Black Holes Do Not Exist, claims Mersini-Houghton

Steve, I am taking my response to the Ripping Einstein Apart section as it may be inappropriate and a distraction here.

Akinbo

Akinbo,

I think of analog and digital as a dichotomy. There is quantization and distinction inherent in everything and when your paradigm is measurement, it is these characteristics which provide the points of focus. Then there is the fact that all these parts fit and flow together. Consider the uncertainty principle, where one set of measurements necessarily obscures others, is it causes change, ie. flow.

In fact I suspect a lot of what we think of as digital are more like phase transitions, spectrum changes, flow quantifications, such as the loading theory of light etc, where it is analog, but interactions create distinctions.

As such, I only prefer analog because digital has become such a public mind set, so I take the other direction. As it is, I like trying to make conceptual connections where others might have missed them.

As for movement, what I'm trying to do is to distinguish between time and space, because it has become so politically correct to mash them together. We do move in space, which creates change and time is an effect and measure of that change. The problem is that what we measure is only the most discrete changes, because anything above that becomes chaotic, noisy and fuzzy. Which goes to another aspect of these discussions, about how there is no preferred frame and information is a function of distilling a particular action/signal from all the others. In a sense then, omniscience is an oxymoron. The more information you have, the more noise and "uncertainty" you have. The way of comprehending masses of information is to consider ever broader implications, ie. to generalize. The ultimate state of the absolute, is where everything fully cancels out to complete neutrality. The absolute is basis, not apex.

Regards,

John M

J. B. Merryman said:

"In a sense then, the past is being canceled, while the future doesn't exist. Think of the process as cyclical, in that it's like a three dimensional tapestry being woven from threads being pulled out of what had already been woven.

Hope this isn't more confusing."

I don't think we need have any doubt that, regardless of 'dilation' or velocity or voyeuristic twins....that every instant of the universe is a brand new and unique creation event for you and for me, and that the past exists only in the memory of we conscious participants. Not to imply that the world was made for US - just the opposite -- that our mental faculties are modeled on, and a subset of, that woven tapestry.

"Then consider that the sequential side is a narrative effect of our individual movement. As such a navigational tool. Which would explain why plants don't need one. They simply absorb energy to expand and shed material."

From the moment I discovered that SPONGES, one of the earliest and simplest animal ancestors of all earth-life, contained the genetic scaffolding necessary to build a neural network, I've been convinced that consciousness and physics could never be explained separately. Life exploits every facet of physics: the camera eye can detect a single photon at a hundred yards; bio-luminescence, photosynthesis, sonar...every physical advantage is explored..... but the hardware necessary to store past information (memory)and then to imagine a future that has not arrived, though a distinctly human advantage, are the very same tools that were there at the very beginning - before sight, before smell, before even a central nervous system that could employ them. To consider this pre-adaptive teleology a fortuitous accident - is modern politically-correct blindness.

"...but we are our brains and we see things in the forms we have educated them in. Never dismiss your own perspective."

'Course not. Nor should I dismiss the topic: I heard a recent story describing the 2-D surface area of a black hole as if it could display all of the information contained within....sort of like a hologram. Then my uneducated imagination transformed the old luminiferous aether into virtual pixels. And matter in constant motion (energy) is complex information transferred pixel to pixel. And so every time I hear you describe Time...I see snapshots moving.

Again, I pray that I'm not wasting anyone's patience.

here is the link, if the text box fails... http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0000506

Lyle,

"that every instant of the universe is a brand new and unique creation event for you and for me, and that the past exists only in the memory of we conscious participants."

Yet it emerges from the shell of the previous moment. It has physical memory, as structure is sustained. What I see is that energy and information are a dichotomy and so as long as the energy maintains form, it exists and as we know from Moore's Law, that lots of information is contained in minute quantities of energy. Whether it is in our minds, star light that has traveled for billions of years, or everything from rocks to cultures on this planet, the energy has some form and is constantly rearranging it. So there is a relationship of energy constantly pressing outward, as form draws inward. Like radiation expanding and mass contracting, or youth pushing out, as age presses in. So energy moves toward the future, as form moves toward the past. The most generalized expression of this being where it becomes most evident, that of galaxies, as mass falls inward, while energy radiates outward.

The question then becomes how does this manifest and define biology and consciousness?

Essentially consciousness relates to how the energy functions, in that it is what is present and always pushing forward. Meanwhile thoughts are the forms it takes and either we are constantly generating new thoughts and shedding the old like breaths of air being expelled, or we are obsessing over particular ideas and constantly pushing them onward, like fuel pushing a rocket. Or, for most of us, somewhere in between.

Biology expresses itself by constantly moving onto new generations and shedding the old, as these forms are born, expand, stabilize and are propelled onward, until they too wear out and fade into the past.

Now it is assumed in scientific circles that consciousness must have arisen from material processes, yet does that reductionism apply, or is it the other way around? Does it make more sense to think of the basic element of consciousness as the seed of life and we are simply a concentrated, distilled and complex form of it? Not like we fully understand matter either.

It's not simply that the basis of neurological systems can be found in the most elemental organisms, as that is a top down view, but that our form of awareness is a complex expression of basic principles. Consider that we have a central nervous system to process form/information and digestive, respiratory of circulatory systems to process energy, so that dichotomy is elemental and a sponge would have some inherent need to relate on an informational level with its surroundings. Meanwhile our brain is divided into two hemispheres and I would argue the left, rational, linear side equates to a clock, while the right, emotional, intuitional, parallel processor is a scalar function, like a thermostat or pressure gauge. Thus we can both coordinate our internal environment with the external one and navigate an individual, linear path through it. Obviously non-mobile organisms have much less need for the linear function, but are very developed in the thermodynamic functions and are constantly probing their environments and processing the feedback, much as we do intellectually. Looking at everything from current cosmology to current economics and how we treat the environment, overall intelligence is not necessarily a given, from mere complexity.

As it is our concentration of attention creates these conceptual entities, but quickly overlooks any issues with their foundations and builds cultures around them, much as gravity concentrates to the most central point. Thus cultural belief systems from monotheistic religions to Big Bang Theory quickly gain adherents and resist questioning.

To paraphrase DesCartes, I am, therefore I think.

Regards,

John M

This thread wanes, but still there is one more note. The Schrödinger metric mentioned prior provides not only spiral a real decay solution outside of the event horizon, but also a periodic solution inside of the event horizon.

The matter-time boson star-eternally collapsing object, BSeco, yields periodic solutions that have very interesting consequences. First of all, the fundamental energy is mp/alpha, which is 128.5 GeV/c2, very close to the Higg's boson energy, 125 GeV/c2. That's cool.

This means that the Higg's energy could actually be a BSeco mode since He-4 is 3.7 GeV, the Higg's mode would be mp / alpha minus He-4. So that would mean that the Higg's energy should show up in the black hole gamma ray spectrum.

