The Universe

[Tadao]

Black holes freak me out. The kind of freak out like when you think about how rare it is for you to be born at all.

I think about the rubber sheet thing and how gravity bends light, so how does a black hole fit into that.

[MacLeon]

Kind of makes you wonder about that whole "there are no stupid questions" theory. Perhaps no stupid questions, just people in general. However I digress.

[Tadao]

Kind of makes you wonder about that whole "there are no stupid questions" theory. Perhaps no stupid questions, just people in general. However I digress.

__

[executioneer]

:applause

[Fat_Hippo]

Ooh, good retort. Don't have an answer to THAT, do you Mcfaggy font formatter.

[Girl Drink Drunk]

That guy totally stole from Mr Garrison (and by extention, Trey Parker). JOKE THIEF.

[Colonel Flagg]

Black holes freak me out. The kind of freak out like when you think about how rare it is for you to be born at all.

I think about the rubber sheet thing and how gravity bends light, so how does a black hole fit into that.

Considering the escape velocity might be helpful - for a black hole, it is greater than the speed of light.

As far as the rubber sheet goes, black holes can be inferred by how far light is bent by intervening galaxies, a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. It's how we can estimate the masses of galaxies, and hence infer the presence of black holes, and other forms of dark matter.

I hope this is helpful.

[Tadao]

That is awesome Colonel Flagg I got this off of Wiki when I googled Gravitational lensing.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d8/BlackHole_Lensing_2.gif
This is a simulation of gravitational lensing caused by a Schwartzschild black hole (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_metric) passing in front of a background galaxy. A secondary image of the galaxy can be seen within the black hole's Einstein radius (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_radius) on the side opposite the galaxy. The secondary image grows (remaining within the Einstein ring) as the primary image approaches the black hole. The surface brightness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_brightness) of the two images remains constant, but their angular sizes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_size) vary, hence producing an amplification of the galaxy luminosity as seen by a distant observer. Maximum amplification occurs when the galaxy (or in this case a bright part of it) is exactly behind the black hole.

[Colonel Flagg]

Ain't science wunnerful! :)

[Dixie]

I saw an awesome Stephen Hawking Black Hole Theory documentary discussing the event horizon and the possibilities of traversing a black hole the other day at work. I love the Science Channel.

[Tadao]

I haven't seen that, I'm going to have to look for that. I just heard about white holes for the first time yesterday.

[Dixie]

White holes huh?
Frosted doughnut middles don't count when it comes to science, mister.

Seriously though, I'd have to agree with Hawking that a white hole and a black hole would probably be connected in the possibility that a black hole is an entrance to a worm hole and a white hole would be an exit.

The documentary I saw was pretty neat. It talked about if you saw someone walking into a black hole their image would look "smeared" because of time slowing or stopping in the event horizon.

Badastronomy.com is a GREAT science forum/site/blog that discusses alot of these things. I'm really not very good at physics but I've taken a sharp interest in Astrobiology lately.

[Tadao]

I've never been able to wrap my mind around the whole "Universe is shaped like a Doughnut" thing :(

[sloth]

i kind of like to imagine how these cutting edge ideas might sound like to people in five hundred years time. i mean they sound so revolutionary now, but then some copernican revolution comes along and suddenly theyre antiquated and laughable.

[Colonel Flagg]

I've never been able to wrap my mind around the whole "Universe is shaped like a Doughnut" thing :(

It gets even more mind-bending (pardon the pun) when you consider that the "torus" (fancy math word for "doughnut") is really 4-dimensional, with axes representing the three spatial dimensions and time.

(Sorry CIG, just read your post for comprehension.)

Don't get me started on wormholes, that would be too freaky!

Science fiction meets science fact? Maybe .....

[executioneer]

man what if there was another universe shaped like a cup of coffee and our universe collided with it

[Colonel Flagg]

The documentary I saw was pretty neat. It talked about if you saw someone walking into a black hole their image would look "smeared" because of time slowing or stopping in the event horizon.

Except that the "smearing" would be real, since the tidal forces from a black hole would tear a person limb from limb. Ouch.

Relativity is one of my favorite subjects. :)

[Colonel Flagg]

man what if there was another universe shaped like a cup of coffee and our universe collided with it

Breakfast!:lol

[executioneer]

and what if there was a universe shaped liek a police officer

[kahljorn]

http://books.google.com/books?id=08Xf_6gWh9AC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+time+machine&sig=hvqWYcgSzJyRbAQqRUqfIDZZK-o#PPA3,M1

I like that explanation of the fourth dimension

BUT CAN AN INSTANTANEOUS CUBE EXIST?

[Dixie]

BUT CAN AN INSTANTANEOUS CUBE EXIST?
Not in my teacup it can't.
Bitch is gonna dissolve.

[kahljorn]

BITCH CANT EVEN EXIST

[Dixie]

Found something for ya Tad:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2_vpEyE6rug&feature=PlayList&p=42AB823FCCB4B61B&index=0
Parallel universes.

This guy has some great programs. The Super Massive Black Holes program is very good.
http://youtube.com/user/NGC6822

[Tadao]

:love

[ChicagoDrew]

Anyone watching the awesome 'The Universe' series on History Channel? They've got like 20+ shows, each devoted to a very small portion of space-related topics. For example, they'll cover quasars, not just 'all the damn things in space,' lol.

Two episodes air every Tuesday with limited repeats. It's GREAT in HD too.

[MetalMilitia]

On a similar note check out: http://digg.com/podcasts/Astronomy_Cast

They do a really good job of describing a lot of bizarre space phenomena.