theoretical - sci-fi thing - power from black holes?

[KIAman]

Yeah, I just can't get my head around how particles with volume suddenly can all occupy the same point in space and in effect, lose their volume. Is it just that the elementary particles are converted to pure energy in the black hole and we're talking about the accretion of a black hole's mass as an energy-equivalent?

It is hard to understand this effect because of our understanding of the Pauli Exclusion Principle. But inside a singularity, nobody really knows WHAT principles or laws of physics apply. In the end, we really don't know whats beyond the Schwarzschild Radius of a black hole because we cannot observe information beyond that point. It is all theory, conjecture and mathematics at that point, thus, divide by zero error.

 

[sjwaste]

It is hard to understand this effect because of our understanding of the Pauli Exclusion Principle. But inside a singularity, nobody really knows WHAT principles or laws of physics apply. In the end, we really don't know whats beyond the Schwarzschild Radius of a black hole because we cannot observe information beyond that point. It is all theory, conjecture and mathematics at that point, thus, divide by zero error.

Well, at the very least, you provided me with a new topic to read about. Thanks!

 

[tommo123]

was going to start a new thread, but remembered this.

was watching an old TNG ep and it got me thinking. a dysonsphere would catch all the energy output of a star right? Could you in theory use the same principle to catch the energy of a black hole? i imagine the sphere would have a permanent 'pull' on it from the singlurarity.

sorry, just writing random thoughts down 😱

 

[Cogman]

was going to start a new thread, but remembered this.

was watching an old TNG ep and it got me thinking. a dysonsphere would catch all the energy output of a star right? Could you in theory use the same principle to catch the energy of a black hole? i imagine the sphere would have a permanent 'pull' on it from the singlurarity.

sorry, just writing random thoughts down 😱

stars emit energy, black holes do not. a dysonsphere would be useless on a black hole.

 

[Yuriman]

I get it, you believe in Quantum Theory. 🙂

...make it sound like a ‘theory’ is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night
-Isaac Asimov

Sorry, couldn't resist.



Also, worth a read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzball_(string_theory)

Fuzzballs are theorized by some superstring theory scientists to be the true quantum description of black holes. The theory resolves two intractable problems that classic black holes pose for modern physics:

1. The information paradox wherein the quantum information bound in in‑falling matter and energy entirely disappears into a singularity; that is, the black hole would undergo zero physical change in its composition regardless of the nature of what fell into it.
2. The singularity at the heart of the black hole, where conventional black hole theory says there is infinite spacetime curvature due to an infinitely intense gravitational field from a region of zero volume. Modern physics breaks down when such parameters are infinite and zero.

 

[William Gaatjes]

A few months ago scientists have created a "black hole" for microwaves.

In reality (the way i see it) they made a converter that turns one kind of signal into a signal with a much lower frequency. It turns microwaves into heat. In essence it traps and absorbs microwaves and releases the energy as heat ( i would guess infrared).

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17980-first-black-hole-for-light-created-on-earth.html

An electromagnetic "black hole" that sucks in surrounding light has been built for the first time.

The device, which works at microwave frequencies, may soon be extended to trap visible light, leading to an entirely new way of harvesting solar energy to generate electricity.

A theoretical design for a table-top black hole to trap light was proposed in a paper published earlier this year by Evgenii Narimanov and Alexander Kildishev of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Their idea was to mimic the properties of a cosmological black hole, whose intense gravity bends the surrounding space-time, causing any nearby matter or radiation to follow the warped space-time and spiral inwards.

Narimanov and Kildishev reasoned that it should be possible to build a device that makes light curve inwards towards its centre in a similar way. They calculated that this could be done by a cylindrical structure consisting of a central core surrounded by a shell of con

The key to making light curve inwards is to make the shell's permittivity – which affects the electric component of an electromagnetic wave – increase smoothly from the outer to the inner surface. This is analogous to the curvature of space-time near a black hole. At the point where the shell meets the core, the permittivity of the ring must match that of the core, so that light is absorbed rather than reflected.

Now Tie Jun Cui and Qiang Cheng at the Southeast University in Nanjing, China, have turned Narimanov and Kildishev's theory into practice, and built a "black hole" for microwave frequencies. It is made of 60 annular strips of so-called "meta-materials", which have previously been used to make invisibility cloaks.

Each strip takes the form of a circuit board etched with intricate structures whose characteristics change progressively from one strip to the next, so that the permittivity varies smoothly. The outer 40 strips make up the shell and the inner 20 strips make up the absorber.

"When the incident electromagnetic wave hits the device, the wave will be trapped and guided in the shell region towards the core of the black hole, and will then be absorbed by the core," says Cui. "The wave will not come out from the black hole." In their device, the core converts the absorbed light into heat.

One day we will have real solar energy harvesters made like this principle and not like the solar panels we have today. This is the technology needed, that is if the efficiency is high enough when compared to parabolic mirror sun heaters...

 

[Dr. Mcbudstoke]

you can couple the engine from a black hole starship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_starship to a dynamo

 

[William Gaatjes]

you can couple the engine from a black hole starship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_starship to a dynamo

How would you prevent the black hole from drawing in the entire space ship and all matter around it ?

Create one small enough to create a burst of hawking radiation and while in the process of the burst the black hole would evaporate ?
I wonder what the limit is before the blackhole would become to big and become self sustaining...