Sure enough, the measured Milky Way gamma spectrum cuts off in the range 100-130 GeV, which is same resonance observed in the Hadron collider for proton-proton collisions at 7 GeV total energy.

This suggests that the Hadron collider has indeed found evidence for a terrestrial "black hole". Moreover, gamma ray spectra from galaxy AGN's show evidence of the hydrogen they consume. Way cool...

May I add this recent science news on ECO in Daily Galaxy:

November 02, 2014

Black Holes are Actually "Eternally Collapsing Objects" --Indian Physicist Refutes Hawking

Regards

Abhas

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2014/11/black-holes-are-actually-eternally-collapsing-objects-indian-physicist-refutes-hawking.html

Thank you!

Regards,

JJD

Abhas,

Very interesting. Unfortunately there is the politics of physics, but there is also the physics of politics. Given the field seems to be circling around a particular model, which is seeming to be inexorably collapsing in on itself and only those already at the center of attention are going to attract attention, those further away from the center need to function accordingly and take the broader view of what truly is valid observational phenomena and what are the increasingly baroque theories drawn from it and the various subconscious assumptions long buried in the conceptual tools and framework.

One would think that in the not too distant future, there will be sufficient dissident voices in cosmology, physics and the related fields, to start a blank slate symposium, in which literally every idea, from spacetime to multiverses can be objectively held up and examined, no matter how much credibility they hold and not have participants reputation and credibility be threatened for skeptically examining the canon.

As someone with both the knowledge and history to sense what a circus it has become, it might be one of those back of the mind ideas to test among colleagues and see if there might not be some as yet unspoken agreement on such a move.

Regards,

John M

Perhaps John,

It is time for the Alternative Cosmology Group to convene another Crisis in Cosmology Conference. CCC-2 was very much like what you describe.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Jonathan,

It will start getting more attention, the more the establishment fusses over multiverses.

If I recall correctly the first one was out in Seattle, about four years ago? I submitted my observations about time as an argument against spacetime being physical, but didn't get any response. I'm pretty much resigned to being on the crackpot fringe, but it's an interesting topic to follow and comment on.

Regards,

John M

Eckard,

I recall we came to some agreement on the nature of space, that it is not reducible to geometry, but I'm not sure you offered any comments on my ramblings about time. Here is a brief synopsis, drawn from an earlier discussion:

"That as individual beings, we experience change as a sequence of events and so think of time as the point of the present moving from past to future, yet the underlaying reality is that change is forming and dissolving these events, such that it is they which go future to past.

Not only is narrative and causal logic based on this sequencing effect and therefore history and civilization, but physics codifies it by reducing time to measures of duration between events. Now duration does not exist outside the present, but is simply the state of the present, as these markers form and dissolve.

There are various philosophical debates around this issue, such as free will vs. determinism, yet if we look at it as future becoming past, it makes more sense, as probability precedes actuality. Given that information can only travel at the speed of light, all input into any event can only arrive with the occurance of that event and cannot be fully predicted prior to it. As well as the manifesting energy quickly dispersing after the event, necessarily to inform further events.

Meanwhile physicists are either convinced the future already exists on some blocktime dimension and is as determined as the past, or that the probabilities never collapse and reality branches out into multiworlds with every quantum probability.

The science does recognize that clocks can beat at different rates in different physical conditions, but than assembles spacetime to explain why. If we were to think of time as simply a measure of action, it would be no mystery why clocks beat at different rates, because they are different actions and every action is its own clock.

As an effect of action, this would make time more like temperature, than space. Time is to temperature, what frequency is to amplitude. It is just that while amplitude en mass expresses as temperature, frequency en mass expresses as noise and thus from a physicist's point of view, chaos and disorder. Therefore to measure time, only one oscillation is isolated and its frequency measured. Yet the overall effect of change is still cumulative of all such actions, like temperature.

With time as an effect of action, we don't have to reject the present as a state of simultaneity, nor dismiss its inherent asymmetry, since the inertia of action is not bipolar.

Regards,

John M

Actually John,

The first Crisis in Cosmology Conference was in Portugal, and CCC-2 was in Port Angeles, which is near Seattle. I'll leave the nature of time question aside for now, because I have way too much to add. Some of it is supportive of your views, but most of it is not germane to the topic of this thread. However; I would recommend you examine the work of Reginald Cahill on Process Physics, which features a dynamical view of time, to look for points of agreement and differences - because that illustrates how changing our view of time influences physical law.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Jonathan,

Thank you for the suggestion. I googled up some references and it certainly looks promising.

"The key idea is that a truly bootstrapped model of reality must self-consistently bootstrap logic itself, as well as the laws of physics. Further, only by constraining our modelling to such a complete bootstrap do we believe we can arrive at complete comprehension of the nature of reality."

Although;

"Aside from 3-space and objectification, another emergent effect expected of HPS is the experience of a "contingent present moment" as distinct from a "recordable past" and an "unknowable future"--that is the irreversible time of our experience. In this regard, Cahill and Klinger inform us that "(experiential) time is only predicted in this model if there is an emergent ordered sequencing of events at the level of universality, i.e. above the details which are purely incidental to any particular realisation." Since, as we have seen above, there is only suggestive evidence of a fractal nature of the 3-space generated and therefore inconclusive evidence of SOC to afford appeal to universality, it really cannot be concluded that the HPS model has generated definitive evidence of irreversible time emerging."

It does seem that he is still trying to impose a top down universal vector on what he is actually describing as that bottom up process by which potential becomes actual, then residual.

Also he seems to still see space as emergent, which isn't necessary, since it can still be defined as the non-physical and thus negating need for cause, "universal" properties of infinity and equilibrium, distinct from the matter and energy filling it.

So time can truly be described as being bootstrapped into existence and space doesn't need to be.

As for time not really being part of this particular thread, I would argue the direction of time for mass and structure is falling inward and to the past, while energy is radiating outward and on to new forms, ie. the future. The result being an aspect of that convection cycle of expanding energy and contracting mass, that I think the particular observation on which this thread is based, is eventually pointed toward.

Regards,

John M

John M,

I did perhaps mistake you as having "submitted [to CCC-2 ?] observations about time as an argument against spacetime being physical". Nonetheless thank you for the new synopsis of your probable-actual-residual idea.

Eckard

Eckard,

Thank you.

I seems obvious when formulated like that, but that's just not how our minds function, as we distill out sequences of thoughts and then try to rationalize some order from them. For one thing, we much prefer thinking of the past as we experienced it, not as the physical residue and ethereal imaginings that it has become. The fact is that information is not all saved. It is constantly being erased in order for the energy to create new form.

Something to consider is that in ancient Egypt, geometry and religion arose as opposite sides of the same coin, as efforts to describe and explain cosmic order. While those initial impulses then went quite different directions, I see the same impulse in current physics, where it is decreed that the mathematical descriptions of relativity are inseparable from the explanation of physical spacetime and anyone questioning this is beyond the pale.

