Something new under the sun

[MattusMaximus]

So if his material (and others) is so drastically wrong and 'crackpot', why do so many established scientists seem to approve this work? Are they all crackpots too?

Somebody should tell this clown that in science, stuff written up in papers isn't the basis of reality. Scientific consensus and reality is guided by the data, and if all those people listed in those papers are proposing ideas inconsistent with the data, then yes -- they are wrong.

If they're shown definitively to be wrong, yet they insist on pushing their claims, then yes -- they are crackpots.

Now Zeuzzz is attempting to rely upon bogus arguments from authority (from crackpots no less). Sad to see...

I say we let this troll starve...

 

[sol invictus]

Its not just Crothers, plenty of other scientsts have shown some of the tacit assumptions in black hole mathematics. You are so quick to conveniently brand anyone who questions the black hole as a crackpot. Unfortunately for you, that does not alter the facts. You must also include Schwarzschild himself as a crank since his paper invalidates the black hole outright, as does Brillouin's, and Droste's. You must also label Einstein a crackpot, because Einstein always rejected the idea of the black hole, claiming in his research papers and other writings that it is not physical, and that singularities in the field nullify the theory of General Relativity. He was convinced that nature had a way, not yet discovered by physicists, to protect us from what he considered an absurd implication of his theory.

Isn't it interesting that every person you list here was born in the 19th century? In the very early days of general relativity there was a lot of confusion about black holes, that's true. Einstein didn't like them because they are singular, and he didn't want them in his theory.

In any case you're making the classic error of argument from authority, an error compounded by the fact that 99.9% of all the authorities in the world today totally disagree with you.

These claims are patently false, and G. C. McVittie has made some conclusive arguments which invalidate these ridiculous claims, which can be seen here

McVittie was writing in the 1930s, and was extremely confused. I've read several of his papers from that era carefully. Looks like he remained confused as an old man.

Heres a few other publications, not by Crothers, but getting at the same thing
<snip a few crank references>
And also many scientists that have read Crothers' work can find no errors

Nonsense. I just read it and found nearly everything to be in error. I doubt very many other experts have wasted their time.

So if his material (and others) is so drastically wrong and 'crackpot', why do so many established scientists seem to approve this work? Are they all crackpots too?

This is exactly the same argument creationists make about evolution, and it has if anything even less validity here (since we're talking about math). Are you a creationist?

Go look at ANY book on general relativity (there are many). Do a search on "black hole" and see how many hits you get. Better yet, stop trolling and learn a little physics - deriving the Schwarzschild solution is one of the first things students do in a GR course. I did it as an third year undergrad.


EDIT - I like how you and your fellow cranks argue. Earlier you accused me of not addressing the math in Crother's nonsense. So I did so, and you completely ignored my response and shifted your ground to another fallacious argument (this time authority). Now that that's been totally demolished you will probably squirm and flipflop again, to a new and different way of being wrong.

Any bets on what will be the next logical fallacy you try?

 

[Zeuzzz]

EDIT - I like how you and your fellow cranks argue. Earlier you accused me of not addressing the math in Crother's nonsense. So I did so, and you completely ignored my response and shifted your ground to another fallacious argument (this time authority). Now that that's been totally demolished you will probably squirm and flipflop again, to a new and different way of being wrong.

The orthodox concepts of gravitational collapse and the black hole owe their existence to a confusion as to the true nature of the r-parameter in the metric tensor for the gravitational field.

The error in the conventional analysis of Hilbert’s solution is twofold in that two tacit and invalid assumptions are made:
(a) r is a coordinate and radius (of some kind) in the gravitational field;
(b) The regions 0<r<α=2m and α<r<∞ are valid.

Contrary to the conventional analysis the nature and range or the r-parameter must be determined by rigorous mathematical means, not by mere assumption, tacit or otherwise. When the required mathematical rigour is applied it is revealed that r0 =α denotes a point, not a 2-sphere, and that 0<r<α is undefined on the Hilbert metric.

