Black holes tear logic apart, pseudoscientific article but worth the

[HysteryDiagnosis]

read. Personally I find the ideas expressed within to be compelling since I do not cotton to fairy tales and mythological stellar creatures.

http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=tyybhrr8

Looking down the barrel of a plasma gun:


Glowing eye nebula:

[FarrenH]

1. I submit that the author doesn't seem to understand the science

as much as they think they do. Certainly not enough to critique the science of black holes. For example:

"The third step involves the language describing black holes. All four of the examples given earlier are used when referring to black holes. For example, the textbook goes on: “A black hole is a region of spacetime in which gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it.” The phrase, “region of spacetime” is physically meaningless and results from a confused use of the word “time” and a nonsensical notion that gravity is a property of empty space instead of matter. "

Firstly, there is no confusion about the use of the word time. General relativity says that space and time are axes of the same continuum. Secondly general relativity also suggests that gravity IS a property of spacetime, not matter. Matter induces the warping we know as gravity in the spacetime continuum (and yes, it warps time too), but it is a quality of the geometrical properties of the continuum, not of matter. I somehow doubt the author has a better theory than Einstein's.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. I like the part...

where he says that since the force of gravity is next to zero in comparison with the strength of electricity, therefore the force of gravity can be neglected.

I suggest that all those who buy into this stuff neglect the force of gravity and walk off a cliff.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. Go away. n/t

[dbt]

14. ..

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. Learn basic science.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

22. Learn simple tenets..

Richard Feynman, lecturing his students on how to look for a new law in physics, said, “First you guess. Don't laugh; this is the most important step. Then you compute the consequences. Compare the consequences to experience. If it disagrees with experience, the guess is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn't matter how beautiful your guess is or how smart you are or what your name is. If it disagrees with experience, it's wrong. That's all there is to it.”

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[FarrenH]

16. Wow, two responses and both miss the point

All he meant was that the point strength of a force is not the sole determinant of the magnitude of its effects and the comment about stepping off a cliff was meant to humorously illustrate that.

[dbt]

17. Humor Fail. nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

18. Actually, it looks like it worked.

[FarrenH]

20. Which is of course worse than the collosal science fail it was responding too n/t

[HysteryDiagnosis]

11. Einstein on Einstein

"It strikes me as unfair, and even in bad taste, to select a few individuals for boundless admiration, attributing superhuman powers of mind and character to them. This has been my fate, and the contrast between the popular assessment of my powers and achievements and the reality is simply grotesque." (From a 1921 interview with a Dutch newspaper, reprinted in Reference 15, p. 8.)

[FarrenH]

12. I quote Einstein not because of his stature

but because I actually understand the less challenging (mathematically) aspects of General Relativity and how the theory is the best theory devised so far for explaining gravity (IOW it predicts phenomena we've actually observed better than any other extant theory), up to and including time dilation (which has actually been tested with atomic clocks on planes), which is relevant to the above criticism. If you can point me to a theory that better models the phenomena covered by General Relativity then I'd be interested. But the site you linked to is pure drek. It even has most of what one of my favourite bloggers called "The hallmarks of junk science", a bullet list of surface signs that a particular effort amounts to crank science, which is always handy if you want to avoid spending hours of your life reading dense and obscure stuff only to realise after that the author has actually fed you a turd sandwich.

The author clearly does not understand General Relativity and having read the entire thing I can say he/she neither shows it to be bad theory nor supplies any meaningful criticism of it at all. What the author does do is handwave away a textbook description that is absolutely a correct summation of one aspect of GR without even acknowledging GR. Contrasted against the voluminous and very rational and coherent output of Einstein, as a lifetime lay student of science I have to say such a mode of argument goes beyond unconvincing into the realm of being negatively convincing. It convinces me that the writer is incapable of the sophistication and subtlety of thought of most of the scientists he/she proceeds to criticise as ultra-specialised, among other things.

I picked out one para for brevity but I could go on and on. For instance the author rabbits on and on about how emissions like x-rays and gamma rays "cry out for an electrical model" and don't fit the theorised qualities of black holes (like allowing no matter to escape), whereas the physics that would produce such radiation and Hawking radiation has been intimately and very, very convincingly described*.Again, there is absolutely no effort to engage and shows errors in the aforementioned physics. None. This is not how credible scientists communicate, its pure amateurism. Why the author would think such a mode of argument is convincing when it looks sophomoric compared to the worst New Scientist article, never mind the kind of writing found in peer-reviewed journals, is difficult to grasp.

*In brief, the gravitional laws we have (which predict observed nature very well thank you) unambiguously predict that a black-hole like structure will usually have a massive amount of gas trapped near it that is moving to fast to cross the event horizon but maintains an orbit around the black hole, that that gas will be moving at extraordinary speed and that, following from uncontroversial physical laws, such densely packed and fast moving gas must be heated to incredible temperatures. In this scenario, the known mathematical properties of gravity massively overwhelm electrical effects, making the author's bizarre claims at variance with Newton, never mind Einstein. And I haven't even gotten into Hawking radiation. This author simply doesn't understand a lot of basic, corroborated, observed science, nor the math that underpins it. I mean just look at this: "A major adjustment of the black hole model was required to explain how matter could be flung out in polar jets at near light speed from an object from which there was supposed to be no escape." Um, no. AFAIK dense "thermal baths" just outside the event horizon have always been a theorised feature of black holes.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Right, you cotton to the Electric Universe nonsense.

:shrug:

[Blue-Jay]

4. Listen, I'm no astrophysicist.

Which is precisely why I don't write bullshit articles about things I don't understand. They should rename that website "Hollow Science".

[Codeine]

5. That was a big ol' pile of stupid, wasn't it? nt

[tkmorris]

7. Is it Post Claptrap Day on DU?

Seriously, I hate to be Mr. Cynical (that's PronSyrup's job) but this stuff is just bad, and I have been seeing a ton of it lately. Come on, let's have some standards.

[Codeine]

8. Math is hard. nt

[tkmorris]

9. Apparently nt

[HysteryDiagnosis]

10. We use math to make square pegs fit into predefined round apertures...

not advisable but it is fashionable in the days in which we find ourselves.

[FarrenH]

13. No, we use math because scientific theories are communicated using language

and math is humanity's best effort at a precise and unambiguous language, at least in the realm of quanitifiable things. In the realm of its proper use, it certainly has no peers at all.

[Odin2005]

21. LOL, a woo-woo calling something pseudoscience?

Pot, kettle, black...

[woo me with science]

23. This belongs in the woo forum. nt

[MilesColtrane]

24. That's some high grade gibberish there.

[ThomWV]

25. My god, what a bunch of drivel ...

mindless nonsense.