Interesting stuff.  

As for the black holes, I had no idea there were so many that close

Post edited at 9:03 pm on Oct. 14, 2006 by InsaneBlue

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there are about 200 supermassive black holes within about 400 million light-years of the Earth

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400 million lightyears is nearby? wow.

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whats not to like.

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norock
Space-time continuum.
Traveling millions of miles instantaneously

whats not to like.

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Other than the fact that if faster-than-light travel or communication was possible, we'd start running into casuality violations, I like it.  

Black holes are incredibly common in our universe, and they're very weird.  As science stands now, all laws of physics (and common sense!) break down at the center of a black hole, the "singularity".  And if a black hole rotates (most do), it actually drags the fabric of space-time around with it.  Space-time isn't really a fabric, but it's a convienent metaphor.  

Also, when a black hole rotates, the singularity is stretched into a doughnut or a ring shape.  What I'd like to know is if one was to successfully pass through the ring, where do you go?  

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black holes are depressions in the space time continuum so if one were to travel through one you would, most likely, end up in another "dimension" or layer of the continuum.

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Physics is a relative system anyway. relative to our "speed" at which we traverse through the continuum. thankfull that doesnt change frequently..

black holes are depressions in the space time continuum so if one were to travel through one you would, most likely, end up in another "dimension" or layer of the continuum.

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Everything causes a "depression" in the fabric.  Black holes cause an incredibly deep depression that pinches off.  The point where the walls of the well, so to speak, become infinitely close to each other, such that it becomes a one-dimensional point, is the singularity.  

@Apotheosis

Well, I was assuming that the traveler would have survived the tidal forces and blue-shifted radiation and actually made it alive to see the ring singularity, but you're right.  In 999,999 out of 1,000,000 attempts, any astronauts trying to explore the innards of the black hole would be killed, probably as soon as or shortly after they entered the event horizon.

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Well, I was assuming that the traveler would have survived the tidal forces and blue-shifted radiation and actually made it alive to see the ring singularity, but you're right.  In 999,999 out of 1,000,000 attempts, any astronauts trying to explore the innards of the black hole would be killed, probably as soon as or shortly after they entered the event horizon.

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I was wondering how you were intending to get around the whole horrible, terrible, grizzy, blood wrenching, atomizing, subatomic destruction, matter annihilating death problem.

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In some cases, such as the non-electrically charged, Kerr-type (that is to say, rotating) black hole, it's possible that with a carefully measured fall, an observer with the proper radiation shielding and navigational skills may not be shredded to kibbles and bits before passing the radius of the black hole.  Kerr-type black holes are the most common in the universe, scientists believe, because when large stars die, the rotational energy is preserved.  If the star rotated, the black hole that remains after the supernova rotates as well.  By the way, all stars, to knowledge, rotate.  

Some black holes don't rotate, however, and they're the basic model of black hole (there are ways of creating a black hole that don't involve waiting hundreds of millions of years for your local supergiant star to "asplode").   In that kind, the singularity IS a point, and your only hope of survival would be a Einstein-Rosen bridge miraculously opening up in the throat of the black hole (thanks to deux ex machina] and good ol' quantum foaminess... but if you entered it, it'd definitely collapse on you, because your mass disturbed the local geometry, so that's not much of an option.  

Classically, the singularity is the ultimate "you're screwed" point... but if the singularity has been stretched by the rotation into a doughnut, you sail right through on through the doughnut hole without being infinitely compressed.  

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