Horizon: Who's Afraid of a Big Black Hole?
A liveblog written as I watch
Horizon: Who's Afraid of a Big Black Hole?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00nslc4/b00nsl09/Horizon_20092010_Whos_Afraid_of_a_Big_Black_Hole/
An experiment: A "live blog" written as I watch the programme.
Starts off badly talk of black holes being totally mysterious.
Then asks several physicists "Black holes - are they made of anything?" and shows them lost of words. The answer is clear: No. They are a self-sustaining wave of spacetime, which persists because the gravitational waves don't interact in a linear way. The physicists are probably lost for words because of how to explain that to the public, not because they don't know.
Are they totally mysterious? No.
Now a series of pictures (on hand-held cards?) of pictures of another galaxy. The pixels shown as an "image of a black hole" at the site of a previous supernova in another galaxy is totally misleading. A stellar black hole is only city sized. There is no way we could image an object the size of a city in another galaxy.
Nice waterfall analogy for a black hole, and good description of the inner horizon of the rotating centre. This is the first time I have heard that horizon mentioned in a popular documentary series.
Oh dear. They spoke about a "singularity" at the centre of a black hole beyond the inner horizon. This is a bit misleading, as for rotating holes (which have an inner horizon) there is no point singularity. It is a ring. But that amount of detail may have been too much to expect.
Nice description of the fact that the theory of Relativity is incomplete, and that singularities aren't real.
Truly wonderful illustration of the orbits of stars around the black hole at the centre of the galaxy.
Relationship between mass of black hole and mass of containing galaxy. It's linear. Bit of a big step though to suggest that black holes influence the galaxy. Need some models to show that.
Michio Kaku: "each galaxy with a raging black hole at the centre". Raging? Not in our galaxy. We don't all live close to quasars!
Did they really say that "anything, no matter how unlikely, happens all the time" in the context of quantum mechanics? Oh no.
"Ultimate reality is a quantum world". That's a bit dodgy.
No explanation yet as to why quantum mechanics alone can't handle black hole centres.
Max Tegmark: "Nature has one unique way of operating". Does it?
Kako explains why QM doesn't work. But also says, unfortunately, "Nature is smarter than we are".
They are going to mention String Theory. I just know they are.
Black holes as guides to origin of the universe. Hmm.
"The singularity at the centre of the black hole is the same as the singularity at the start of the universe". No, it isn't. Singularities at the centres of black holes are chaotic. The singularity at the origin of the universe is very, very ordered (according to Penrose).
Lawrence Krauss: "there are singularities at the centres of black holes and at the origin of the universe". That's better.
Lots of pictures of eyes of physicists. How strange.
Now onto direct observations of black holes. The shadow of an event horizon. But not for 10 years!
Max Tegmark seems to like waterfalls. Or at least being filmed by them.
Not a bad documentary. 8/10
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00nslc4/b00nsl09/Horizon_20092010_Whos_Afraid_of_a_Big_Black_Hole/
An experiment: A "live blog" written as I watch the programme.
Starts off badly talk of black holes being totally mysterious.
Then asks several physicists "Black holes - are they made of anything?" and shows them lost of words. The answer is clear: No. They are a self-sustaining wave of spacetime, which persists because the gravitational waves don't interact in a linear way. The physicists are probably lost for words because of how to explain that to the public, not because they don't know.
Are they totally mysterious? No.
Now a series of pictures (on hand-held cards?) of pictures of another galaxy. The pixels shown as an "image of a black hole" at the site of a previous supernova in another galaxy is totally misleading. A stellar black hole is only city sized. There is no way we could image an object the size of a city in another galaxy.
Nice waterfall analogy for a black hole, and good description of the inner horizon of the rotating centre. This is the first time I have heard that horizon mentioned in a popular documentary series.
Oh dear. They spoke about a "singularity" at the centre of a black hole beyond the inner horizon. This is a bit misleading, as for rotating holes (which have an inner horizon) there is no point singularity. It is a ring. But that amount of detail may have been too much to expect.
Nice description of the fact that the theory of Relativity is incomplete, and that singularities aren't real.
Truly wonderful illustration of the orbits of stars around the black hole at the centre of the galaxy.
Relationship between mass of black hole and mass of containing galaxy. It's linear. Bit of a big step though to suggest that black holes influence the galaxy. Need some models to show that.
Michio Kaku: "each galaxy with a raging black hole at the centre". Raging? Not in our galaxy. We don't all live close to quasars!
Did they really say that "anything, no matter how unlikely, happens all the time" in the context of quantum mechanics? Oh no.
"Ultimate reality is a quantum world". That's a bit dodgy.
No explanation yet as to why quantum mechanics alone can't handle black hole centres.
Max Tegmark: "Nature has one unique way of operating". Does it?
Kako explains why QM doesn't work. But also says, unfortunately, "Nature is smarter than we are".
They are going to mention String Theory. I just know they are.
Black holes as guides to origin of the universe. Hmm.
"The singularity at the centre of the black hole is the same as the singularity at the start of the universe". No, it isn't. Singularities at the centres of black holes are chaotic. The singularity at the origin of the universe is very, very ordered (according to Penrose).
Lawrence Krauss: "there are singularities at the centres of black holes and at the origin of the universe". That's better.
Lots of pictures of eyes of physicists. How strange.
Now onto direct observations of black holes. The shadow of an event horizon. But not for 10 years!
Max Tegmark seems to like waterfalls. Or at least being filmed by them.
Not a bad documentary. 8/10