Black Holes: Stripped

Black holes, pulsars, energy, gravity, general relativity, nudity amongst singularity (ies)… <more on that later>

focus, need to focus on one.

The thing with Astrophysics is, there is no ‘ONE ‘starting point to start with. Each and every topic meshes together so perfectly, it seems like a toroidal hot dog with you having no idea where to start from. Thus, I shall sprinkle sparsely over them like sugar on donuts, whilst ye few who art interested; look it up on Google.

Okay then. Black holes.

One of the misconceptions about Black holes is that it’s unnatural: Considered often like Agent Smith from The Matrix, it’s believed to be “an exile program that manifests itself as a computer virus”, swallowing and subjugating everything within its infinite reach for its inestimable existence.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

Any star greater than three solar masses (three times the mass of our sun), near it’s end, collapses on its own gravitational pull to form a supposed ‘tear’ through the time-space continuum.  There are a hundred thousand misunderstandings on the difference between the formation of black holes, supernovas, neutron stars, white dwarfs (no racism or discrimination intended), quasars and pulsars, but for someone with my penchant of digressing from the topic, I’d rather not go there.

Now, some questions and misconceptions-

·         Black holes are ‘hungry pigs’ defy the laws of thermodynamics

Au contraire, Black holes are the embodiment of “give more than you get” (more on that later). Matter gets sucked in, matter converts to energy, and energy gets spewed out. This energy is known as ‘Hawking Radiation’.

He might be tiny but...Omnomnomnom

·         Diamonds aren’t forever. Black holes are.

Well diamonds do get converted into the much more stable form of carbon, namely graphite, but that is not the discussion here. Come close and let me whisper the age old secret in your ear. Black holes actually dissipate! As I said, the “give more than they get”, The energy they give out through hawking radiation is much more than the equivalent matter they take in (This rate of dissipation is inversely proportional to the black hole’s size). Thus, generous pigs these black holes are, chopping themselves up as bacon to “feed us with energy”.

·         We can’t see a black hole. Does this mean it’s just an old wives tale?

One of the ‘axioms’ in theoretical astrophysics is that “Nature abhors a naked singularity”. What it means is that the gravitational effects of a black hole, bound by the inverse square law, are observable only within its ‘event horizon’. A black hole is detected by its effect on the luminous particles in its vicinity.

·         If photons don’t have mass, light shouldn’t get sucked in by black holes.

Look up your physics, child. By the law of General Relativity, It’s not the mass; it’s the energy itself that gravitates. By the time the light off the objects located within reaches the horizon, it has lost all its energy, and the earlier rebellious photons fall right “back to their places”.

These poor, misunderstood, supposed “freaks of nature” are not so different from the other…”freaks of nature”. Just like us humans on Earth, We’re all unique, each and every one of us. Each and every one.

How oxymoron-ic.