Can black holes ever really form?

During my weekly live video chat, I was asked if black holes can ever really form -- won't the slowing of time make it impossible for one to ever actually exist? The answer is, well, a little weird. But that's how black holes are!

I apologize for the quality-- it's jumpy; this was recorded during a live chat, and the connection was spotty.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• phil plait
• black holes
• astronomy
• bad astronomy
• science

[ScalarPhotonZ]

In a uniformly accelerating frame of reference (relativistic version of uniform acceleration), (going by the Rindler space description of uniformly accelerating frames), there is a special plane on which time is effectively frozen, called the Rindler horizon. It is very analogous to the event horizon of a black hole.

[TheCrimsonIdol987]

@ScalarPhotonZ: Nothing really is overly special about black holes really, event horizons DO NOT take an infinite amount of time to form, they form when the escape velocity of the object becomes faster than the speed of light.

[RobertsMrtn]

I disagree. I black hole would never be able to form because it would take an infinite amount if time to do so. As the video explains, time stands still on the event horizon, so matter would take longer and longer to pass through an emerging event horizon (looking from the outside).

[markusduff2006]

everything will definitley be fine for "him" lol

[ScalarPhotonZ]

It's a common misconception that:

"Nothing within the event horizon can ever get out again, simply because the escape veolcity at the event horizon is the speed of light, and nothing can reach faster than the speed of light."

While I accept it's true that nothing within the event horizon can escape, explaining this phenomenon must require a deeper understanding of GR than just the above statement. The above statement is extremely flawed, when considering the true definition of escape velocity.

[Helge129]

@ScalarPhotonZ The event horizon itself forms as soon as the escape velocity of that area of spacetime exeeds the speed of light, it takes finite time. However, if you could see through the event horizon, everything past the event horizon would stand still. At least, from what I know.

[ScalarPhotonZ]

So relative to an observer that remains outside and away from the collapsing mass, does it take a finite or infinite time for the event horizon to form? If infinite, where does Hawking radiation come in then?

[EzekielSwapp]

@9hello123 the reason scientists cannot comprehend experiments like the double slit experiment is because there theory of it is wrong. If you could think out side of your little box that the scientific community has put you in you would be able to understand the double slit experiment with absolute clarity. and there would be no contradictions or "quantum weirdness" which is just another term for "we don't know what the heck we are observing"

[EzekielSwapp]

@9hello123 How in the world can you say a theory is correct if you can't even understand it or comprehend it?

[EzekielSwapp]

@9hello123 i believe that magnetism constists of something that we don't understand yet I don't believe that it is "virtual" and the way you just described quarks sounds like they don't even exist. Quarks don't move? so what happens when i move my hand which is suposedly made of quarks do they still not move? or what happens when i heat up my hand and all the molecules viberate do the quarks still not viberate?