Black Holes Don't Exist

Black holes don't exist, or at least so says physics professor Laura Mersini-Houghton in a paper submitted to the non-peer reviewed online journal ArXiv: Back-reaction of the Hawking radiation flux on a gravitationally collapsing star II: Fireworks instead of firewalls

Mersini-Houghton and co-author Harald P. Pfeiffer claim their computer simulations (they never use the term computer simulation but just refer briefly to "our program" in passing in the abstract, and the term "simulation" appears a couple times in the paper) show that as a collapsing star shrinks below its Schwarzschild radius that a burst of Hawking radiation "slows down the collapse of the star and substantially reduces its mass thus the star bounces before reaching the horizon."

I'm not clear on what the authors think remains behind after a supernova if not a black hole, but their research supports Stephen Hawking's recent announcement that black holes are actually grey holes with a chaotic and very hot event horizon from which energy escapes. Hawking suggests a changing event horizon subject to quantum fluctuations inside the black hole, a sort of "grey area," hence the term grey hole.

I wasn't able to find an article addressing how this research squares with the observational evidence of massive black holes at the center of most galaxies, including our own. Is this new research consistent with a quiet black hole, which is evidently the state of the Milky Way's black hole?

Where are Cave Diver and Son Goku when you need them?

--Percy

Colbard writes: My reckoning is, if mass causes gravity, then as soon as mass collapses in any way the gravity will decrease as well, and the whole thing will reach equilibrium before too much of a phenomenon develops.

Even if all the mass of the Earth were to collapse into a tiny sphere an inch in diameter, its gravity would remain unchanged.

You are correct that gravity is a property of mass, but no mass disappears when "mass collapses" - it only becomes more dense. Since the amount of mass remains the same, the gravity remains the same.

--Percy

PaulK writes: Even with a high school understanding of Newtonian gravity you should know that the gravitational force pulling the material inwards would increase (because it is getting closer to the centre, not because the mass is changing).

I'm puzzling over this one. I think you may be saying that as the diameter of a spherical mass is decreased (thereby increasing the density) that the gravitational force at the surface increases, but I'm not sure. If that's what you're saying, then good point.

On the other hand, as one ventures inside a spherical mass like the Earth (assume a hypothetical shaft from the surface to the center), gravity gradually decreases as one approaches the center, eventually reaching zero.

--Percy

Colbard writes: First of all I don't think that mass causes gravity.

The available evidence says that mass is responsible for gravity by bending space-time.

And secondly when you break the structure of the atom you lose its mass.

If by "break the structure of the atom" you mean separate it into its constituent particles, then this is incorrect. The mass of an atom is equal to the sum of the masses of its particles. There are some tiny differences that NoNukes mentions and that can be explained and accounted for, but the important point to understand is that breaking an atom up does not destroy any mass. The component particles still exist.

But if by "break the structure of the atom" you instead mean convert it in to energy, then you're still wrong. Mass and energy can be converted back and forth. Energy causes a bending of space-time just as mass does.

There is no such thing as collapsing matter down into a smaller unit than itself without disassembling its inner relations, and undoing matter altogether.

You are correct that the atoms in sufficiently compressed matter will break down into their constituent particles, but this doesn't destroy any mass. (Some mass will be converted into energy, of course.)

But even the core of the sun itself is not under sufficient pressure to break atoms down into their constituent particles. When people talk about "collapsing matter", it's all just a matter of the space between atoms becoming less and less (not of the space within atoms becoming less and less), until you get to the densest stages where the atoms do break down into their constituent particles, and if the density increases then the particles will eventually break down into their quark components.

--Percy

zaius137 writes: quote: I can understand you saying it is not proved. However, it is provable there are clear predictions by the standard model for what effects the Higg's boson should have. Surely that is provable and hence scientific? Note I am not saying it is proved, just that it is provable. Your statement alone goes against the principle of theory refutation, That being: a theory can never be ‘proved’ only disproved. Also, a theory must be disprovable, unobservable particles and subsequent fields for those particle are unobservable in QFT.

This is a legitimate quibble, but I don't think Son Goku is using the word "provable" in a mathematical sense. He's using it in a scientific sense to mean supported with sufficient evidence. He's saying that the standard model makes predictions for the effects of the Higgs boson, that experiments are possible that would gather evidence of these effects ("provable"), and that the Higgs is therefore scientific.

--Percy

NoNukes writes: Also, a theory must be disprovable, Not exactly. A theory must be falsifiable, which means that there are some possible experiments which could fail and disprove the theory. But once those experiments are performed, the theory will not be falsified or disproved in that way. But that does not mean that the theory stops being a theory just because we've done all of the experiments we can think of.

