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JEROME - Black holes do not exist

The laws of physics as we know them break down inside a black hole (which is why the instinctive revulsion). There's not even an understanding of what space means inside a black hole.

This is wrong. It's quite clear what space means inside a black hole. There's nothing particularly different about it, and there's no reason to think the laws of physics don't work. The real question is what happens at or near the singularity. But whatever strangeness might be going on, there's no reason to think that this strangeness has much bearing on the overall structure of the black hole.
 
We know a lot about black holes from out here, and what they'd look like (from out here), but as to in there we know squat. Not even how "out here" would appear to an observer "in there" ...

Wrong. We know quite well what "in there" is like, down to within about a Planck length from the singularity. And aside from the singularity itself, the only things "in there" are falling towards that singularity. And "out here" doesn't look special to them, though they have a limited time to enjoy the view.
 
Looks like the claimant has not checked in to the thread on his honor. While he's at it, he can prove his contentions in the "Ben Stein ... hates America" thead, in which he dismisses the op as "all falsehoods". As his claim there also goes against the present best understanding, he needs some more extraordinary evidence there.
 
This is wrong. It's quite clear what space means inside a black hole. There's nothing particularly different about it, and there's no reason to think the laws of physics don't work. The real question is what happens at or near the singularity. But whatever strangeness might be going on, there's no reason to think that this strangeness has much bearing on the overall structure of the black hole.

The "overall structure" is how a black hole appears from out here. Event horizon, singularity, black hole, it's all the same problem. At some point there's a disjunction between "out here" and "in there".

How can you know what space means inside a black hole? You could go and observe it, obviously, but you'd never get your observations back to us out here.
 
If JDM was to reply, it would be something along the lines of "your evidences are built on the premise that black holes exist." That's his basic retort.

Fordama
 
How can you know what space means inside a black hole? You could go and observe it, obviously, but you'd never get your observations back to us out here.

Well, we have a set of laws of physics which do NOT break down inside the horizon. Nothing funny happens there (the time/space thing is purely a coordinate artifact, and very well understood). They do break down at the singularity, but for a large black hole that's very far from the horizon. So if we trust those laws, we know quite well what happens inside the hole, down until you get very close to the singularity.

Moreover, there are very good reasons to think that those laws must remail valid - essentially because precisely where the horizon is cannot be determined by any local measurement, and so for anything unusual to happen there would require a truly bizarre and new effect.

All that said, you are correct that we will never know - or if we find out, we will be doomed.
 
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I recall how Architect, in the Politics forum, challenged Jerome on a couple of his statements by starting new threads for them.


This is a really slick tactic for calling out woosters on their b.s. I am very impressed :D
 
The "overall structure" is how a black hole appears from out here. Event horizon, singularity, black hole, it's all the same problem. At some point there's a disjunction between "out here" and "in there".

How can you know what space means inside a black hole? You could go and observe it, obviously, but you'd never get your observations back to us out here.

Spacetime varies smoothly across the event horizon. We know what it's like inside because it's actually NOT fundamentally different spacetime - unless the equations of general relativity are wrong (and every experimental test of them has only confirmed them), then there's no question about it.
 
Yep, no extraordinary evidence of the existence of black holes. Not even much of an effort attempting to evidence black holes. :(
 
Yep, no extraordinary evidence of the existence of black holes. Not even much of an effort attempting to evidence black holes. :(

Okay... how would you explain the observations that make astronomers stipulate there must be black holes? What is your interpretation of the data?
 

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