Scientist
claims she has mathematical proof black holes cannot exist
She
said it is impossible for stars to collapse and form a singularity
Professor
Laura Mersini-Houghton said she is still in 'shock' from the find
Previously,
scientists thought stars much larger than the sun collapsed under their own
gravity and formed black holes when they died
During
this process they release a type of radiation called Hawking radiation
But
new research claims the star would lose too much mass and wouldn't be able to
form a black hole
If
true, the theory that the universe began as a singularity, followed by the Big
Bang, could also be wrong
When a huge star many times the mass of the sun comes to the end
of its life it collapses in on itself and forms a singularity - creating a
black hole where gravity is so strong that not even light itself can escape.
At least, that’s what we thought.
A scientist has sensationally said that it is impossible for black holes to
exist - and she even has mathematical proof to back up her claims.
If true, her research could force physicists to scrap their theories of how
the universe began.
One of the biggest unanswered questions about black holes is the so-called information paradox.
Under current theories for black holes it is thought that nothing can escape from the event horizon around a black hole - not even light itself. Inside the black hole is thought to be a singularity where matter is crushed to an infinitesimally small point as predicted by Einstein's theory of gravity. However, a fundamental law of quantum theory states that no information from the universe can ever disappear. This creates a paradox; how can a black hole make matter and information 'disappear'?
Professor Mersini-Houghton's new theory manages to explain why this might be so - namely because black holes as we know them cannot exist.
A scientist
from University of North Carolina states she has mathematical proof that black
holes (illustrated) can't exist. She said it is impossible for stars to
collapse and form a singularity. Previously, scientists thought stars larger
than the sun collapsed under their own gravity and formed black holes as they
died
The research was conducted by Professor Laura
Mersini-Houghton from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the
College of Arts and Scientists.
She claims that as a star dies, it releases a
type of radiation known as Hawking radiation - predicted by Professor Stephen
Hawking.
However in this process, Professor Mersini-Houghton believes the star also
sheds mass, so much so that it no longer has the density to become a black
hole.
Before the black hole can form, she said, the dying star swells and
explodes.
The singularity as predicted never forms, and neither does the event
horizon - the boundary of the black hole where not even light can escape.
‘I’m still not over the shock,’ said Professor Mersini-Houghton.
‘We’ve been studying this problem for a more than 50 years and this
solution gives us a lot to think about.’
Experimental evidence may one day provide physical proof as to whether or
not black holes exist in the universe.
But for now, Mersini-Houghton says the mathematics are conclusive.
What’s more, the research could apparently even call into question the
veracity of the Big Bang theory.
Most physicists think the universe originated from a singularity that began
expanding with the Big Bang about 13.8 billion years ago.
If it is impossible for singularities to exist, however, as partially
predicted by Professor Mersini-Houghton, then that theory would also be brought
into question.
Earlier this year Professor Stephen Hawking shocked physicists by saying 'there are no black holes'.
In a paper published online, Professor Hawking instead argues there are 'grey holes'
'The absence of event horizons means that there are no black holes - in the sense of regimes from which light can't escape to infinity,' he says in the paper, called Information Preservation and Weather Forecasting For Black Holes.
He says that the idea of an event horizon, from which light cannot escape, is flawed.He suggests that instead light rays attempting to rush away from the black hole’s core will be held as though stuck on a treadmill and that they can slowly shrink by spewing out radiation.
During the
collapse process stars release a type of radiation called Hawking radiation
(shown). But Professor Mersini-Houghton claims this process means the star
loses too much mass and can't form a black hole. And this also apparently means
the Big Bang theory, that the universe began as a singularity, may not be
correct
One of the reasons black holes are so bizarre is that they pit two
fundamental theories of the universe against each other.
Namely, Einstein’s theory of gravity predicts the formation of black holes.
But a fundamental law of quantum theory states that no information from the
universe can ever disappear.
Efforts to combine these two theories proved problematic, and has become known as the black hole information paradox - how can matter permanently disappear in a black hole as predicted?
Professor Mersini-Houghton’s new theory does manage to mathematically combine
the two fundamental theories, but with unwanted effects for people expecting
black holes to exist.
‘Physicists have been trying to merge these two theories - Einstein’s theory of gravity and quantum mechanics - for decades, but this scenario brings these two theories together, into harmony,’ said Professor Mersini-Houghton.
‘And that’s a big deal.’
Most indications from the Large Hadron Collider, and the
physics community at large, support the most straightforward notion
that the particle detection they announced on July 4, 2012, was
indeed the Higgs boson that they were hoping to find. However, a
recent study published by a team of European researchers suggests
that the case isn't closed and that, perhaps, there are alternative
explanations that also fit the data. ( Andrew Zimmerman Jones )
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