I'm not sure I followed this correctly. I think you're saying that a successful falsification experiment doesn't falsify a theory nor mean that it is no longer a theory, because of what might be learned from future experiments.

But I'm not sure.

--Percy

zaius137 writes: quote: Well since I have explained in detail to you before, I will summarise briefly. When you calculate the vacuum energy in the standard model you get the observed value for the cosmological constant. It's a toy model that gives a value 170 orders of magnitude off, not the standard model itself. (The calculation is done using steepest-descent methods on the Path Integral.) So the magnitude still remains off by an order of 170… That is crystal clear.

What Son Goku said *was* pretty clear - read it again. He said that the application of a decades old simplified model (rather than the actual standard model) is what gave a result 170 orders of magnitude off.

“you simply use your opponents previous response to generate the next vague leading sarcastic remark” That is debate with panache my friend.

Son Goku was giving voice to what I'm sure most people following this thread have noticed. Your posts are remarkably free of objective support.

I believe it is God… more scientific than the Higgs.

The real agenda emerges.

--Percy

zaius137 writes: You would think that I am the one posing a formal objection to a disagreement of predicted vacuum energy to apparent vacuum energy.

You're not qualified to pose a "formal objection", but who else besides you is basing their objection on a decades old rough approximation of the standard model?

quote: I gave you two papers and wrote three long posts explaining the standard model calculation. This year I have explained where the old "170 orders of magnitude" quote came from to help you understand. No I am not reading all the papers he has cited (even if I had all the access I needed), as far as I know from the summations I have read, the problem remains unanswered except by “superfluous ontological apparatus”.

I was wondering about these summations that you have read that characterize the problem as unanswered, and then I noticed that in a later message (Message 117) you referenced the Wikipedia article on Vacuum Catastrophe. This article states:

Wikipedia writes: In cosmology the vacuum catastrophe refers to the disagreement of 107 orders of magnitude between the upper bound upon the vacuum energy density as inferred from data obtained from the Voyager spacecraft of less than 1014 GeV/m3 and the zero-point energy of 10121 GeV/m3 suggested by a naïve application of quantum field theory.

First, notice that the discrepancy is given as 107 orders of magnitude, not 170. I do not myself know which figure is correct, but if you're going to claim 170 and then cite a Wikipedia article that claims 107, you might want to explain the difference.

Second, notice where it says "a naive application of quantum field theory". Son Goku will have to confirm, but this "naive application" may be what he means when he refers to a toy model from the 1970's.

This is the true “straw man” I have seen you use time and time again. Here he is! now you pick him apart. First problem is getting to a true particle/field relationship, The Higgs is never seen as a particle… FACT. The excuse is that it appears too fast to observe….

Son Goku addressed this already in Message 108, explaining that detection of the Higgs is following the same familiar track of progress as other particles:

Son Goku in Message 108 writes: The vast majority of subatomic particles are not directly detected. Although as the years go on they are. For instance the pions were originally detected via their effect on the decay channels of other particles, now they have been directly detected. ... The preliminary tests of the Higgs can only detect it via its decay products, then, as with other particles, eventual direct detection.

You continue:

The particle/field provides a framework in QFT to build a mathematical construct around the same. It is in all definition a speculation… Unprovable by definition.

Son Goku already answered this, too, in Message 103 and Message 108:

Son Goku in Messages 103 and 108 writes: The particle/field idea appears to be correct. The model that particles are excitations of fields (quantum field theory) has produced a theory (the standard model) that correctly predicts all sub-atomic interactions. ... No actually, I don't. You've never stated them, just that you object. We've seen field states decay into particles, fields coalesce into a particle and fields produce particles. What part of the concept is untested or not falsifiable to you?

You conclude:

In my opinion, the critics of the discovery of the Higgs particle will eventually win the day.

We know what your opinion is. What we're trying to understand is whether your opinion is based upon anything factual.

--Percy

Edited by Percy, : Clarify the question about 170 versus 107.

Edited by Percy, : Fix typo.

Hi Zaius,

Without some sort of explanation from you, I don't think anyone understands why you find those excerpts unconvincing. (I assume you meant unconvincing, that your "very convincing" comment was sarcasm.)

--Percy

zaius137 writes: quote: You're not qualified to pose a "formal objection", but who else besides you is basing their objection on a decades old rough approximation of the standard model? You need to read more my friend. It is somewhat less than a TOE.

