This was an interesting, well dissected article by Ars about a physics paper that has as a result that black holes can't exists. The troubling problem is of course that although black holes by definition cannot be observed, there is some pretty compelling evidence of massive gravitational forces stripping stars of gas.
Reading the claims I was drawn to a few things:
1) This is a model and even the authors say their model breaks down.
2) The interpretation of Hawking radiation seems strange compared to the one I studied at school, so is this is simple a case of misinterpretation?
3) The lead author has published before, and therefore is not completely without background. Is this however an example of "publish or perish" and an immature article put forward as part of a quota?
4) A cynical observation made in one of the comments was the author was aware it would not pass peer review and was looking for publicity instead.
I offer this to the SN community as a pretty good example of how peer review is providing lots of entertainment, and suggests that publications are not a very good measure of productivity.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmorris on Tuesday March 03 2015, @08:27AM
"Scientists do not change their minds, they just die."
If you know who said that you know this isn't a new problem. Science has always been hostile to new ideas, especially ones that would overturn the careers of many existing scientists. To an extent being skeptical of outlandish theories is prudent since most will end up just being wrong. But they really get bent when one comes along they fear might be right.
And that was before Science died in a horrible accident where it fell in a wood chipper with Politics and the unholy thing that crawled out the other end rose as a new mutant with most of the worst aspects of both. The publish or perish model it used to live by was mostly replaced with the chase for government funding.
(Score: 2) by bd on Tuesday March 03 2015, @09:25AM
I cannot really say much about her work, as it is not my field of expertise. Yet, five peer-reviewed papers in five years. This does not look so good for an associate professor. The burden of proof really lies with her, as it does with anyone who tries to establish radically new ideas in science. If her ideas have merit (which I reserve the right to be sceptical about), let's hope she will be successful in the end.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday March 03 2015, @03:02PM
As of 2009, private industry puts approximately twice as much as the federal government into R&D. Industry took the dominant position around 1980 and has never looked back. source [thenewatlantis.com] Let's just say that a scientist who offended all the politicians by supporting an industry position would not be hurting for grant money.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @03:38PM
Only if your research can be profitized, especially now that short-term-profits-over-everything is the only mindset that exists in the corporate world.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nobuddy on Tuesday March 03 2015, @08:22PM
I gotta wonder how much private industry funding flows in to cosmology and astrophysics.
While there is likely a lot more private money in research, it will be pooled heavily in a narrow range of practical sciences like chemistry. The non practical sciences still rely heavily on government funding.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Tuesday March 03 2015, @09:03AM
i think it's important to remember that some of the greatest ideas/theories were originally laughed at because it can bring perspective. yes, the model breaks down... but so do all the ones we call the "most accurate". the universe isn't acting like we think it should so we invented something that cannot be directly observed and called it dark matter. basically, we are finding out that nothing is as it seems, so questioning fundamental theories seems in order.
(Score: 2) by Ryuugami on Tuesday March 03 2015, @10:14AM
yes, the model breaks down... but so do all the ones we call the "most accurate".
Seems appropriate for a model to break down around black holes, since they are essentially where universe divided by zero :)
If a shit storm's on the horizon, it's good to know far enough ahead you can at least bring along an umbrella. - D.Weber
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday March 03 2015, @09:09AM
If your model is doing the thinking, whether it thinks there are black holes or not is the least of your problems. My model's name is "Skynet". I thought that would be much more scientific than "Cindy Crawford" or "Elle McPherson". But again, names were the least of the problems.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday March 03 2015, @11:32AM
Well... I still prefer the formulation of "What's in a name? that which we call a shit / by any other name would smell as foul"... Oh, I could tell you — but let it be ... as you like it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Interesting) by moondrake on Tuesday March 03 2015, @10:48AM
I tend to believe the situation is better in physics, but in my own field (biology) there seem to be much misunderstandings about models.
