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Do black holes exist?The obvious answer for many is: "Yes of course, how else can there be volumeless matter, time travel and worm holes to other universes?" But common sense should instantly raise skepticism about such claims. In fact, Albert Einstein argued vigorously that black holes were incompatible with reality as described by his theories of relativity. He wrote a paper specifically on this topic in 1939. Noblackholes.com supports Einstein's skepticism, explains why general relativity does not allow for black holes, and investigates the artifices used to establish the modern theory of black holes. A series of conceptual papers describe, without the use of equations, some of the more salient problems with black holes. Technical papers provide a more thorough description of the problems of black holes and particularly how black holes violate the principles that underlie Einstein's theories of relativity. A brief history of black holesIsaac Newton's seminal work on gravity, Principia (1687), postulates a law of gravity where gravitational potential energy outside a mass is inversely proportional to radial distance from the center of the mass. According to this law of gravity, the escape velocity on the surface of a mass increases as the mass is compacted. In 1783 the Reverend John Michell, a British natural philosopher, pointed out that if a mass could be compacted within a critical radius where the escape velocity on the surface of the mass equals the speed of light, light would not escape from the surface. This would create an invisible mass, now called a black hole.... The time barrier that prevents formation of black holesAs a mass is compacted to have a smaller and smaller radius, the escape velocity at the surface of the resulting sphere increases. If the sphere could be compacted to a critical radius (called the Schwarzschild radius) so that the escape velocity at the surface of the sphere is equal to the speed of light, nothing could escape from the gravity field. The result would be the formation of a black hole. However, the acceleration of time that occurs with increasing gravity erects an impenetrable barrier at the Schwarzschild radius that is able to prevent any mass from compacting sufficiently to form a black hole... The destructive power of Hawking radiationHawking radiation is named after physicist Stephen Hawking who in 1974 provided a theoretical argument for the existence of thermal radiation emitted by black holes. The existence of Hawking radiation, now commonly accepted among physicists, presents a very significant logical problem for those who additionally believe that gravity affects time and that light and matter can pass through the event horizon of a black hole. Specifically, the leakage of Hawking radiation from a black hole, intensified by the acceleration of time, is a destructive force making impenetrable the event horizon of the black hole... Pathological coordinates and special coordinatesIf a time barrier prevents formation of black holes and if anything that approaches a very compact mass experiences instant evaporation, how can some theoretical physicists still claim black holes form? They do this by declaring ordinary coordinates "pathological" and using only "special" coordinates to measure the progress of a journey to a very compact mass ... |
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