This is gibberish from the start. r is a coordinate by definition - it's one of the four coordinates in the metric. Saying it's not is like saying it's not a letter. Furthermore it is a radius, at least outside the horizon, as you can check trivially. So (a) is not even wrong. (b) is again total nonsense - regions in a metric can't be valid or invalid. There might be a physical problem somewhere (like a singularity or a closed timelike curve) but then that's what needs to be shown. And there is no such problem in the region outside.

He is not saying it is not a co-ordinate, he is saying that r is not the same value for both of them when certain considerations are taken into account. I cant be bothered to type out all his equations in latex, i'll just copy directly, but it wont make that much sense, you have to view the original for the full equations.

If you had read the whole paper, and not just the part that i quoted, the reason for this statement becomes apparent. He outlines this in section two.


http://www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2005/PP-01-09.PDF

The general metric for Special Relativity is,
ds² = dt² − dr² − r² ( dθ² + sin² dϕ²) (8)

and the radial distance (the proper distance) between two points is,
[.......]

Let a test particle be located at each of the points r0 and r > r0 (owing to the isotropy of space there is no loss of generality in taking r > r0 > 0). Then by (9) the distance between them is given by

d = r − r0 ,

and if r0 =0, d ≡ r in which case the distance from r0 =0 is the same as the radius (the curvature radius) of a great circle, the circumference χ of which is from (8),

χ = 2π√r2 = 2πr . (10)

In other words, the curvature radius and the proper radius are identical, owing to the pseudo-Euclidean nature of (8). Furthermore, d gives the radius of a sphere centred at the point r0. Let the test particle at r0 acquire mass. This produces a gravitational field centred at the point r0 > 0. The geometrical relations between the components of the metric tensor of General Relativity must be precisely the same in the metric of Special Relativity. Therefore the distance between r0 and r>r0 is no longer given by (9) and the curvature radius no longer by (10). Indeed, the proper radius Rp, in keeping with the geometrical relations on (8), is now given by; [...........]

Therefore (7) is singular only at r =r0, where C(r0)= =α2 and g00 =0 8 r0, irrespective of the value of r0. C(r0)=α2 emphasizes the true meaning of α, viz., α is a scalar invariant which fixes the spacetime for the pointmass from an infinite number of mathematically possible forms, as pointed out by Abrams. Moreover, α embodies the effective gravitational mass of the source of the field, and fixes a boundary to an otherwise incomplete spacetime. Furthermore, one can see from (13) and (14) that r0 is arbitrary, i. e. the point-mass can be located at any point and its location has no intrinsic meaning. Furthermore, the condition g00 =0 is clearly equivalent to the boundary condition r→r0)Rp→0, from which it follows that g00 =0 is the end result of gravitational.

All the particular solutions of (17) are inextendible, since the singularity when r =r0 is quasiregular, irrespective of the values of n and r0. Indeed, the circumference χ of a great circle becomes, [....]

lim r→r0 χ

Rp → ∞, (20)

shows that Rp(r0)≡0 is a quasiregular singularity and cannot be extended.
Equation (19) shows that χ=2πα is also a scalar invariant for the point-mass.
It is plain from the foregoing that the Kruskal-Szekeres extension is meaningless, that the “Schwarzschild radius” is meaningless, that the orthodox conception of gravitational collapse is incorrect, and that the black hole is not consistent at all with General Relativity. All arise wholely from a bungled analysis of Hilbert’s solution.

 

[Reality Check]

Zeuzz, I assume that you are ignoring the observational evidence for the existence of black holes as support for GR?

 

[sol invictus]

He is not saying it is not a co-ordinate, he is saying that r is not the same value for both of them when certain considerations are taken into account.

Same value? Both of what? Certain considerations?

What the heck are you talking about??