I spend some time in a environment with mathematicians and computer scientist. In that place, modeling was the topic, not the biology. This has various problems as they often failed to really understand the biology they are simulating. But as a biologist, I found it nevertheless quite enlightening to work with them.
It gets actually more difficult when talking with colleagues working in my own field. Many of them seem to think all models should be correct and be predictive. As soon as the model predicts something that is wrong (i.e. not backed up by experiments), they want to throw away the whole thing as "incorrect". They also think the model is not useful if it has too many parameters that can never be accurately determined.
I am not sure where this comes from but I think it is not the correct way to deal with (mechanistic) models (nevertheless, I have given up arguing with reviewers about this). To me, many models can be seen as a formalized way of thinking about the matter at hand. It forces you to put as much logic and knowledge in the subject as you can. Even if the model fails to predict some specific thing, it does not mean all of it is wrong, but it means that there are some parameters or mechanisms that are apparently not fully understood. This does not mean the whole thing is useless for helping you understand things, it is just that your understanding is incomplete and the deviations with reality may in fact help you design new experiments. As such, models are not completely falsifiable, and perhaps not really science, but I always felt there were still useful.
And consider this: without the model scientist would still form thought patterns about how things work (this seems to be our nature). Such things get written down in lengthy discussions and reviews, but it is much harder to see where they break down without implementing them in software.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday March 03 2015, @03:24PM
It sounds like the issue is that some of them don't see the difference between wrong and more wrong. In this classic essay [tufts.edu] Isaac Asimov pointed out that chances are new theories are also wrong, but the goal is to be less wrong than the preceding theory.
So your colleagues are understandably disappointed at any finding of wrongness in the hypotheses being tested, but the fact is that if your new hypothesis is less wrong than preceding ones you're closer to the truth than you were before.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Tuesday March 03 2015, @09:06PM
Thank you for the wonderful essay from Asimov. I had not seen it before and found it quite a worthwhile read (interestingly though, I always thought the "flat earth" was a myth, but some googling seems to indicate it was indeed part of Sumerian cosmology. I guess you can argue, given that they did do some astronomy, whether there were not also more mathematically inclined Sumerians who had different opinions, but if there were, they did not seem to leave any evidence of that).
I think the difference between wrong and more wrong is important, but to explain my little anecdote above I also think that many pure experimentalist in biology simply do not fully understand what computer models can and cannot do (and as I already indicate, the same goes for the modelers who sometimes focus too much on the model of reality instead of on the real thing).
Not being a physicist, I cannot completely understand the issues raised in the FA. But I still think it could be useful to model black holes in such an unusual way. Even if this idea in the end turns out to be silly, such exercises sometimes lead to new insights, and even for only that, they are valuable.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by boristhespider on Tuesday March 03 2015, @07:48PM
In this case the model hinges on treating the effects of Hawking radiation inside the hole as a fluid with negative energy. That's one hell of an assumption (not least since it involves taking a semi-classical approximation - Hawking radiation - and treating it in a classical manner - the negative energy fluid - and from this extrapolating a quantum mechanical result). I too haven't gone through the paper in very much detail but I'm in the camp of the extremely sceptical on this one. And if you're in a camp on Hawking radiation and find that Bill Unruh is on your side then you can reassure yourself that while you may be wrong, so is one of the finest theorists who's put his mind to Hawking radiation...)
I'd also note that this does not mean I'd refuse to let the paper through peer review. What it means is that I'd demand an examination of the limitations and assumptions of the model itself, including a discussion of the most obvious criticisms that can be levelled at it. So long as the caveats are clearly laid out and the paper is valid from that basis onwards - and I have no reason to assume that this isn't; it isn't being produced by utter crackpots - and so long as the sensationalism was kept to a minimum, I'd let it through peer review and I think most honest referees would do the same.
