Stephen Hawking?
08 December 2011, 06:03 PM
#31
It seems to be the prerogative of all those scientists studying astronomy etc etc that when they have thought up what they state is an acceptable theory and they find that there is a hole on the requirements to prove that theory, they come up with a missing item which is all they need to prove the theory but they just cannot find the said item! They expect us all to meekly accept the positive likelihood of their theory being true!
Les
Les
09 December 2011, 08:54 AM
#32
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Space and time are relative, we know gravity does slow time down and has been proven in experiments. Here's my attempt at an explanation of space, time and gravity. It's probably a load of bull, but it makes sense to me.
If you think of space as a fabric, and anything with mass makes an indent on that fabric, sort of like a bowling ball in the middle of a trampoline. The bigger the mass, the more it stretches space. To someone travelling towards that mass, they will accelerate towards it at a faster rate the closer they get due to the curvature of space and gravity (maybe they are the same thing?). However, to an out side observer, they only see the person or object on a linear path towards the mass, they don't see the curvature. So as the object gets closer to the mass they appear to slow down. In the case of a black hole, the mass is so great that the distortion in space appears infinite with the curvature being exponential. To the outside observer, the object would appear to never reach the mass and it would be as though time was standing still. If you were the object though, time would be normal and you would be travelling at immense speed towards the mass.
Here's an image to attempt to explain what I mean:
The gray dots are what the observer sees, they only see the horizontal movement through time towards the mass. You can never actually observe this because of the event horizon. Does that make sense to anyone? It's only my theory, so is more than likely complete drivel.
If you think of space as a fabric, and anything with mass makes an indent on that fabric, sort of like a bowling ball in the middle of a trampoline. The bigger the mass, the more it stretches space. To someone travelling towards that mass, they will accelerate towards it at a faster rate the closer they get due to the curvature of space and gravity (maybe they are the same thing?). However, to an out side observer, they only see the person or object on a linear path towards the mass, they don't see the curvature. So as the object gets closer to the mass they appear to slow down. In the case of a black hole, the mass is so great that the distortion in space appears infinite with the curvature being exponential. To the outside observer, the object would appear to never reach the mass and it would be as though time was standing still. If you were the object though, time would be normal and you would be travelling at immense speed towards the mass.
Here's an image to attempt to explain what I mean:
The gray dots are what the observer sees, they only see the horizontal movement through time towards the mass. You can never actually observe this because of the event horizon. Does that make sense to anyone? It's only my theory, so is more than likely complete drivel.
Last edited by Saint AAI; 09 December 2011 at 08:55 AM.
09 December 2011, 09:05 AM
#33
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The bowling ball and trampoline analogy is exactly the same as Einstein used. Still, great minds and all that!
Last edited by JTaylor; 09 December 2011 at 09:16 AM.
09 December 2011, 01:58 PM
#37
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Scientists are starting to find the lack of experimental verification frustrating too. I've interviewed a couple of postgrad students in the last year who abandoned theoretical physics PhD's for exactly this reason - the research topics they were working on had no prospect of experimental verification one way or the other within their lifetimes.
Les
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