He says:

The error in the conventional analysis of Hilbert’s solution is twofold in that two tacit and invalid assumptions are made:
(a) r is a coordinate and radius (of some kind) in the gravitational field
(b) The regions 0<r<α=2m and α<r<∞ are valid.

That r is a coordinate is not an assumption and cannot be invalid. That simply doesn't make any sense. It is one of the coordinates in the metric; that's a definition, not an assumption.

As for whether it's a radius, just take the Schwarzschild metric at large r, and you will see it reduces to the form of the metric on flat space you have in your quote, with r the radial distance from the origin. So the second part of the statement is wrong too.

As for the rest of the paper, I will not waste my time looking through it to find where else he is wrong. Like I said, pick up any book on GR of the tens available, and you will find a derivation of the Schwarzschild solution along with a proof that it's the unique asymptotically flat vacuum metric with spherical symmetry (that statement is called Birkhoff's theorem). This is standard stuff; it's been understood for over half a century, and I myself have derived the metric and proven the theorem (it's really not hard).

 

[MattusMaximus]

Zeuzz, I assume that you are ignoring the observational evidence for the existence of black holes as support for GR?

RC, here are two quotes from Zeuzzz:

1. "General relativity is a well-established and tested theory." - AND -

2. "The big bang is a joke."

Drumroll... general relativity predicted the big bang cosmology and explains it. The physical theory of BBC is GR! Oh no!

I would love to watch Zeuzzz squirm trying rectify these two statements, if he'd ever stand his ground and actually try doing so as opposed to weaseling away into troll land...

 

[sol invictus]

http://www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2005/PP-01-09.PDF[/url]

I took a more careful look at this paper. Take a look at equation 7. That is indeed the most general solution to Einstein's equations in vacuum with spherical symmetry. In fact it's nothing but the Schwarzschild solution, once we require asymptotic flatness.

To see that, simply make a change of variables which puts the dr^2 term in a standard Schwarzschild form. Such a transformation is always possible, and integrating it gives the function C as a function of the Schw. radial coordinate. Following that through with the other terms shows that the whole metric is Schwarzschild.

But now we are done. There is a horizon, which is NOT a point (it's a sphere cross a null coordinate) and a singularity at the origin of coordinates. In other words it's a black hole.

EDIT - this is even more stupid than I thought. Equation (6) IS the standard Schw. metric, which Crothers actually doesn't derive. He just assumes it (he says you get it in the "usual way"). I didn't notice he had it, and had just re-derived it starting from (7).

In going from 6 to 7 Crothers is displaying a total lack of understanding of the basics of GR. The equations are correct, but the function C is NOT a free function - it's simply a gauge which results from the freedom to reparametrize the variable he calls r*. Since 6 is simpler it's much better to keep it in that form. In any case he then goes on to make a series of false statements, such as that the horizon is a point.

So the mistake is even more basic than I thought at first.

 

[BeAChooser]

and explain the 3 billion sun M87 black hole

What makes you think the mass estimate of the M87 "black hole" is any more precise than the Milky Way's? I would hazard that it's even less precisely known given it's great distance.

 

[Reality Check]

What makes you think the mass estimate of the M87 "black hole" is any more precise than the Milky Way's? I would hazard that it's even less precisely known given it's great distance.

BAC, Let us assume that the M87 mass estimate has an error of an order of magnitude. This means that it is between 300 and 30,000 million solar masses. So we still have a black hole that is much bigger than the one in the center of the Milky Way.

 

[BeAChooser]

Isn't it interesting that every person you list here was born in the 19th century?

Oh yes ... except for a few "crackpots", today's scientists are all in agreement with the black hole concept.