Such is life.

Regards,

John M

Except for their extremely large matter-content, black holes are like any other macro body. All mysterious properties assigned to them are mere human imagination.Kindly see http://vixra.org/abs/1310.0195

Nainan

ARE BLACK HOLES REALLY SO WEIRD?

Black Holes have a certain aura about them. They are associated, in the minds of the general populace, with a certain mystique or ultra-mystery about them - terrifying objects that gobble up everything within range - the ultimate devourer, doomsday machine, berserker and weapon of mass destruction (if you could figure out how to manipulate one of course) all rolled into one. But Black Holes have other aspects about them that are equally fascinating, and not really all that weird, though some bits are weirder than others. But you don't have to be a geek to come to terms with these concepts.

The aura of the Black Hole, even if not quite as dramatic as a doomsday device, is hardly less within the astronomical community, to quantum physicists, or relativists (scientists who special in general and/or special relativity). Though there's little doubt today of their actual existence, a logical consequence of Einstein's theories of relativity, Einstein himself refused to give credence to them. The well-ordered universe just wouldn't actually create such monstrosities he believed. He wasn't alone in that point of view, and as their theoretical certainty became ever stronger, scientists tried to find ever more unique ways to prevent them from forming - to no avail.

But are Black Holes really as strange and mysterious and deserving of their aura and status as unique astronomical objects?

Black Holes may have no hair, which is to say they lack the individuality of whatever formed them so if you've 'seen' one Black Hole you've 'seen' them all. Translated, a Black Hole made out of rusted automobiles will 'look' the same as one made out of star-stuff, as one made out of pure gold, silver and diamonds. But Black Holes do have (or could have) certain properties. All Black Holes most certainly have mass and therefore gravity; they certainly have size (a volume, an area, a circumference, etc.); they certainly have a shape (spherical). Black Holes (against all intuitive prediction) have a temperature (Hawking radiation). They can have spin (rotation), and they may have an overall electric charge. So what's unique about that?

The property we most associate with Black Holes is gravity, a function of mass - the more mass, the more gravity. Associated with that concept is escape velocity - how fast do you need to go to escape an object's gravity well never to return.

Now our moon has gravity and an associated escape velocity. Planet Earth has greater gravity and therefore a higher escape velocity (about seven miles per second). Planet Jupiter has an even greater gravitational field and thus you need even more oomph to escape. Our sun is another notch higher up, and so it goes. Keeping in mind that gravity is related not to something's size, but to its mass, a White Dwarf star, while smaller than our sun, has greater gravity and therefore escape velocity. Then comes Neutron Stars (pulsars) and you really need some rocket power to get away from those babies!

However, there is a limit to velocity, escape or otherwise. That limit is the speed of light, or about 186,000 miles per second (roughly 300,000 kilometres/second). So what happens when there is so much mass, or so much gravity, that the escape velocity exceeds that of 186,000 miles per second? The quick answer is nothing - you can't escape; nothing can escape - not even light. That's pretty straight forward and you don't even need a course in relativity to figure it out! The absence of light is darkness, so any object that has an escape velocity greater than that of light will be dark - in other words, a Black Hole. The only difference twixt a Black Hole and any other macro object is that a Black Hole's escape velocity exceeds that of light. That's it; end of differences.

If you can't see a Black Hole, how could you know they actually (as opposed to theoretically) exist? Simple - Black Holes have gravity, and the gravity of Black Holes can influence matter we can see. So, if you see a star going too and fro in orbit around something you can't see, then that something is probably a Black Hole. Matter (interstellar dust and gas) spiralling into, but just prior to entering a Black Hole can also give off a tell-tale electromagnetic signature.

Because of such intense gravity, individuality is squeezed out. Planet Earth has highs (mountain peaks) and lows (ocean troughs) and a slight equatorial bulge, but if it's size were reduced (while retaining mass) to the extent that her gravity created a greater-than-light escape velocity, then Planet Earth would become a perfect sphere of super dense crushed matter. No peaks, no troughs, no bulge - no personality, or no hair!

Now objects tend to have a surface - an inside and an outside. In the case of Planet Earth, let's call beneath the crust Earth's inside; above the crust Earth's exterior. The same goes for Black Holes. The inside centre of a Black Hole is called a singularity. The 'surface' of a Black Hole is called the event horizon - it's the purely mathematical line where the escape velocity goes from faster than light speed (event horizon and below) to a permitted escape velocity (event horizon and above). Earth's usually quoted escape velocity is given to be at Earth's solid surface or sea level. But even sat 100 miles above, there's still as escape velocity, it's just less than 100 miles further down. In like style, a Black Hole's escape velocity decreases from the singularity outwards, but doesn't become permissible (less than light speed) until the altitude of the event horizon is reached. Thus one can not see anything, any events that are below this mathematical event horizon because anything below can't get out, including light. Finally, the distance between the singularity and the event horizon varies depending on the mass of the Black Hole.

It's what's below the event horizon that's really of interest given that it can't be seen; no information escapes to inform us or give us any real clues of the conditions beneath. One has to rely on physics' theoretical equations to predict conditions - conditions that really can't be verified by any direct observation.

Unfortunately, these equations, the equations of general relativity, break down when one approaches the singularity. That's because in order to come to terms with what a singularity is like, one has to merge general relativity (gravity) with quantum physics (because the singularity is thought to be of a size within the realm of quantum phenomena), or produce a theory of quantum gravity. Alas, that has yet to be accomplished. So, understanding the physics inside a Black Hole is one of Mother Nature's final frontiers!

For example, taken to their logical conclusions, physics' equations (general relativity) dictate that a singularity must have zero volume and infinite density. Physicists are well aware that whenever 'infinities' pop up in their musings, something's wrong and they need to go back to the drawing board (blackboard?) and refine things to a greater or lesser extent. Hopefully, a theory of quantum gravity will do that, but for the here and now, you'll find texts which state that a singularity has zero volume and infinite density. That's clearly a nonsense, for if one had infinity density, one must have infinite gravity as the greater the density an object has, the greater its gravitational attraction. Now even though gravity dilutes as it spreads throughout space and away from the object of its affection, any dilution of infinity is still infinity. Since Black Holes and associated singularities are thought to be common in the observable universe, there should be at least one that's had time since the Big Bang to project its gravitational influence onto us - say the massive Black Hole singularity at the centre of our Milky Way Galaxy, less than 50,000 light years away. Quite obviously we're not being subjected to an infinite gravitational attraction towards our galactic centre, which tends to put the kibosh on, and confirms the breakdown as to what the equations predict for a Black Hole's singularity.

So, if a Black Hole's singularity doesn't have zero volume and therefore infinite density, then it must clearly have a finite volume and a finite density which has implications for the origin of our Universe since conventional wisdom associates the Big Bang event with a singularity (and if there were to ever be a Big Crunch event, that would have to end up as a singularity).

