Black Holes Do Not Exist, claims Mersini-Houghton

John,

1+1=2 posits the dynamical process of addition to arrive at the answer.

You are absolutely right! 2 is only the final answer. A planet acquires mass by pulling more mass closer ... and on its surface. Addition in nature is a geometrical operation. Also, addition means that one or more properties of what is being added DO add up: more mass, more light, more charges BUT the basic addition is about something that exists.

Bests,

Marcel,

Since several issues were raised..

I'll begin with this; while Hawking radiation is a quantum effect, it is founded on the principles of thermodynamics. Specifically; black body radiation was found to act differently from the Classical interpretation, where energy is emitted in continuous ranges, but is well explained if we assume that it is a spectral phenomenon. This is then interpreted as evidence the system is quantum mechanical - radiating only in discrete units of a specific frequency.

However; the question of what constitutes Hawking radiation is considerably more complicated. Strictly speaking; Mersini-Houghton uses the term incorrectly, because the way it is defined Hawking radiation is a phenomenon that occurs once an event horizon has formed - and M-H is positing that it does not. So there is definitely an issue with calling it that. But I think that Hawking's own recent paper opens the door to redefinition by focusing on the fact that an event horizon's location is sufficiently indefinite that a physical system could never evolve to that state.

However; this would also suggest that Dr. Mitra is correct in his main arguments, because the crux of the Hawking paper is that non-linear classical dynamics can trump quantum mechanical effects by amplifying quantum uncertainty to a point where trying to define a specific state near where the event horizon would be becomes like forecasting the weather.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Politics? Most certainly!

There is so much Physics politics involved in the Black Hole issues that in some cases the need for political correctness dwarfs the importance of scientific accuracy - if you want your papers published in A-list journals. This is likely to be precisely why Mersini-Houghton calls the emanations of what is actually an ECO the Hawking radiation of a Black Hole that never forms. Of course; this is ridiculous double-speak, because it is only a clever evasion of attempts to describe what is actually happening.

Of course it IS an ECO that Mersini-Houghton and Pfeiffer are describing, but to call it that might have the exact same paper rejected and the authors black listed for inclusion in the A-list journals. Several years ago, a fellow named Stephen Crothers wrote some excellent papers describing problems with the model of ECOs as Black Holes, highlighting the inconsistencies of the conventional model, but he was marginalized, ignored, and then labeled as a crank. Lately; he has become quite a bit cranky, and it would seem that he has gone off the deep end - into the territory of pseudo-scientific speculation.

However; we have to wonder if the man was driven toward pseudo-science by the establishment, after years of carefully pointing the 'experts' back to what was actually said by the original sources - who are still well-respected - and being told he was crazy. It would seem to be an extreme example of the Einstellung effect that made people reject better models, once a 'working solution' was found. But now; even Stephen Hawking sees that this 'solution' is flawed! So people like Mersini-Houghton are rushing to fill the void in a way that is politically correct - hoping this will allow their answer to fly.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Tom wrote: "The center is everywhere, John." Did I get John M wrong or did he mean the center of a black hole?

If a mistake is possible then it might be recommendable to anticipate and avoid it. The same with your "boundary of length 1 and measure of zero".

Is Hawking radiation really an effect, is it a phenomenon that occurs, or might it be so far just a hypothesis?

Eckard

And now to points raised by Eckard and Akinbo that pertain..

If Relativity is correct, the notion of point masses can't be. The idea of using massenpunkt is simply a convenient way to help keep the Math tractable when the ratio of sizes is so great that the radius of the attracting body dwarfs that of our test masses. But a point mass approximation becomes extremely questionable as one approaches a forming or existing event horizon, because of scale exaggeration.

As I pointed out above; Eddington emphasized that one of the distinguishing features of Relativity is that things are attracted to the rim of a gravitational well - and not to its center! This fact alone (assuming my interpretation is accurate) is enough to determine that ECOs form but Black Holes do not exist - except possibly as the universe enters a final singularity at the end of time.

I see Eckard's fig. 3 and 4 in this essay as clearly showing that there is confusion between element and continuum properties, that is not completely or correctly addressed by number theorists following Cantor, which carries over into Physics - making it difficult to know where to make hard distinctions. I'm not saying this proves the Math folks wrong, but it clearly shows they are missing something.