You need only tell me where to read. You said it isn't you "posing a formal objection to a disagreement of predicted vacuum energy to apparent vacuum energy." If you're actually taking your lead from someone else, who is it besides you who is suggesting that the "vacuum catastrophe" that is based upon a decades old rough approximation of the standard model has any current legitimacy?

I take the “naive” application to mean an application of QFT to the large scale universe and gravity. Stars are not excitations of universal fields, as Son would have it. Imagine what a proof for star formation or black hole formation would look like from the standard model (QFT).

I don't understand this shift from vacuum energy to the formation of stars and black holes? Are you dropping your claim that the standard model's predicted vacuum energy value is off by over a hundred orders of magnitude?

You started this thread on a outrageous view developed from the standard model. Does anyone believe black holes don’t exist? If they do not come about in stars, how could there be so many in the universe?

The point of the research briefly described in Message 1 wasn't that black holes don't exist, but that we may be mistaken about their true nature. As I summarized at the time, "Their research supports Stephen Hawking's recent announcement that black holes are actually grey holes with a chaotic and very hot event horizon from which energy escapes. Hawking suggests a changing event horizon subject to quantum fluctuations inside the black hole, a sort of 'grey area,' hence the term grey hole."

The first assumption of the particle/field principle is that the decays actually reflect a particle (this my be beyond scientific proof). Maybe the decay products that are observed are not indicative of a particle at all. Furthermore, these decays are assumed to be a zero spin boson in the case of a Higgs, that assumption is yet to be proved first, then the Higgs needs to be shown to impart mass to gage bosons. There is no other particle that acts like a Higgs is supposed to act, this is new ground. Yet the particle detected is still just another decay at this point, some research says this is a Higgs by statistical conformation, skeptics maintain the Higgs could still be a doublet impostor.

No one minds if you find the current evidence for QFT or the Higgs or whatever unconvincing. That's your right. You decide what evidence and how much will convince you. But persuading other people that they should also find the evidence unconvincing is a significant challenge that would be more effective if it didn't include things like invalid objections based upon approximations from nearly a half century ago.

You might say, well you believe in black holes right, they can not be seen directly. This may be true, but black holes do not just blink into and out of existence (too fast to observe) that to me is nonsense. ... To my frustration we have not reached the meat of this discussion… Yet.

No one thinks that an implication of QFT is that black holes blink into and out of existence. You seem to feel that progress toward the "meat of this discussion" has been tortuous, so could I suggest that statements like this about black holes and previously about vacuum energy are a significant distraction. As the source of these distractions it is within your power to prevent them from happening.

--Percy

zaius137 writes: I guess you can say that black holes don’t exist then? You understand how ignorant that sounds in light of real observations. Well there is a paper written on it so let us jump on board. Who here for a single minute believes that black holes don’t exist because of a bad Standard Model prediction… That is just funny.

Ya know, people can read the thread. They know no one, least of all Son Goku, claimed that black holes don't exist. Way back in Message 14 Son Goku wrote:

Son Goku in Message 14 writes: However their proof approximates matter as completely classical, even though we know matter is quantum mechanical. Since then, there have been papers trying to investigate if black holes still form even when the matter is treated as quantum mechanical. Since the analysis is so difficult, nobody has been able to completely prove if black holes still form or not. Although the evidence points to the fact that they do.

You're just ignoring what Son Goku says and making up your own ridiculous stuff. So when you go on to say:

Well Son says “vacuum catastrophe” does not exist, never has. Because a paper points out that it is all imagination. Hopeless..

The term hopeless more appropriately applies to someone who objects to certain conclusions because they appeared in a technical paper (that they haven't read) while ignoring the fact that their own claims also appeared in technical papers (that are nearly a half century old and that in all likelihood they also haven't read).

--Percy

Edited by Percy, : Fix title.

zaius137 writes: I used “hopeless” out of frustration, stepping back I see that was wrong. Thank you for a concise evaluation.

You're welcome, but you didn't answer the implicit question. Why do you imbue papers on the subject from the 1970's with greater validity than more recent papers, especially having read none of them? Don't you have to read the papers before you can assess Son Goku's explanation that the work from 40 years ago used an approximate model that isn't capable of producing an accurate estimate of the cosmological constant, while the paper he cited uses a more accurate model that produces a result consistent with current estimates?