The logic goes something like this. A singularity must have a finite density because having an infinite density is ridiculous. A singularity must have a finite volume because any object that has mass can't be dimensionless - that too would be ridiculous - and Black Holes certainly have mass since they have gravity. If the Black Hole continues to grow, then the singularity continues to add mass to it, and its density increases. But, eventually the density reaches some sort of maximum possible - it's finite after all and can't become infinite. So as matter continues to be added to the singularity, the volume or size of the singularity must grow - and grow - and grow - and grow. Eventually, the volume of the singularity must be such that it falls outside of the realm of quantum physics. Translated, in other words, not only is a singularity of greater than zero volume, it may not even be tiny. It could be massive - stellar sized; even galactic sized! That then does away with the absurdity that our entire universe started out as something less than atomic sized something akin to a tiny pinprick!

Now the other interesting thing is that gravity probably isn't really a force like electromagnetism or the strong and weak nuclear forces and shouldn't be lumped in with them (which physics texts do). Rather, gravity, according to general relativity, is rather a manifestation of space-time geometry. As the saying goes, 'matter (gravity) tells space-time how to bend; bent space-time tells matter how to move'. That movement we interpret as gravity.

So, space-time near, around or in a Black Hole is about as bent, or warped, as you can get, or conversely, the local geometry is so extreme or curved that not even light can get beyond the Black Hole's event horizon. The geometry creates a sort of well, so deep and so steep, that the velocity needed to escape is greater than special relativity allows. [Special relativity covers the speed of light; general relativity deals with gravity and space-time.]

What does the extreme warping of space-time mean - apart from making the Black Hole, black? Well, presumably if you distort space-time sufficiently, then you, in theory, can make short-cuts through space and/or time.

Let's have an analogy. Say you take a balloon and mark out a North and South Pole on the surface. The distance between the two is either half the circumference of the balloon (if you go via the surface or normal space), or the diameter (if you tunnel through, call that hyperspace). Now squeeze the balloon such that the North and South Poles are forced close together; maybe even touching. While this doesn't help reduce the travelling distance if you stay on the surface (normal space), the tunnelling (hyperspace) distance in the now warped balloon is vastly reduced. If it took you a year say to tunnel from North to South in the standard balloon, then post warping it might take you only a week (or less). In fact, if the Poles were squeezed into direct contact, then you could travel via normal space from one to the other instantaneously - no need for hyperspace. Of course if you actually wished to travel from some other point on the balloon's surface to some other point, the squeezing might not do you much good. In fact, the East - West distance has increased! So, the odds that the warping will be just right for your travel needs could be highly problematical. A local Black Hole warping that favours you travelling to Sirius quick smart is of little consequence if you wish to actually go to Alpha Centauri. But then as some old wise sage said, 'life wasn't meant to be easy'!

Now since space and time are intractably connected, points in time, like points in space, can be squeezed closer together. So the North and South Pole bits could easily have been a past and a future. Actually, because it's really space-time, you probably have a combination of both. You don't travel from 2000 AD Adelaide to 2000 AD Sydney in the wink of an eye; nor from 2000 AD Adelaide to 3000 AD Adelaide in that same wink, rather from (say) 2000 AD Adelaide to 3000 AD Sydney in an eye blink.

I've seen speculation that a Black Hole could warp space-time so greatly that it could 'pinch' itself off from our Universe and disappear entirely. Of course if it did so it could no longer have any influence within our cosmos. However, if something as massive as the Black Hole at the centre of our Milky Way Galaxy isn't enough to pinch space-time sufficiently to disappear, then perhaps it just doesn't happen - or maybe it takes the mass of an entire universe to do it. Say one universe's Big Crunch's mother of all Black Holes plus singularity warps space-time so much that it becomes another universe's Big Bang!

Now the common perception about Black Holes is that nothing gets out past the event horizon once it finds itself beneath it. That's not quite the case. In theory, as discovered by cosmologist/physicist Stephen Hawking, radiation can escape - sort of - and this radiation is now called Hawking radiation. Macro objects, objects we associate with classical physics, can not get from inside an event horizon to outside an event horizon without travelling faster than the speed of light, which unfortunately, should you find yourself below and event horizon, is the ultimate cosmic speed limit. There's no 'get out of jail' card. Travelling faster than light speed is not allowed.

But, any elementary particles, in the micro size realm and subject to quantum phenomena, can escape - again in theory; this hasn't be verified by direct observation (which is currently in the too hard basket). It you are a fundamental particle, just below the event horizon, you might, just might, due to quantum fluctuations or jitters / the vacuum energy / the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, quantum tunnel your way, the tiniest fraction of a distance imaginable, past the mathematical event horizon boundary, to outside and potential freedom. Of course most particles might get sucked right back in again, but a tiny fraction gets away, carrying with it energy (thus the Black Hole has a temperature) and therefore mass, so the Black Hole loses a bit of mass and shrinks a bit. This quantum tunnelling, crossing an energy barrier without having in theory sufficient energy to do so, is sort of like how a radioactive atom goes 'poof' and decays to a more stable state. Something in the nucleus, not having enough energy to break out, nevertheless quantum tunnels its way out - 'poof'.

Very much like a human being, from the very moment a Black Hole is born, say out of the gravitational collapse of a super-massive star that's run out of nuclear fuel and stellar puff, it will start to die, to evaporate via Hawking radiation. However, in a Universe still very much dominated by matter and energy (including the all pervasive cosmic microwave background radiation), way more stuff finds its way into a Black Hole than gets out - by many orders of magnitude. For every bit (particle) that escapes, millions of bits (particles) get trapped inside. But (and here I assume an ever expanding Universe that never results in a Big Crunch), what happens when all the available matter and energy (all those particle bits) has been consumed and Black Holes can't grow any more (and here I assume that individual Black Holes are so far apart and expanding away from each other that they don't consume each other). Then, evaporation - Hawking radiation output - exceeds input, and slowly, ever so slowly, and I do mean extremely slowly (as in measured over trillions of years), Black Holes get smaller and smaller until there's nothing left. But our now ever more vastly expanded and immensely larger than it currently is Universe is filled (albeit to a much rarefied extent) with just particles - particles adrift in the eternal cold of near absolute zero temperature (zero degrees Kelvin, the absolute theoretical minimum temperature possible).

However, the ultimate death of Black Holes has posed a significant problem to some physicists, causing quite a bit of controversy in the process.

What happens to the information content that a Black Hole can gobble up? Say you toss a book, or a CD, or a fully loaded human brain into a Black Hole. Is the information contained in that book (or whatever) lost to the Universe forever? [Perhaps given the state of information overload we suffer from that might be a blessing!]