More later,

Jonathan

"But I think that Hawking's own recent paper opens the door to redefinition by focusing on the fact that an event horizon's location is sufficiently indefinite that a physical system could never evolve to that state."

Nicely put, Jonathan. It's the same basis for my claim of classical wave behavior near the singularity -- I have been overjoyed lately that Hawking has returned to his roots as a relativist. Your explanation should also be a clue to John and Eckard of why "the center is everywhere.:

Tom,

Yes, it's called "space."

Regards,

John M

Marcel,

Yes, it is a process of both creation and dissolution. These forms are the manifestation of the dynamic process. What is eternal is this dynamic process, while the shapes it takes come and go.

Regards,

John M

Continuing on points - extending continuum properties to monads..

To begin; I see geometric topology as entirely sensible, but I think point-set topology has gone off the rails in places. I'm not enough of an expert to say exactly where the flaws are, though. I thank you Eckard for mentioning Dedekind's book could be downloaded, which I have done, but I've not had the chance to crack it open yet. However; I'd like to expand a little on my comments above, before setting this matter aside. The fact is; Relativity asserts that if something has mass, it cannot be point-like - despite how QFT would like to treat things - but has what Eddington called a gravitational radius.

For massive composite objects; the gravitational radius Rg defines a small volume around the center - to which all other objects are attracted. And as I said above, this may be a time-like extent that the lines of space wrap around - because gravity attracts masses to the rim not the center. But as Steven Kauffmann likes to point out; gravitational attractions are mutual, not one sided, so there is always a back-reaction factor to consider, as well. And while most settings make this factor small, it can have a huge influence in a black hole scenario.

For a photon; apparent size is related to its frequency or energy, such that the higher the energy the smaller it gets. But there are physical limits near the Planck scale that forbid infinite energy or objects with radii below the Planck length. However; if Kauffmann is correct, the actual smallest size a concentrated ball of energy can get is considerably larger than that. But the tricky piece of the puzzle is that for anything to manifest in the physical, it must persist in time long enough to be observed or to take action. So in spacetime, something which would be a point (in a purely space-like expanse) is a line segment instead.

More still later,

Jonathan

Jonathan,

To explain my debate with Tom, it would seem to me that if we include all the various effects of gravitational attraction and are to understand it as a property of evolving mass, not geometric point properties, then it would be ridiculous to consider it in terms of attraction to the center point of mass, since, as you and Eckard observe, mass doesn't have an overall center point, but, as Tom so correctly points out, all space is its own center point, so any entity is a mass of center points. Thus the overall effect would be what we observe in actual galaxies, swirls of ever larger concentrations, all pulling and tugging at each other, while radiating out enormous amounts of energy and eventually reaching one larger center point that shoots whatever actually falls in, out the poles. These then exist in ever larger clusters and formations.

What seems to me most overlooked and disrespected, is the aspect of space as a neutral and infinite basis for all this activity. It is considered to bend and flow only due to trying to measure relations of the activity within it. Those "point particles" need some actually dimensionality to manifest this form, but that gets dismissed by mathematical models which assume infinite dimensionless points create dimensionality. In the end, they need space to have space.

Regards,

John M

Regards,

John M

More generally..

The freedom to vary must exist, for any variations to arise. And variations must occur, if any extent is to be traced or traversed. The idea that things 'need space in order to have space' is a bit too vague. There needs to be space - in the form of an opportunity for variation or occupation - for objectified things to occupy space. But as has been pointed out, one could also say that the objects occupying space actually define its extent. This is sort of like the Chinese proverb that the main value of a container, whether an urn or a house, is the space it contains - rather than its substance.

But I also see some confusion in statements that objects might be subject to one gravitational field or another, when the reality is that these fields overlap and extend to infinity, such that any one object is affected by all the fields present at once - to varying degrees.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Eckard,

""Where in the universe is "inward?""

"gravity is toward the center of mass""

That exchange might seem a bit confusing because I was repeating Tom's own statement, from 11, 2014 @ 13:57, back to him, in response to his question.