When I poke around on the web on this topic I see some articles that understand that the calculations from the 1970's used an approximate model, others that think the vacuum catastrophe is still a very real problem, and none that seem aware that the problem has been solved as Son Goku claims. Given that the date on the paper (Measurement of the
flavour-specific CP violating asymmetry in decays) is July 11, 2012, it seems that more work is needed to provide confirmation, but nonetheless it does seem to support Son Goku's claim:

quote:

---

In conclusion, our result is the most precise determination to date, and is in agreement with the Standard Model prediction.

---

You're under no obligation to agree, but even those who produced the 1970's results expected that the vacuum catastrophe would resolve under more accurate models, which is what appears to be happening now. If you expect anyone to agree with you that the current work resolves nothing then you'll have to provide some reason, something you have yet to do.

There's a lot in the paper I don't understand, some of it extremely basic. For example, nowhere in the paper do the terms "cosmological constant" or "vacuum energy" appear. I assumed that the symbol is the cosmological constant, but is that correct?

Also, on page 13 near the bottom the paper simply states the predicted values of the Standard Model, and it was at this point I realized the paper doesn't actually present the calculation for this value. This value was actually calculated elsewhere, and this paper just presents it. I think what this paper may actually be reporting is a more accurate measurement of the cosmological constant, which they then compare with this already calculated prediction of the Standard Model (the reference provided is Theoretical update of B-Mixing and Lifetimes). Son Goku will have to confirm, since I'm totally out of my element on this subject.

--Percy

Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

zaius137 writes: I gave it my best shot from my understanding… now you can give me a good reason for that reconciliation.

Are you asking why Son Goku is claiming that the prior 120 orders of magnitude error is now thought resolved? If so, that explanation has been offered many times and hasn't changed. The error identified in the 1970's used a naive model. Use of a more accurate model, as set forth in the 2012 paper Measurement of the flavour-specific CP violating asymmetry in decays resolved the discrepancy. We're still trying to understand how you can reasonably reject the paper without reading it. If someone were to ask me, "Why does Zaius reject the 2012 paper?" I'd be at a loss for what to say. You yourself seem at no loss for something to say, but your reasoning isn't yet apparent to anyone.

I might remind you at this time, that the subject of this thread contends against the formation of black holes from supernova.

Please recall this from Son Goku's Message 14:

quote:

---

The authors of this paper went further with the analysis of one aspect of stellar collapse with quantum matter than previous papers. They very accurately modeled the vacuum back-reaction. This is where a stream of particles are created from nothing due to the stars distortion of spacetime changing the definition of "empty"*. These extra particles seem to halt the collapse, although I know that there are approximations in the authors' calculations that others have questioned, so their paper isn't conclusive. Also note that they only accurately modeled one aspect of quantum matter (the vacuum back-reaction).

---

Son Goku says the study's approximations and focus on only one quantum aspect means the paper isn't conclusive, but it must be said that the authors' conclusions (beginning at the bottom of page 6) express no doubts, concluding thusly:

Paper's authors writes: The star never crosses its horizon, so neither unitarity nor causality are violated, thereby solving the longstanding information loss paradox. This investigation shows that universally collapsing stars bounce into an expanding phase and probably blow up, instead of collapsing to a black hole. Thus 'fireworks' should replace 'firewalls'.

--Percy

zaius137 writes: Ultimately, if you buy that black holes don’t exist from star collapse, that is the used Edsel at the back of the car lot… Good luck with that.

With your usual imprecision you again seem to be implying something not supported by the evidence, that the consequences for cosmology are embarrassing if the conclusions of the Mersini-Houghton/Pfeier paper are upheld and we learn that black holes don't form after a supernova such as this one (SN 1604, Kepler's Supernova):

The paper implies that very dense matter doesn't just slip quietly into a black hole, that it fights like hell through quantum effects.

You have an exceedingly odd view of scientific discovery, as if discovering something new in science were a problem. You ran on through pages and pages of this thread about a 120 orders of magnitude discrepancy in an old vacuum energy calculation as if it were an embarrassment for cosmology that potentially called the whole field into question (you weren't actually specific about anything, but you made it clear it was very bad), then when it was shown to be reconciled you ran on about how suspicious that was, and now you're running on about this black hole calculation. For you, it seems, scientific puzzles and scientific discovery are awkward and embarrassing developments. You seem to believe that scientists should be mortified when they discover something new, especially if it doesn't fit well with current science.

The reality is that scientific puzzles focus the attention of researchers, and this leads to new discoveries and new science that move science forward. This is what has happened and is happening after the discovery of an accelerating expansion of the universe and of the Higgs, and this potential discovery about black holes, if upheld, will do the same.

--Percy