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/621/1 "No More Black Holes? By Phil Berardelli ScienceNOW Daily News, 21 June 2007 ... snip ... Scientists at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, have constructed mathematical formulas that conclude black holes cannot exist. ... snip ... In 1974, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking showed that thanks to quantum mechanics matter can escape black holes in a tricky way. By random chance, a particle-antiparticle pair can flit into existence straddling the event horizon. One partner falls into the hole, while the other just barely makes it free. Because of this effect, dubbed Hawking radiation, a black hole slowly evaporates, so that anything that enters is eventually released over billions or even trillions of years. But how can black holes be both airtight and leaky? Physicist Lawrence Krauss and Case Western Reserve colleagues think they have found the answer to the paradox. In a paper accepted for publication in Physical Review D, they have constructed a lengthy mathematical formula that shows, in effect, black holes can't form at all. ... snip ... Asked why then the universe nevertheless seems to be full of black holes, Krauss replies, "How do you know they're black holes?" No one has actually seen a black hole, he says, and anything with a tremendous amount of gravity--such as the supermassive remnants of stars--could exert effects similar to those researchers have blamed on black holes. "All of our calculations suggest this is quite plausible," Krauss says."

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18925423.600&print=true "Three cosmic enigmas, one audacious answer, 09 March 2006, New Scientist, Zeeya Merali ... snip ... A new and as yet undiscovered kind of star could explain both phenomena and, in turn, remove black holes from the lexicon of cosmology. The audacious idea comes from George Chapline, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, and Nobel laureate Robert Laughlin of Stanford University and their colleagues. Last week at the 22nd Pacific Coast Gravity Meeting in Santa Barbara, California, Chapline suggested that the objects that till now have been thought of as black holes could in fact be dead stars that form as a result of an obscure quantum phenomenon. These stars could explain both dark energy and dark matter. This radical suggestion would get round some fundamental problems posed by the existence of black holes. One such problem arises from the idea that once matter crosses a black hole's event horizon - the point beyond which not even light can escape - it will be destroyed by the space-time "singularity" at the centre of the black hole. Because information about the matter is lost forever, this conflicts with the laws of quantum mechanics, which state that information can never disappear from the universe. Another problem is that light from an object falling into a black hole is stretched so dramatically by the immense gravity there that observers outside will see time freeze: the object will appear to sit at the event horizon for ever. This freezing of time also violates quantum mechanics. ... snip ... Chapline has dubbed the objects produced this way "dark energy stars". ... snip .... "Dark energy stars and black holes would have identical external geometries, so it will be very difficult to tell them apart," Lobo says. ... snip ... He and his colleagues have also calculated the energy spectrum of the released gamma rays. "It is very similar to the spectrum observed in gamma-ray bursts," says Chapline."

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/01/22/gravastars/index.html "s black hole theory full of hot air?, January 22, 2002 ... snip ... (CNN) -- Arguing that black holes are riddled with contradictions, astronomers have devised what they consider a more plausible destiny for imploding stars. Taking into account quantum physics, two U.S scientists suggest that giant dying stars transform themselves into what they call gravastars, shells of extremely dense matter with exotic space inside. ... snip ... According to conventional theory, some giant stars near the end of their lives explode into supernovas, leaving behind cores so dense that they collapse into a "singularity," or point of infinite density, otherwise known as a black hole. ... snip ... Emil Mottola of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Pawel Mazur of the University of South Carolina are not convinced. ... snip ... The first black hole proponents were ignorant of quantum fluctuations in the universe that affect everything from light particles to gravity, Mottola and Mazur observed. ... snip ... Without quantum mechanics, the early theorists made crucial mistakes in envisioning black holes and their relationship with space and time, the two say. ...snip ... In a paper submitted to Physical Review Letters, Mottola and Mazur argue that gravastars are consistent with classical laws of physics but do not have embarrassing inconsistencies as do black holes. Moreover, from Earth, they would appear much the same as classical black holes."