 

[PlasmaBomb]

stars emit energy, black holes do not. a dysonsphere would be useless on a black hole.

You could possibly catch the ejecta from the accretion disk...

 

[Cogman]

You could possibly catch the ejecta from the accretion disk...

Not with a dyson sphere (though, dyson rings might work.). it would cut off the ejection source.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

A real physical one ?
has this ever been proven ?

It could only be "proven" based on our theoretical view of Space, time, and physics. Considering how limited our view is on such matters I would have to say that none of this has ever been proven, nor will it anytime soon. Our civilization has a long way to go to reach for those types of solutions, but nothing is out of reach if we can learn to live properly down here. Black holes are one of the great mysteries of our Universe.

 

[JSSheridan]

I was reading a bit on black hole thermodynamics, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_thermodynamics, and in addition to mass, charge, and spin, they also have temperature and entropy. The smaller the mass of the black hole, the more radiation it emits, and if a black hole is greater than 80% of the mass of the earth, it will actually grow rather than evaporate since it will absorb cosmic microwave background radiation faster than it emits Hawking radiation. The idea has been around for a while in Science Fiction as I've read about it before. Here's one example, http://www.b5tech.com/misctech/reactors/reactors.html

Quantum/Gravitic reactor is the primary power plant utilized by the Minbari Federation. This system uses a complex series of graviton beams to mimic the destructive power of a black hole on a local scale, creating an artificial quantum singularity.
This self sustaining reactor system destroys all matter introduced into the singularity, creating a 100% energy release. Efficiency of a given ship to exploit this energy release varies.
Process begins with a series of high-energy fusion reactors, which are used to manipulate zero-point energy to mimic gravity and create the singularity. Once the singularity is formed, any and all matter introduced into the reactor is destroyed, creating a massive energy release.
As any form of matter can be used as fuel for the singularity, this form of reactor has a near infinite run time - so long as there is matter to be used as fuel, the Quantum/Gravitic reactor will continue to produce power. In addition, a key byproduct of this form of reaction is antimatter, which can be used both as a weapon or a secondary power source.
Key advantage of the Quantum/Gravitic reactor over a matter/antimatter reactor is system is efficiency and stability. The Quantum/Gravitic reactor only uses half the fuel of an antimatter based system and, unlike a matter/antimatter reactor, should this form of reactor breech the singularity will simply collapse with almost no adverse effects.
Once the singularity is shut down all form of mass compression will cease and, with the exception of one final burst of antimatter, energy production stops almost instantaneously.

While we're on black holes, what causes the curvature of spacetime? Is it the presence of any matter, or specifically the presence of mass? Can energy cause spacetime to curve?

I'm asking because a black hole supposedly causes spacetime to curve infinitely, although I'm wondering if that's accurate. A couple other ways I could think of are it causing a "rip" or discontinuity in spacetime or that it continually stretches that region of spacetime at a rate faster than the speed of light.

Whatever the result though, it seems the singularity isn't occupying a minuscule space, but a rather large one due to how spacetime is changed. Spatially, in three dimensions, it is small, but in higher dimensions the space is large. Does this even make sense?

 

[William Gaatjes]

I was reading a bit on black hole thermodynamics, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_thermodynamics, and in addition to mass, charge, and spin, they also have temperature and entropy. The smaller the mass of the black hole, the more radiation it emits, and if a black hole is greater than 80% of the mass of the earth, it will actually grow rather than evaporate since it will absorb cosmic microwave background radiation faster than it emits Hawking radiation. The idea has been around for a while in Science Fiction as I've read about it before. Here's one example, http://www.b5tech.com/misctech/reactors/reactors.html



While we're on black holes, what causes the curvature of spacetime? Is it the presence of any matter, or specifically the presence of mass? Can energy cause spacetime to curve?

I'm asking because a black hole supposedly causes spacetime to curve infinitely, although I'm wondering if that's accurate. A couple other ways I could think of are it causing a "rip" or discontinuity in spacetime or that it continually stretches that region of spacetime at a rate faster than the speed of light.

Whatever the result though, it seems the singularity isn't occupying a minuscule space, but a rather large one due to how spacetime is changed. Spatially, in three dimensions, it is small, but in higher dimensions the space is large. Does this even make sense?

In my opinion, indeed a black hole would be an enourmous occupation of space instead of a tiny one when seen from the perspective of space time.

A popular way to describe gravity is the 2D representation of the earth rotating around the sun where this all looks like a dish with marbles. But i think this is inaccurate. My personal view when i try to simulate it in my inner mind by use of imagination is to see gravitational effects in a 3D space. If you for clarification would see this 3D space filled with points on an even distance, you would get a 3D grid.

Coming back to the earth around the sun gravity example, the density of these points would increase around the sun. The trick is, not to decrease the distance between the points, but create more points in between.
It will look then that the amount of points increase from seemingly nowhere 😱 ...

What you then get is a density representation of points in a 3D space where the density increases when gravity increases. With the earth rotating around the sun you would not get a dish of the earth around the sun. What you get is a 3D density sphere around the sun and a 3d density sphere around the earth. Where these spheres collide, interaction takes place and this then looks more or less like the typical 2D shape from the traditional" earth around the sun gravity "example in a 3d representation.

With a black hole you would get a sphere where the densitiy of the points keeps increasing up to the center of the black hole. Hence people see a singularity. The sphere would be huge indeed.