You can not have macro stuff spew out of a Black Hole without violating basic physics. Macro stuff, say in the form of a book or a CD or a human, stuff full of information, falls in - that identical macro stuff, stuff full of information, does not, can not, come back out again. It is not only an improbable event, but an impossible one and a violation of the law of physics. But we have seen that in theory at least, Hawking radiation can get back out, because radiation isn't macro, its micro, or in the realm of the quantum.

Note that it wasn't Hawking radiation that was tossed into the Black Hole in the first place, but a book or CD or a human being or a whatever macro object, so escaping Hawking radiation isn't that book or that CD or that whatever, but a bit of this and a bit of that and there's no way of distinguishing the this from the that. Though there is apparently no way to reassemble the bits into all its separate meaningful messages; one-on-one, all the bits are nevertheless there.

If you were somehow able to reassemble bits of Hawking radiation emitted from all the bits and pieces which the Black Hole swallowed - which can escape - into a meaningful message(s), how would you know that message was something part and parcel of some information that went down the Black Hole gurgler in the first place? You're more likely to have assembled one letter from one book, another letter from another book, yet a third letter from a third book, etc. The information (say sentence) you have assembled never entered the Black Hole in that form at all!

Still, a Black Hole, in theory, eventually spews out all the information it absorbed over its existence, ultimately via Hawking radiation. Some scientists insist there is, there must be, a way to reassemble the bits into all its separate meaningful messages; one-on-one.

So therein lies the controversy - macro stuff does go in; macro stuff does come out. Macro stuff ultimately escapes as micro stuff - Hawking radiation. Some scientists will say you can't in theory reassemble and separate out the signal from the noise; others say you can, in fact it must be possible.

As indicated above, some physicists make a big deal over the loss of information via a Black Hole relative to any other way - probably because of the non-reversibility factor already described. Methinks personally it's a non-event. Why? The fundamental question this all boils down to be that information - in any form - is a composite of elementary particles. A book, or a CD, or Morse code ink drops, or a human brain is a composite of particles. An electron, all on its own, isn't telling you very much (for that matter, either is any individual letter in a book - by itself). Loss of information seems to be another example of dust-to-dust, ashes-to-ashes; only it's a more fundamental case of elementary particles to elementary particles. It's how the Universe began and its how the Universe will end up if the current observational astronomical trends continue into the indefinite future.

There's one other solution to the 'is information lost forever or is it not' paradox. It's considered a possibility that a Black Hole, because is so distorts time and space - in the extreme - ultimately buds off from our Universe and starts or enters another universe, or a baby universe (part of a Multiverse). In such a case, any information is budded off with it and lost to our Universe forever. Of course our loss is the other universe's gain; maybe a Black Hole(s) in some other universe has dumped its information load (or overload) onto our Universe!

There's one further spin-off from the Black Holes make baby universes idea. In a Multiverse, different universes may have different laws of physics. There's no reason why the laws of physics in our Universe need be identical in another universe. Thus, there might be some universes where the local physics favour the formation of Black Holes, and some universes where local physics can't make Black Holes. Those universes that can easily make Black Holes will 'breed' and produce baby universes. Those universes that can't readily make Black Holes will 'breed' less. Those universes that can't produce Black Holes will be sterile. Do you see the connection with Darwinian ideas? Some universes are more 'fit' to reproduce than others!

Now that's weird! There's one other bit of weirdness I like about Black Holes, and that is that what's inside them may well be a new form of matter. Ordinary matter goes into a Black Hole, but the conditions inside them are so extreme that there's some sort of phase transition (like when ice goes to water goes to steam or vice-versa) and while it's still matter, it's matter but not as we know it. The theoretical evidence for that idea is that if you have a matter star, and an antimatter star, and you introduce them to each other, what you get is one almighty Ka-Boom! But, if your matter star compresses into a Black Hole, and your antimatter star compresses into a Black Hole, and you combine the two, what you get is just a larger Black Hole!

Some more weirdness: It's suggested that information going into a Black Hole is actually 'stored' in the event horizon, that two dimensional 'surface' marking the point of no return that surrounds the Black Hole's singularity - whatever that actually is. The event horizon concept isn't difficult to envision - Earth's crust and oceans are a two dimensional surface surrounding the spherical three dimensional planet.

Now as more and more stuff enters a Black Hole, the event horizon expands accordingly - obviously - just like our crust (area) would get bigger if Earth's volume increased. The event horizon is also the area where Hawking radiation is emitted from.

Now say you are inside a Black Hole's event horizon - that's the wrong side to be on, but this is just a thought experiment and I'll assume you haven't been crushed into a tiny pinprick of stuff, stuff that could equally be rusted automobiles or stuff formally made from gold, silver and diamonds. There's lots of trapped radiation (photons) in there with you because light can enter a Black Hole. Those photons can struggle up, losing energy with each unit of distance gained, to reach the event horizon, but no farther. Their energy has exhausted itself. I gather they can just barely touch and 'reflect' off the underside of the event horizon and come back down again (in a direction towards the singularity), picking up the energy again that they expended in their futile gesture of escape. So, you, being also beneath the event horizon can see the event horizon from the inside via these trapped photons. You can also see beyond the event horizon via new photons entering the Black Hole from outside the event horizon - photons that will join their trapped or prisoner kin. It's like a half-way mirror. If you are inside a Black Hole, you can see out, because light can pass through the Black Hole's event horizon to you, but people on the good side or outside of the event horizon can't see you because light reflecting off you can't make it past that event horizon barrier.

One further question, could we actually be living within a Black Hole, or translated, is our Universe actually a Black Hole? Now one could (and people have) suggested that one could consider the entire Universe as being the inside of a Black Hole - after all, nothing can escape from the Universe. Well, if you can't escape from inside a Black Hole, and assuming there's no escape from our Universe (you are trapped in this Universe, like it or lump it), then a rose by any other name...

However, our Universe doesn't exactly mirror a real Black Hole unless there is an outside to our Universe - a beyond the boundary or horizon that allows stuff to get into our Universe, our Universe ultimately trapping it.

So, Black Holes residing inside a Black Hole Universe, which maybe residing inside...

Russian dolls within Russian dolls within Russian dolls within Russian dolls.

Saving the best for last, could you become a Black Hole? Well, the short answer is presumably, 'yes'. The reasoning goes as follows. If you travel at ever increasing velocities, under special relativity, your mass gets correspondingly greater and greater, and your length gets shorter and shorter. Translated, your density gets greater and greater; your own gravity gets higher and higher. At light speed (impossible to achieve), your mass would be infinite; your volume zero; your density and gravity infinite. Well, that's not on. But, before even approaching that limit, your mass would be theoretically great enough; your volume low enough, your density and gravity great enough, that you'd warp space-time sufficiently enough to turn into a Black Hole! As noted above, what actually comprises a Black Hole is irrelevant. Any stuff will do - gold, silver and diamonds; rusted automobiles; or flesh-and-blood (i.e. - you).

