter but is waaaay denser.

How is this supposed to work besides being made out of neutronium or some material otherwise poorly known to modern materials science and astrogeology?

[Gez]

Now that I think about it, wouldn't black holes fly in the face of the square cube law on a galactic scale? We're talking something that's smaller than a sun or maybe even Jupiter but is waaaay denser.

That's why they're called a singularity.

[Big C]

Now that I think about it, wouldn't black holes fly in the face of the square cube law on a galactic scale? We're talking something that's smaller than a sun or maybe even Jupiter but is waaaay denser.

That's why they're called a singularity.

Looking at the actual math and diagrams behind these things, they're even weirder than I thought.

Seriously. Check THIS out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BlackHole_Lensing.gif

[Ozymandias81]

Something more absurd and complex? White Holes.

Plus something that speaks about Singularity/Event Horizon....

[Reactor]

I think the concept in Event Horizon is a bit mixed-up. AFAIK, Black holes don't let you travel anywhere, it just sucks you in, and will not let anything go because of its intense gravity force, not even light. Wormholes on the other hand, do let you travel to distant places in a blink of an eye, at least theoretically.

To see the bare truth, however, we'd need to see an inter-dimensional transmitter wormhole in action. Which is yet to come...

LIBERATE TUTEMET EX INFERIS

[Ozymandias81]

Unforeseen consequences.... you know what I'm speaking!

[randi]

You have a specimen for the test chamber?

[Big C]

It's the purest sample yet!

[Enjay]

Event Horizon...

Even though it doesn't have monsters running around, IMO, Event Horizon is quite possibly the closest anyone has come to capturing the mood of Doom-like evil in a movie. I'm not saying that they were trying to do it but whenever I watch Event Horizon, it just screams Doom at me. It's one of my favourite movies. Hmmm... I need to watch it again.

[BouncyTEM]

Honestly, Event Horizon screams Warhammer 40000 more to me than it does doom.
Though I can certainly see how one can interpret it that way, too.

It's a great movie.

[Trance]

Seriously. Check THIS out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BlackHole_Lensing.gif

That is a computer-generated illustration of an extreme example of gravitational lensing. Given enough mass acting on a region of spacetime, space itself can curve and act as a lens for light passing through it. With the Hubble space telescope we've taken pictures that give us visual proof that this effect is real.

What I find incredible about this effect, interesting enough as it is by itself, is that gravitational lensing allows physicists to measure the mass of the entire universe. This is, in fact, one of the factors which indicated the existence of what scientists call dark matter and dark energy.

There's an utterly fascinating lecture by Laurence Krauss which talks about this. Skip to the 6 minute mark.

[Enjay]

Honestly, Event Horizon screams Warhammer 40000 more to me than it does doom.

I'm not familiar enough with 40K to say. Presumably Space Hulk-like scenarios?