3 ms·

"according to this theory"

by platz 11y ago

nitrogen 11y ago
One cannot accept the parts of established theory that say black holes of a certain size might exist without also accepting the remaining parts that say what a black hole of that size can and cannot do. It's like accepting science enough to believe in cosmological constants, but not accepting science's measurements of those constants.
- platz 11y ago
  I disagree. That's like saying we don't need to do experiments, because everything follows from a few axioms. The reason we refine theories is because they sometimes fail when pushed to their limits. Additionally, parts of a theory may be valid only certain contexts. Newton's laws work wonderfully at human scales, but not at extremes. Similarly, the Standard Model works wonderfully on the familiar things we've tested.. but maybe the Standard Model doesn't work the same way at high energies and it doesn't explain dark matter/energy anyway.. We just don't much about what black holes are like below the Schwarzschild Radius. We haven't even detected Hawking Radiation yet.
- ars 11y ago
  > One cannot accept the parts of established theory that say black holes of a certain size might exist without also accepting the remaining parts that say what a black hole of that size can and cannot do. That is 100% not true. We don't know what a black hole will do, we just guess. Until we actually measure one we have no idea if there are surprises we have not thought about - or that we simply did not have any way to know were possible since such an environment does not exist on earth. > It's like accepting science enough to believe in cosmological constants, but not accepting science's measurements of those constants. Is there something wrong with doing that? You have no idea if (for example) those constants are actually constant. You have no idea if those constants vary based on some local environment. Perhaps even based on some other constant that we don't even know exists because we have never been able to measure things any other way. There are a TREMENDOUS number of assumptions baked into theories. And we try to test as many of those assumptions as possible all the time, but there could be assumptions we did not even realize we were making. You should really look into the history of science - it will give you some humility. At every age we thought we were at the pinnacle of science, only for later generations to find out things we never realized. There is no reason whatsoever to expect this generation to be any different.
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    We don't know what a black hole will do, we just guess. Normally I don't ask this sort of question, but are you a practicing physicist? If you are then this point is irrelevant. But if not, then we're all laymen/women here, and it's silly to accept the mathematical "guess" that says there might be tiny black holes but reject the proposed properties, when the same math that postulates their existence describes their likely properties. You should really look into the history of science - it will give you some humility. At every age we thought we were at the pinnacle of science, only for later generations to find out things we never realized. No doubt. I'm not questioning that. I'm saying it's presumptuous to pick and choose elements of a hypothesis without understanding the math behind it. If any of the participants in this thread are qualified to do so (clearly I am not), I'd love a link to your work on black holes. Otherwise, I maintain my original position.
    - ars 11y ago
      The math for hawking radiation is far less accepted than the math for black holes. You are making a mistake by giving them equal weight. Not that the math for black holes is all that well accepted in the first place - there are many holes in the math that quite clearly scream "we don't really know". For example a charged, or rapidly spinning singularity might be "naked" which breaks all theories and clearly shows how little we know about black holes. > but reject the proposed properties, when the same math that postulates their existence describes their likely properties. That isn't true though. It's completely different math. And Hawking radiation has a large information theory hole which tells us to be cautious - there is a gap in the theory, we don't actually know what will happen. Remember neither of these theories have ever been observed, it's all math and simulations, no observations. (Super massive objects have been observed, but not event horizons.)
      - mamon 11y ago
        > Hawking radiation has a large information theory hole If you are referring to the fact that radiation brings back information from the inside of the black hole, which undermines notion of black hole being "event horizon", then there is one proposal to close this hole (it had been even submitted to HN recently): computational complexity. From what I understood this means that while in principle radiation leaks information from inside of the black hole, the computational effort needed to put that information together in its original form is too big to be possible to do in practice (at least before thermodynamical death of universe).

"according to this theory"

by platz 11y ago

"according to this theory"

One cannot accept the parts of established theory that say black holes of a certain size might exist without also accepting the remaining parts that say what a black hole of that size can and cannot do. It's like accepting science enough to believe in cosmological constants, but not accepting science's measurements of those constants.

platz 11y ago
I disagree. That's like saying we don't need to do experiments, because everything follows from a few axioms. The reason we refine theories is because they sometimes fail when pushed to their limits. Additionally, parts of a theory may be valid only certain contexts. Newton's laws work wonderfully at human scales, but not at extremes. Similarly, the Standard Model works wonderfully on the familiar things we've tested.. but maybe the Standard Model doesn't work the same way at high energies and it doesn't explain dark matter/energy anyway.. We just don't much about what black holes are like below the Schwarzschild Radius. We haven't even detected Hawking Radiation yet.
ars 11y ago
> One cannot accept the parts of established theory that say black holes of a certain size might exist without also accepting the remaining parts that say what a black hole of that size can and cannot do. That is 100% not true. We don't know what a black hole will do, we just guess. Until we actually measure one we have no idea if there are surprises we have not thought about - or that we simply did not have any way to know were possible since such an environment does not exist on earth. > It's like accepting science enough to believe in cosmological constants, but not accepting science's measurements of those constants. Is there something wrong with doing that? You have no idea if (for example) those constants are actually constant. You have no idea if those constants vary based on some local environment. Perhaps even based on some other constant that we don't even know exists because we have never been able to measure things any other way. There are a TREMENDOUS number of assumptions baked into theories. And we try to test as many of those assumptions as possible all the time, but there could be assumptions we did not even realize we were making. You should really look into the history of science - it will give you some humility. At every age we thought we were at the pinnacle of science, only for later generations to find out things we never realized. There is no reason whatsoever to expect this generation to be any different.
- nitrogen 11y ago
  We don't know what a black hole will do, we just guess. Normally I don't ask this sort of question, but are you a practicing physicist? If you are then this point is irrelevant. But if not, then we're all laymen/women here, and it's silly to accept the mathematical "guess" that says there might be tiny black holes but reject the proposed properties, when the same math that postulates their existence describes their likely properties. You should really look into the history of science - it will give you some humility. At every age we thought we were at the pinnacle of science, only for later generations to find out things we never realized. No doubt. I'm not questioning that. I'm saying it's presumptuous to pick and choose elements of a hypothesis without understanding the math behind it. If any of the participants in this thread are qualified to do so (clearly I am not), I'd love a link to your work on black holes. Otherwise, I maintain my original position.
  - ars 11y ago
    The math for hawking radiation is far less accepted than the math for black holes. You are making a mistake by giving them equal weight. Not that the math for black holes is all that well accepted in the first place - there are many holes in the math that quite clearly scream "we don't really know". For example a charged, or rapidly spinning singularity might be "naked" which breaks all theories and clearly shows how little we know about black holes. > but reject the proposed properties, when the same math that postulates their existence describes their likely properties. That isn't true though. It's completely different math. And Hawking radiation has a large information theory hole which tells us to be cautious - there is a gap in the theory, we don't actually know what will happen. Remember neither of these theories have ever been observed, it's all math and simulations, no observations. (Super massive objects have been observed, but not event horizons.)
    - mamon 11y ago
      > Hawking radiation has a large information theory hole If you are referring to the fact that radiation brings back information from the inside of the black hole, which undermines notion of black hole being "event horizon", then there is one proposal to close this hole (it had been even submitted to HN recently): computational complexity. From what I understood this means that while in principle radiation leaks information from inside of the black hole, the computational effort needed to put that information together in its original form is too big to be possible to do in practice (at least before thermodynamical death of universe).