http://www.physorg.com/news73057202.html "Astronomer Rudy Schild of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and his colleagues studied the quasar known as Q0957+561 ...snip ... Most would consider that object to be a 'black hole,' but ... snip ... 'We don't call this object a black hole because we have found evidence that it contains an internally anchored magnetic field that penetrates right through the surface of the collapsed central object, and that interacts with the quasar environment' ... snip ... Schild and his colleagues found that the jets appear to emerge from two regions 1,000 astronomical units in size (about 25 times larger than Pluto-Sun distance) located 8,000 astronomical units directly above the poles of the central compact object. ... snip ... However, that location would be expected only if the jets were powered by reconnecting magnetic field lines that were anchored to the rotating supermassive compact object within the quasar. By interacting with a surrounding accretion disk, such spinning magnetic field lines spool up, winding tighter and tighter until they explosively unite, reconnect and break, releasing huge amounts of energy that power the jets. ... snip ... "Our finding challenges the accepted view of black holes," said Leiter. "We've even proposed a new name for them - Magnetospheric Eternally Collapsing Objects, or MECOs".

 

[Reality Check]

Oh yes ... except for a few "crackpots", today's scientists are all in agreement with the black hole concept.
...
Links to 4 articles
....

Your links merely reflect that scientists are always testing the established theories. Thus there will always be papers that state that the theories are incorrect. This is good - science should always be challenged.

So if sol invictus had said that " 99.9% of today's scientists are in agreement with the black hole concept", would you agree with him?

PS. I noticed that I have not answered your question "And would a mass of 40,000 suns in a region 1 AU in diameter be a black hole?". The answer is that a mass of 20 solar masses in a region 1 AU in diameter is a black hole (look up the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit).

 

[BeAChooser]

general relativity predicted the big bang cosmology and explains it. The physical theory of BBC is GR!

That can only be said of one specific solution to GR. There are other solutions. And let's be honest, GR as envisioned by Einstein and BB as envisioned by Friedmann did not predict inflation, dark matter, nor dark energy. Those gnomes were invented to prop up the BB cosmology. Those gnomes aren't apparently needed in cosmologies derived using the alternative solutions to GR. Also, calling BBC a "physical theory" is rather funny, when almost the entire universe under that theory now consists of ghost-like dark matter and dark energy ... that can't be directly detected and which it's proponents still can't identify even after 30 years of looking.

 

[Tubbythin]

That can only be said of one specific solution to GR. There are other solutions. And let's be honest, GR as envisioned by Einstein and BB as envisioned by Friedmann did not predict inflation, dark matter, nor dark energy. Those gnomes were invented to prop up the BB cosmology. Those gnomes aren't apparently needed in cosmologies derived using the alternative solutions to GR. Also, calling BBC a "physical theory" is rather funny, when almost the entire universe under that theory now consists of ghost-like dark matter and dark energy ... that can't be directly detected and which it's proponents still can't identify even after 30 years of looking.

Yes, you're right no one has found a lump of dark energy in the 30 years since 1998.

 

[Reality Check]

Yes, you're right no one has found a lump of dark energy in the 30 years since 1998.

Actually the following 2 links describe observational proof of the existence of dark matter.
Separation of dark matter and galaxies in the IE 0657-56 galactic cluster
A dark matter smoke ring

 

[BeAChooser]

BAC, Let us assume that the M87 mass estimate has an error of an order of magnitude. This means that it is between 300 and 30,000 million solar masses.

Why should we assume an error of an order of magnitude for M87, when the one for the Milky Way ... for which we have much better observations ... is larger? If you wanted to use the same degree of uncertainty in M87 as in the Milky Way (which the source I linked said has a 4 million sun mass), then you are talking about at least 2 orders of magnitude.

But the reality is that the evidence suggesting a 3 billion sun black hole in M87 is a LOT more tenuous than that suggesting a large mass in the Milky Way core. The latter is based on observed motions of individual stars within light years of the supposed Milky Way black hole. The former is based on Doppler measurements made on the plasma of M87 near the central region, not specific star motions. Do you know the velocity of the gases near the supposed M87 black hole? On the order of 500 kms (http://seds.org/messier/more/m087_hst.html ). Do you know the measured velocity of plasmas near the center of the Milky Way? As much as 700 kms, much faster than the stars in the area. So how can you be sure of the M87 mass estimate? And you do know, don't you, that these plasmas would be affected by any electromagnetic forces operating in the region, not just gravity? So a homopolar motor with a plasmoid near the center ...