(Score: 1) by TLA on Tuesday March 03 2015, @11:05AM
When a point source has a gravity well which requires that a mass trying to escape from it must meet or exceed c to accomplish, then since light is the ultimate speed limit and nothing can travel faster than c, not even light escapes the gravity well hence ot any outside observer the region surrounding the point source is literally "black" and looks against its surroundings like an infinitely deep hole. Ergo, black holes by definition must exist. I leave the modelling of the physical characteristics as an exercise for the reader.
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday March 03 2015, @11:37AM
Now matter how I try, I still get a singularity at the centre. Since infinity doesn't make sense in physics, there should be an error into the model or its assumption somewhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by TheSage on Tuesday March 03 2015, @12:21PM
Since when does infinity not make sense in physics? Renormalization techniques used in quantum physics routinely subtract infinity by infinity and manage to get a meaningful result. It took mathematicians quite a long time to frame this in a mathematically meaningful way. As for black holes, the singularities are considered not part of the universe. So, technically no singularities exist in the universe. A cheap trick, but it makes sense mathematically, so there.
(Score: 1) by TheSage on Tuesday March 03 2015, @12:11PM
Unfortunately, your proof is wrong. It fails to take the subtleties of general relativity into account. As a counterexample, let me point to the 'naked singularity'. This is a 'black hole' solution to the Einstein equation with no horizon. The singularity manages this feat by rotating quickly enough that no horizon can form.
There is an argument to be made that it is impossible for a naked singularity to form in our universe. Still, rotating black holes do have some rather interesting properties, even if they are rotating slow enough to have a horizon. Check out 'Kerr Black Holes' if you want to learn more.
(Score: 1) by TLA on Tuesday March 03 2015, @12:28PM
no it isn't. If the escape velocity exceeds 299792458m/s then no matter how fast the mass is rotating nothing, not even light can escape from it. Ergo, by the simplest interpretation possible, it is a "hole" in space (where the laws of physics fail, maybe, we don't know) and it is "black" (because simply nothing escapes: no particles, no EM waves, no wavicles). To borrow from Grant/Naylor, it is a nonevent mass with a quantum probability of infinity and core density equal to the density of a proton.
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 1) by TheSage on Tuesday March 03 2015, @12:32PM
The point of the naked singularity is that the escape velocity stays below c, no matter how close you approach the singularity. So, no horizon.
(Score: 1) by TLA on Tuesday March 03 2015, @12:56PM
a naked singularity, as I understand it, can only exist in cases where the event horizon falls below the radius of the singularity. This is the only way in which a point source with an escape velocity exceeding c can have an escape velocity from the "surface" lower than c. Given in the equation
v^2=1/r-q^2/r^2
BUT, a naked singularity CANNOT exist, as proved in http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0506129 [arxiv.org] :
Quantum evaporation of a naked singularity Rituparno Goswami, Pankaj S. Joshi, Parampreet Singh
Abstract "We investigate here gravitational collapse of a scalar field model which classically leads to a naked singularity. We show that non-perturbative semi-classical modifications near the singularity, based on loop quantum gravity, give rise to a strong outward flux of energy. This leads to the dissolution of the collapsing cloud before a naked singularity can form. Quantum gravitational effects can thus censor naked singularities by avoiding their formation. Further, quantum gravity induced mass flux has a distinct feature which can lead to a novel observable signature in astrophysical bursts."
The basic: to form a naked singularity, a mass needs to be spinning fast enough to form the event horizon below the singularity radius BEFORE the singularity forms. At that point, mathematically speaking, any matter outside the singularity radius is thrown outward and distributed through the surrounding space at relativistic speed, never to return. What's left is proven in the paper to be insufficient to form a singularity. What you're left with is a rapidly spinning neutron mass.
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 1) by TheSage on Tuesday March 03 2015, @01:20PM
Yes, there are significant problems associated to the naked singularity. Quantum mechanics seems to suggest, as you point out, that it is impossible for a naked singularity to form (as I pointed out earlier). Thank you for the citation btw. I have not read that article.
