The links darkmatter4brains provided are, indeed, very good. I've followed this thread and it sounds to me that many of the questions posed fall into the category of trying to know the (presently) unknowable. These are good questions, and ones that I'm sure many a theorist has asked himself.
I imagine Madam Curie pondering the source of the copious amounts of energy emanating from the Radium she managed to isolate and purify. In the end, she must have simply admitted "I don't know how this energy is produced". This didn't deter others from thinking about the same question and, eventually, an answer was found.
I think it's fair to say that at this time we don't know for sure what goes on inside the event horizon of a black hole. I believe that General Relativity provides us with the mathematical tools to predict that the spatial vector pointing towards the center (the singularity) becomes a temporal vector that places the singularity in the future of everything inside the event horizon (regardless of any "sideways" movement).
This is somewhat like thinking about the fact that the universe we see today was inevitably in the future of every photon and particle contained in the very early universe in the moments after the Big Bang (and also throughout the billions of years since those first moments).
We have no way of testing the mathematical predictions of General Relativity as they apply within the confines of an event horizon. Right now they're our best guess about what happens.
One thing that I think about in the context of the warping of space-time as one approaches the singularity. The three spatial dimensions with which we're all familiar shrink to infinitesimal proportions. Does time itself shrink likewise with everything at the singularity sort of frozen in place? Or, perhaps, does everything go racing into the future? Is it possible that the gravity of this "future stuff" is able to makes itself felt backwards in time (in its own past) so that the black hole doesn't just disappear once enough stuff has gone into the future?
One thing seems certain. I believe that most scientists agree that (large) black holes don't just disappear. I believe the consensus is that, once formed, they're with us to the very end.
So, if anyone is familiar with Einstein's field equations, can you tell me what they say about time at the singularity?
Chris
I imagine Madam Curie pondering the source of the copious amounts of energy emanating from the Radium she managed to isolate and purify. In the end, she must have simply admitted "I don't know how this energy is produced". This didn't deter others from thinking about the same question and, eventually, an answer was found.
I think it's fair to say that at this time we don't know for sure what goes on inside the event horizon of a black hole. I believe that General Relativity provides us with the mathematical tools to predict that the spatial vector pointing towards the center (the singularity) becomes a temporal vector that places the singularity in the future of everything inside the event horizon (regardless of any "sideways" movement).
This is somewhat like thinking about the fact that the universe we see today was inevitably in the future of every photon and particle contained in the very early universe in the moments after the Big Bang (and also throughout the billions of years since those first moments).
We have no way of testing the mathematical predictions of General Relativity as they apply within the confines of an event horizon. Right now they're our best guess about what happens.
One thing that I think about in the context of the warping of space-time as one approaches the singularity. The three spatial dimensions with which we're all familiar shrink to infinitesimal proportions. Does time itself shrink likewise with everything at the singularity sort of frozen in place? Or, perhaps, does everything go racing into the future? Is it possible that the gravity of this "future stuff" is able to makes itself felt backwards in time (in its own past) so that the black hole doesn't just disappear once enough stuff has gone into the future?
One thing seems certain. I believe that most scientists agree that (large) black holes don't just disappear. I believe the consensus is that, once formed, they're with us to the very end.
So, if anyone is familiar with Einstein's field equations, can you tell me what they say about time at the singularity?
Chris
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