 

[Tubbythin]

Why should we assume an error of an order of magnitude for M87, when the one for the Milky Way ... for which we have much better observations ... is larger? If you wanted to use the same degree of uncertainty in M87 as in the Milky Way (which the source I linked said has a 4 million sun mass), then you are talking about at least 2 orders of magnitude.

Do we definitely have much better observations? From personal experience, its much easier to measure the rotational velocity of Andromeda than the Milky Way.

 

[BeAChooser]

PS. I noticed that I have not answered your question "And would a mass of 40,000 suns in a region 1 AU in diameter be a black hole?". The answer is that a mass of 20 solar masses in a region 1 AU in diameter is a black hole

I think that would surprise astronomers since there are 20+ solar mass stars that have diameters less than 1 AU which are not black holes. What do you think Betelgeuse was before it ballooned into a red giant?

 

[Reality Check]

Why should we assume an error of an order of magnitude for M87, when the one for the Milky Way ... for which we have much better observations ... is larger? If you wanted to use the same degree of uncertainty in M87 as in the Milky Way (which the source I linked said has a 4 million sun mass), then you are talking about at least 2 orders of magnitude.

But the reality is that the evidence suggesting a 3 billion sun black hole in M87 is a LOT more tenuous than that suggesting a large mass in the Milky Way core. The latter is based on observed motions of individual stars within light years of the supposed Milky Way black hole. The former is based on Doppler measurements made on the plasma of M87 near the central region, not specific star motions. Do you know the velocity of the gases near the supposed M87 black hole? On the order of 500 kms (http://seds.org/messier/more/m087_hst.html ). Do you know the measured velocity of plasmas near the center of the Milky Way? As much as 700 kms, much faster than the stars in the area. So how can you be sure of the M87 mass estimate? And you do know, don't you, that these plasmas would be affected by any electromagnetic forces operating in the region, not just gravity? So a homopolar motor with a plasmoid near the center ...

I am sure about the mass of the M87 black hole because this is the mass that is stated by the very link that you have.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has obtained this image of a spiral-shaped disk of hot gas in the core of active giant elliptical galaxy M87. HST measurements show the disk is rotating so rapidly as it contains a massive dense object at its hub. This central object weights as much as three billion suns, but is concentrated in a volume of at most a few light-years diameter.
Now that astronomers have seen the signature of the tremendous gravitational field at the center of M87, it is probable that the region contains only a fraction of the number of stars that would be necessary to create such a powerful attraction. Earlier observations suggested the presence of such a supermasive object, but were not decisive. Many astronomers believe that this object may be a supermassive black hole. If it should be a black hole, it would be an object that is so massive yet compact nothing can escape its gravitational pull, not even light. The object at the center of M87, which weights as much as three billion suns, would then be concentrated into a space no larger than our solar system.

In other words: Before this image was taken in 1999 there were doubts about the existence of the M87 black hole. The image removed those doubts.

 

[BeAChooser]

Yes, you're right no one has found a lump of dark energy in the 30 years since 1998.

Haven't you been listening to this forum's BB's proponents? Some have been claiming that dark energy was predicted more than 30 years ago.

 

[Reality Check]

I think that would surprise astronomers since there are 20+ solar mass stars that have diameters less than 1 AU which are not black holes. What do you think Betelgeuse was before it ballooned into a red giant?

You are right: It is more exact to say that any star that is more than 20 solar masses will form a black hole at the end of its life (look up the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit).
Of course a plasma that packs 20+ solar masses into a small volume like 1 AU does not have any fusion to counter gravity and will form a black hole.