Here are a few further recommended readings:

Begelman, Mitchell & Rees, Martin; Gravity's Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe; [2nd Edition]; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 2010:

Susskind, Leonard; The Black Hole War: My Battle With Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics; Back Bay Books, New York; 2008:

Thorne, Kip S.; Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy; W.W. Norton & Company, New York; 1994:

CAN BLACK HOLES EVAPORATE?

While there is a constant transfer of matter and radiant electromagnetic energy (photons) between bodies throughout the cosmos, there are sinks, ultimate final resting places where matter/energy can retire to and be removed from the rest of the cosmos. These cosmic sinks are Black Holes. But is that retirement permanent, or can stuff re-enter the cosmic workforce? Can Black Holes evaporate? The theoretical short answer is "yes"; the long answer is "no".

Black Holes are astrophysical objects that are so massive, that have gravity so high, that their escape velocity (some seven miles per second on Earth) exceeds the ultimate cosmic speed limit - the speed of light (186,000 miles per second). Since nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, nothing (matter and/or energy) once inside a Black Hole can ever get out again - or so the seemingly ironclad logic went.

However, that's all according to classical physics. A physicist by the name of Jacob Bekenstein came up with the idea of applying quantum physics to Black Holes (upon a suggestion by his mentor John Wheeler - who incidentally coined the phrase "Black Hole"), and once that was done, well lo and behold, Black Holes apparently exhibited entropy, and therefore had a temperature and therefore must radiate and therefore can vomit out stuff. His ideas were mulled over and over again and finally agreed to and expanded on by the celebrated astrophysicist/cosmologist Stephen Hawking. That stuff that a Black Hole can regurgitate now goes under the name of Hawking radiation, or to give credit where credit is due it is technically Bekenstein-Hawking radiation. However, it's usually just called Hawking radiation so I'll stick with that convention.

Of course if Black Holes have a temperature, then they must follow the same laws of thermodynamics as any other object with temperature. One key point in thermodynamics is that energy exchanges between objects are at least partly determined by one object's temperature compared to another object's temperature. The temperature of a hot cup of coffee will stay hot longer the higher the temperature of the environment that surrounds that hot cup of coffee. A Black Hole's temperature must be compared to whatever temperature surrounds the Black Hole when considering the fate of the Black Hole. So how does a Black Hole get temperature?

In retrospect, how this happens is obvious (as are all great ideas when applying hindsight).

There is no such thing as the perfect vacuum. That could only be achieved at a temperature of absolute zero where and when everything is 100% frozen stiff. Alas, such a state violates one of the most fundamental principles of quantum physics - the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle - where it is impossible to know both the momentum and position of anything with 100% precision. If something were at absolute zero, frozen stiff and standing still, you'd know both the momentum (which would be zero) and position (at a standstill) of that something with absolute precision.

Since there is always a minimum state of energy anywhere in the Universe (something above absolute zero), and since energy and mass are equivalent (Einstein's famous formula/equation), then that energy state, the false not-quite-absolute-zero vacuum, the vacuum energy*, can generate mass - virtual particles. However, the particles come in matter-antimatter pairs, which usually immediately annihilate and return to their former pure energy state. BUT, and there is always, a BUT - there's an exception to the rule - that normal state of affairs can be thwarted.

The vacuum energy, that which can generate particle-antiparticle pairs, exists everywhere where existence has any meaning. Part of that existence is an area called the event horizon**, which is a concept related to the concept we call Black Holes. All Black Holes have an event horizon which surrounds them.

The event horizon surrounding a Black Hole is that somewhat fuzzy region that separates the region (below the event horizon) from which gravity rules over the speed of light, and that region (above the event horizon) where gravity's escape velocity can't quite dominate that speed of light velocity. I say its "fuzzy" since it's not razor sharp, albeit nearly so.

The vacuum energy is part and parcel of the space surrounding the event horizon, above, below and spot-on. Now, what if that vacuum energy generates a pair of virtual particles, one each popping into existence above the event horizon; one below the event horizon. Then, the particles will be unable to annihilate and recombine into pure energy. One will stay within the Black Hole. The other, being above the event horizon, can be dealt a 'get out of jail' card. And thus, slowly, ever so slowly, but ever so surely, the Black Hole loses mass, thus energy, and evaporates.

Here's the general picture. Black Holes can only radiate from the event horizon region which, in a very large Black Hole is going to be very cold because it's not radiating very much, so initially only things like the mass-less photon escapes. Assuming there's no incoming to replace the loss, the Black Hole shrinks, and as it gets smaller it warms up slightly (that's what things that shrink tend to do) and can radiate particles with small mass - say neutrinos. When the Black Hole is tiny, it's very warm, in a relative sense, and it can go out with a 'bang', maybe emitting an electron or positron which is way more massive. When there's no more Black Hole, the vacuum energy still produces at random virtual particle pairs, but there's no more event horizon from which to separate those virtual particle pairs and thus its all back to normal - the two annihilate and return to their vacuum energy state. That's where the popular accounts end. End of story. The ultimate fate of Black Holes will be to evaporate via Hawking radiation, even if it does take trillions of years.

Alas, the written texts forget to mention that radiation emission (and other forms of emitted stuff) is a two-way street, not a one-way street. Black Holes can acquire stuff, as well as radiate stuff. If deposits exceed withdrawals, then Black Holes will always have a positive 'stuff' balance and thus won't fully evaporate. Now this is perhaps why Hawking radiation hasn't been observed. The tiny amount of Hawking radiation (outgoing) will be swamped by the greater, many orders of magnitude greater, amounts of incoming radiation and other stuff impacting the Black Hole.

Forget Black Holes (and their massive gravity) for a moment and concentrate on Planet Earth. Even at night, you see lots of suns - stars. You see them because they are radiating photons - particles of electromagnetic energy of which visible light is a small part. In fact you only detect a tiny fraction of visual photons because your visual detection devices (eyes) aren't that efficient. Optical telescopes pick up a lot more of them, but they're still just as real. You are also being hit by photons in the infrared, the ultraviolet, in radio wavelengths, X-ray photons, gamma-ray photons, etc. Though Earth's atmosphere shields us from some of these photons (ultraviolet photons are far greater in number at the top of our atmosphere than at the bottom), you still get impacted by multi-billions of them; Planet Earth many orders of magnitude more. Some of the photons get reflected back into space; these don't add to Earth's energy/mass balance. Overall, there are roughly one billion photons for each and every fundamental particle with mass, like electrons and neutrinos.

Now in addition Earth (and you too) gets hit with cosmic rays, neutrinos, and cosmic dust. Even if you luck out, Planet Earth gets impacted by meteors and other outer space debris, sometimes debris large enough to not only hit the surface but do considerable damage. Planet Earth's mass increases by many tons a day, all due to Earth's sweeping up of the interplanetary dust and small rocks that intersect Earth's orbit. The trillions of neutrinos that hit us are so ghostly that nearly all pass right through you and the entire planet as well despite them having a tiny amount of mass, so as far as our planet is concerned, they are of little significance.