The naked singularity still stands as a counterexample to your one paragraph proof, since a universe with an existing naked singularity would not violate the laws of physics as we understand them now. That know of no method how such a naked singularity could be created in the first place is not relevant to that argument. After all, the universe could have been created with naked singularities, which then (probably) would be perfectly stable.
(Score: 1) by TLA on Tuesday March 03 2015, @03:25PM
but it isn't a counterexample because the proof stands that a naked singularity cannot exist in a mathematically proven universe. It's in the article. With formulae.
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday March 04 2015, @03:29AM
My brain hurts.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by TheSage on Wednesday March 04 2015, @05:12AM
The mentioned article just proves (using highly speculative loop quantum gravity, btw) that a naked singularity can not be created by the collapse of matter. It says nothing about a universe where black holes already exist (being formed during the big bang for example). Also naked singularities could be formed by other, more exotic phenomena like procedures that add angular momentum to existing black holes.
(Score: 1) by TLA on Wednesday March 04 2015, @11:20PM
as they're so fond of saying on wikipedia, "citation needed".
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 1) by TheSage on Thursday March 05 2015, @05:18AM
I recommend "The Geometry of Kerr Black Holes" by Barrett O'Neill. It is cheap and the mathematical prerequisites are relatively minor (differential equations and the very basics of manifold theory). It is an interesting read to get familiar with general relativity and its quirks.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @03:27PM
From the abstract of the linked article:
So this paper does not prove that naked singularities do not exist. At least not unless it also proves that loop quantum gravity is a correct description of the real world.
"X does not exist in the promising, but not experimentally confirmed theory Y" is definitely not a disprove of the existence of X.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:21PM
except a black hole is a area where spacetime is so curved that there is literally no route that leads "outside". from what you're saying, FTL travel would allow one to escape from a black hole but in reality nothing but a wormhole or space folding or something similar would allow one to reach the outside. its true that the "pulls so hard not even light can escape" is a simple enough to convey the gist of it, but if you really want to think about ways of proving that black holes do or don't exist you have to think of gravity as what it is - the curvature of space - and not what it isn't - a force that "pulls" things (as i understand it, space pushes rather than gravity pulling).
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @01:53PM
I don't get the point of this article. It just seems like character assassination.
What is newsworthy about someone being wrong? That happens a lot in science. And in life in general. Why does this one individual being wrong rise to the level of requiring a 3-page article about exactly why she's wrong? That's the kind of debate that normally plays out in journals and blogs, and not in the popular press.
I don't want to read crap like this. I'd much rather read about why my mother-in-law is wrong. That's more relevant. As would be an actual scientific discovery. If something is so thoroughly wrong as to be debunked by all the leading pros, then why am I hearing about it as newsworthy?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @03:39PM
I think the point is that the claims of article (not yet published in a refereed journal!) were widely publicised (the arstechnica article gives a few links in the beginning), and none of those articles seemed to have made the effort to double-check with an expert (it has not yet been published in a refereed journal, so a cross-check should be mandatory). That certainly deserves to be corrected, to prevent the public to get stuck with the false information from the other popular science news.
It's unfortunate for the authors, but I'd put the blame on those who hyped the article on the internet before, not on arstechnica for demonstrating how unworthy it was of that hyping.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2015, @04:51AM
Right. But the appropriate way to handle that situation is to ask the other publications to retract their articles, not to go public with a questionable "story" of your own. This smacks of "the cat is out of the bag, we must get the cat back into the bag!"
What's so different about this instance of scientific misinformation as compared to the status quo? I can't see much difference. But for some reason, this particular article has brought people to making borderline personal attacks on the author. That seems uncalled for. Hard to believe she'll be vindicated in all this, but is what she did so bad? Making a mistake? Shoot, the science world has been begging for years to have negative results published. Here's one. Crucify her.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday March 04 2015, @03:30AM
She needs to read this: http://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/03/03/146206 [soylentnews.org]
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--