Regards,

John M

Laymen don't need Relativity, not even relativity as to understand that the force of gravitation is maximal at the surface of earth and not at its middle point.

Jonathan, you are quite right: Nothing in the real world, except for strictly speaking unreal models, is of zero or infinite measure.

Eckard

I wanted to point out..

The above discussion leaves the properties of space itself open somewhat. A lot of work has been done assuming that space is 3-d or that spacetime is 4-d, and this may be fictitious but with the underlying reality self-concealing. If the topology of space is that of a 3-sphere (in 4-d space), as Joy Christian has conjectured, the appearance of a Euclidean 3-space would be created by parallelization. Specifically; the mere fact of parallelizability can serve as an attractor in 4-space 'pulling' spacetime into that space.

And we are talking about event horizons here, which are a kind of dimensional boundary. We have no idea what the dimensionality of the space inside a black hole might be, in terms of whether it is an extension of 3-d space or actually is 4-d, 5-d, or whatever. My guess is that there is no inside one could ever get to, which is why the conventional 'no drama' view of what an infalling observer would see when crossing an event horizon breaks down. Even with my own rudimentary understanding of Tensor calculus, it is clear that the Einstein equations diverge where an event horizon would be.

I've examined these issues in correspondence with Steven Kauffmann and others. What I see is a scale compression in the direction of a horizon, and a scale exaggeration in the lateral or tangential direction - such that things tend to wrap around rather than crossing any horizon. This may be totally wrong, and certainly disagrees with the conventional view, but it is what the equations and solutions I've studied tell me.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Jonathan,

My argument goes back to my observation that measures of time/duration are measures of action, while measures of space/distance are still measures of space.

We think of time as a measure from one event to the next, yet those events do not physically co-exist, but are the result of a process of creation and dissolution. Such as measuring waves rising and falling. Duration then is the state of the present, between the actual occurrence of these events, so what is being measured is the frequency between oscillations. Much as measures of temperature would be of the amplitude of these oscillations.

So while the measure is of past to future events, the actual dynamic is of these events going from being in the future to being in the past. It is just that our mental process is a function of sequence and so we interpret it as this point of the present somehow moving from past to future.

As Newton described it; The absolute flow of time. Yet as relativity so correctly points out, all measures of time are relative. Basically each action is its own clock and there is no one universal clock. Which is quite logically explained by time simply being a measure of action. Consider that a faster clock only burns/ages quicker and so recedes into the past faster, not traveling into the future faster.

This then leaves the question of space; Now, yes measures of space and time are quite related. Think whether we measure the distance between two waves/distance, or the rate they pass a mark/duration. Yet it would be equally impossible to separate measures of temperature or pressure from concepts of volume, but it is not politically incorrect to consider them as distinct concepts.

As such, I think it will only be when we have managed to shed this particular ideology of spacetime, that we can further understand both space and time in their true nature.

Regards,

John M

Thank you Eckard!

People should at least look at results like Pound-Rebka, before assuming they understand how gravity behaves or varies with depth/distance from center.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Jonathan,

"What I see is a scale compression in the direction of a horizon, and a scale exaggeration in the lateral or tangential direction - such that things tend to wrap around rather than crossing any horizon."

So what is falling in is compressed, while what expands out is stretched. Much as mass contracts and radiation expands?

Could it be the light that we see from distant galaxies is "scale exaggerated" to the extent of appearing redshifted....

Regards,

John M

Jonathan,

I realize I'm over the edge of what is permissible, but your description; "such that things tend to wrap around rather than crossing any horizon." seems a rather significant part of a cosmic cycle. How long before consideration of the other side, where what is being exaggerated starts to compress again, is deemed a proper topic of conversation?

Keep in mind that neither you, I, or any of the others in this conversation are getting any younger and if we want to live long enough to see further progress, running the risk of being labeled cranky might be worth it.

Revolutions happen when the circle draws so tight, more power is outside, than inside it.

Regards,

John M

" ... when we have managed to shed this particular ideology of spacetime, that we can further understand both space and time ..."

So you prefer science to go backward. Why stop at Newton? -- we can go all the way back to Aristotle and maximally increase our ignorance.