Now what about a Black Hole? Clearly a Black Hole isn't isolated from the rest of the cosmos and objects therein. If you were just outside the event horizon you'd 'see' photons (of all wavelengths) because you'd see stars and galaxies, etc. just like you can locally. Neutrinos would still pass right through you on their way to their doom once passing through the event horizon. The Universe is full of interstellar and intergalactic atoms and molecules and dust and of course lots of larger stuff a Black Hole can snack on. Black Holes will sweep up stuff just like Earth does, only more so since it has more gravity with which to grab hold of stuff with, and also because once caught there's no escape for the cosmic fish. Unlike Earth, everything that crosses that event horizon, that hits the Black Hole, won't be reflected back (like photons). Neutrinos that can pass through light-years worth of solid lead without even 'breathing hard' will be imprisoned when they try that trick in a Black Hole's inner sanctum. And of course atoms, molecules, interstellar dust, the big chunks will also get imprisoned.

But we can imagine an idealized cosmos where all Black Holes have swallowed up all existing radiated particles (photons), all the atoms, molecules, the dust and all the bigger stuff - all those stars and planets; asteroids and comets; even all that mysterious 'dark matter'. So you have a cosmos of just Black Holes and the vacuum energy (well maybe a few bits and pieces escaped, but so few to be of no consequence). Of course there is one further logical extension. Black Holes can swallow other Black Holes. Black Holes can merge to form bigger Black Holes. The final product is that the cosmos consists of one Black Hole - the Mother of all Black Holes - plus the vacuum energy! So you end up with one Black Hole left standing with nothing left to eat.

Okay, so the only scenario now possible is that this Mother of all Black Holes evaporates via Hawking radiation. It might take trillions upon trillions upon trillions of years, but evaporate it does. Since matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, once the Mother of Black Holes has finally gone 'poof', the Universe is right back where it started from - full of stuff from photons to fundamental particles which them undergo chemistry to form atoms and molecules and stars and planets and perhaps life - and new Black Holes!

Perhaps this is a new and improved version of a cyclic/oscillating universe! - But then again, maybe not. There's a fly in that ointment (but I had you going for a while back there!). That "idealized cosmos" was only a 'what if' thought experiment.

Firstly, it's actually very, very unlikely all the Black Holes in the Universe will ever merge together as long as the Universe keeps expanding. Since the galaxies are getting farther and farther away from each other due to that expansion, the collection of Black Holes contained within each galaxy keep getting further and further apart from other clusters of Black Holes contained within other galaxies. It's like the passengers in one car get more and more remote from the passengers in another car when each car is going at different velocities and heading in different directions.

Now the collection of all Black Holes in any one galaxy could well coalesce into one super Black Hole galaxy. You have a galaxy that instead of containing billions and billions of stars and debris and particles now consists of just one Black Hole - the car only has one occupant. You have a pure Black Hole galaxy, or a galactic sized Black Hole.

One might end up with a Universe composed of just these pure Black Hole galaxies, all spreading farther and farther apart over time.

But secondly, there's another fly in the ointment. All the space that separates these pure Black Hole galaxies from each other isn't a perfect vacuum, quite apart from the vacuum energy. All the radiating stars and stuff may have been gobbled up within each galaxy, but all of interplanetary space, all of interstellar space, and all of intergalactic space, isn't pure vacuum. There's still the 'it's everywhere, it's everywhere' Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR).

So what's this CMBR? If you have a massive hot explosion (like the Big Bang event is alleged to have been), and all that heat energy expands and expands, then you'd expect the temperature of the area occupied by that energy to drop, the temperature ever decreasing as the volume that finite amount of energy occupies increases. As the energy expands it gets diluted and thus cools, but can never reach an absolute zero temperature for reasons already noted. And that's just what we find on a universal scale. There's a fine microwave energy "hiss" representing a temperature a few degrees above absolute zero that's absolutely everywhere in the cosmos. That's the diluted heat energy of the very hot Big Bang - well it has been a long time since the Big Bang event (13.7 billion years worth of time) and that energy is now spread throughout a lot of cosmic volume. That microwave "hiss", called the CMBR, was predicted way before it was discovered. There's no doubt that it exists.

Since the CMBR is just photons with very long wavelengths, Black Holes could suck up the CMBR photons as easily as light photons. Removal of CMRB photons, already representing a temperature just slightly about the theoretical minimum - absolute zero - would mean the Universe gets even colder, which it would anyway since the Universe is ever expanding and thus available electromagnetic energy (photons) is ever diluting. Combining the two effects and the Universe is a chilly place indeed and will get even colder.

However, it's probably not possible for Black Holes collectively to swallow up all of the CMBR since there will come a point of diminishing returns. What happens when the temperature of Black Holes equals the temperature of the Universe at large - the CMBR? The answer is thermal equilibrium like when your hot cup of coffee cools off to room temperature. Input into Black Holes from the CMBR will equal output via Hawking radiation. For every photon emitted via Hawking radiation, a CMBR photon gets sucked in. What does that mean? It means a Black Hole can not evaporate.

What about very tiny (micro) Black Holes that are relatively 'hot'? Might they go 'poof' before thermal equilibrium is achieved? Will the contents of the Black Hole evaporate into the surrounding cosmos before they can equate to the surrounding temperature? The analogy might be like a hot drop of water could evaporate into the cold atmosphere before the liquid water drop can attain the temperature of its surrounding environment.

Even so, I still imagine that in the current matter and radiation dominated Universe, incoming would still exceed outgoing.

Of course if you could take a Black Hole, isolate and shield it from the rest of the cosmos and all that it contains, so all you have is the Black Hole and its internal energy (including the all pervading vacuum energy therein). An isolated Black Hole would be in a setting equivalent to putting it into an absolute zero temperature environment. If that's the case then outgoing would exceed incoming since there could be no incoming, and therefore that Black Hole would then radiate and slowly evaporate and eventually go 'poof'. BUT, and there's always a BUT, I can not envision any scenario where a Black Hole can exist in such a theoretical isolation. So, Professor Hawking is quite correct - in theory. In practice, in the here and now, input exceeds Hawking radiation output, and even in the unimaginably far distant future equilibrium will be established where input equals output.

*If it helps to conceive of the concept of the vacuum energy, here's an analogy. Think of the invisible but energetic atmosphere as the vacuum energy. Part of that atmosphere consists of invisible water vapour. But, all of a sudden, and for reasons that must have been mysterious to the ancients, part of the atmosphere undergoes a phase change into something you can see; into something solid - like a particle. You get mist/fog (clouds), rain drops, snow, sleet, hail, etc. Then, equally mysterious, those solid bits eventually undergo another phase change (evaporation standing in for annihilation) back to invisible water vapour in the equally invisible atmosphere. And so you have the invisible vacuum energy that generates particle-antiparticle pairs which annihilate back into the vacuum energy.

**The surface area of the event horizon is the same for both incoming and outgoing so there is no need to take that (non) variable under consideration.

ASTRONOMICAL BLACK HOLES REVISITED

I've noted in earlier essays that someone crossing over the Event Horizon of a cosmic Black Hole does so from a personal perspective of one second per second - normal time. An outside observer would see that same crossover event as one frozen in time for all eternity. That implies a paradox in that something cannot happen at one second per second and yet take an infinite amount of time to happen. The paradox might be resolvable if it were only the image of the happening frozen in time. Alas, that too has issues.

I've read several times some scientific author suggest that to an external observer, someone (or something) that's on a bullseye path toward an astronomical Black Hole, well someone will not only be travelling at a time rate slower and slower by the external observer's clock as they (let's call that person a pilot) approach the Event Horizon, but in fact at contact with the Event Horizon, the pilot's time, again as recorded by the external observer, will have stopped. In other words, the external observer will never witness the pilot's crossover from outside the Black Hole's Event Horizon to inside the Black Hole's Event Horizon. The pilot will appear to be frozen in time at the Event Horizon, as witnessed by the external observer for all eternity, yet as far as the pilot is concerned, everything is normal in terms of time flowing at one second per second. The pilot, from the pilot's perspective, crosses the Event Horizon as easily as driving to the local supermarket.

Now that's a major paradox. The pilot can't be crossing the Event Horizon at one second per second, while at the same time being frozen in time while crossing, which is the case according to our external observer. Of course the paradox is bullshit. To an external observer, time only comes to a screeching halt from their point of view for someone external to them if they witness that someone travelling at the speed of light. Firstly, that's a physical impossibility. There's no reason to believe that our cosmically Black Hole bound pilot is crossing the Event Horizon at light speed. There's no absolute requirement that our pilot is crossing the Event Horizon at the speed of light. The pilot in fact might have fired retro-rockets to slow down just prior to crossing the Event Horizon in order to better savour the moment (just like crossing the equator for the first time)! So, in actual reality, our external observer will see the pilot cross the Event Horizon, albeit at a way slower rate than the pilot will because the pilot is travelling, hence doing the Event Horizon cross-over, though at less than the speed of light but still at some subluminal velocity relative to the external observer. Any velocity incurs some slowing of time when viewed by an external observer; the faster the velocity, the greater the slowdown. IMHO, some 'experts' need to go back and redo Physics 101.

Only here's the expert's explanation which explains why there is no paradox.

Space is a thing and mass (hence gravity) can warp space, twist space around its little finger. The most extreme form or amount of gravity is contained within a cosmic Black Hole from which not even light can escape - hence the blackness of the Black Hole. Because space is a thing, the Black Hole or the super ultra intense gravity of a Black Hole can suck in space (as well as matter). Okay, so a Black Hole can gobble up space.

Issues arising #1: IMHO, space is not a thing but a concept. Gravity therefore cannot interact with space. Gravity is a thing; matter is a thing; light is a thing, so interactions between gravity and matter and light (representing energy which is just matter in another form) are not an issue.

Issues arising #2: presumably that means that anything that has gravity (like you) will suck in some amount of space since even the tiniest amount of gravity will warp space to some degree.

Meantime, back to the expert: Space (as a thing), gets sucked towards a cosmic Black Hole at less that the speed of light, but speeds up as space gets closer and closer to the point of no return (the Event Horizon). When space crosses the Event Horizon, it is travelling at the speed of light. Once inside the Event Horizon, space falls down the gravity gurgler at a speed greater than that of light, which is okay since space, albeit a thing doesn't have any mass. Anything with mass cannot travel at superluminal velocities since anything with mass can't cross the speed of light boundary from subluminal to become superluminal.

Any physical object crossing the Event Horizon will be giving off and/or reflecting light (or any other form of electromagnetic energy) at the speed of light. But the Event Horizon is that exact boundary between space being sucked in at less than light speed and being sucked in at greater than light speed so light being given off at the Event Horizon is escaping at the same velocity that it is being sucked in. It's like you running on a treadmill at the exact same velocity but opposite direction to that of the treadmill. To an external observer you are running yet standing still, and would appear so for all eternity.

We have to assume that the material object itself can't be crossing the Event Horizon at the speed of light (that's not allowed), nor will it travel at or beyond the speed of light once inside the cosmic Black Hole and dropping down it's gravity gurgler. Though the material object crosses the Event Horizon at less than light speed, the visual image of that object will travel at light speed, but light at the Event Horizon is like the runner on the treadmill. It's a balancing act in that the image from the object is escaping from the Black Hole's Event Horizon outward bound at the exact same rate as it is being sucked into and past the Event Horizon by space itself.

Issues arising #3: IMHO, the Event Horizon must be extremely thin, since the Event Horizon by definition is that boundary where a velocity just a tiny, tiny, tiny (add some more 'tiny' here) fraction under the speed of light becomes just a tiny, tiny, tiny (add some more 'tiny' here) fraction above the speed of light. Or, the Event Horizon is that boundary that marks the speed of light exactly (and any tiny, tiny, tiny deviation either side is no longer the speed of light). The Event Horizon must in fact be the shortest allowable thickness that's allowed by quantum physics, which is the Planck Length (which is so small in length, or thickness, not even the most powerful of microscopes could resolve it).

The implications revolve around the fact that any image, like that of our pilot in their spacecraft, is going to be massively larger than the thickness of the Event Horizon. In actual practice our outside observer will more decidedly not see the image frozen at the Event Horizon for all eternity. Part of the image will have to be above the Event Horizon and thus be able to escape away from the Black Hole. Part of the image will be below the Event Horizon and sucked into the cosmic Black Hole never to be seen again. Any remaining image is one Planck Length thick - invisible to the human eye and the most powerful of microscopes. Even that tiny remnant won't last long due to ever present quantum fluctuations. The Event Horizon has the tiniest of jitters but it's enough to disrupt the remaining bit of image from remaining for very long. The upshot is that the frozen image of the pilot and the craft as witnessed by the external observer will be fleeting at best.

Issues arising #4: When it comes to those astronomical Black Holes, we are all external observers. If our expert is correct, and images are frozen for all time at the Event Horizon by objects consisting of matter and energy that cross the Event Horizon, then absolutely anything and everything that has crossed over the Event Horizon since the creation of any specific cosmic Black Hole - since the year dot probably - well their images collectively should still be, well, visible. Each individual image would be piled on top of the next one top of the next on top of the next and so on. Somehow I very much doubt that's the case. It should be bleeding obvious through our astronomical telescopes. And so, I repeat that IMHO, some 'experts' need to go back and redo Physics 101.