In fiction, black
holes are usually
what's called a
deus ex machina--
I didn't even know how to
say that phrase before now--
a convenient and contrived
solution to an apparently
insoluble difficulty.
They've been the keys
to hyperspace travel
and semi-evil personified
monsters, time dilators,
giant mask crushing
galactic trashcans,
portals to other
places, bookshelves.
And if you're a
smart person, which
I'm sure you are because you're
watching Uno Dos of Trace,
then you know what happens
when a human being falls
into a real black hole right?
Spaghettification, crushing
death, horribleness, duh.
But a new paper from
mathematicians and physicists
at UMass Dartmouth
says otherwise.
They say that a ship
could essentially
pass through the event
horizon unscathed.
Yes, it would
experience something,
but it wouldn't be dead.
And I have to say
I have questions.
Hey, there, humans.
Welcome to Uno Dos of Trace.
Hello.
The black hole is the
edge of astrophysics.
It's big.
No one can see inside
the event horizon,
which is the point at which
light can't even escape.
And allegedly anyone who
does try and go in there
will be doomed to a
crushing death in a universe
without the laws of physics
and devoid of spacetime.
No problem.
And yet maybe not.
This new paper and mathematical
model say otherwise.
They say a ship passing
through a black hole
would be like a hand passing
over a flame of a candle.
You could go inside
the event horizon,
and it doesn't actually affect
the ship that much at all.
And, in fact, a
traveler in a spaceship
flying into this specific
type of black hole
could potentially use that
astronomical singularity
to travel into hyperspace.
And this is like an
upheaval of the physics
that we know and love.
So I called the researcher
who did it to find out more.
We had suspected that passing
through this particular type
of singularity wouldn't
necessarily destroy something
that was falling through.
By not necessarily, I
mean that the strain--
the distortions that
don't become the infinite.
So we ran the
simulations to show
that that is, in
fact, what happened
that you got an isolation
that got bigger,
and then it went
back down again.
Basically what they're
saying is if you
flew past a very specific type
of black hole, a gargantuan
or super massive
one, that is rapidly
rotating without an electric
charge called a care
black hole, then your spacecraft
would experience the stretching
and squeezing that's expected.
The thing that they discovered
is that the stretching
and squeezing wasn't unlimited.
It wasn't infinite.
You don't get intricately
distorted by these things.
The tidal forces very
briefly do become infinite,
but it's so brief, it
actually doesn't necessarily
rip an object apart
because it's not
exposed to it for long enough.
You're just falling through
the singularity really quickly.
You could survive this.
This model allows, according
to the lead researcher,
quote, "for a rather
comfortable passage
through the singularity."
The reason you're not
crushed when you do this
is because of how the black
hole in your ship and spacetime
interact.
Let me try and explain this.
Some black holes are
spinning, and those that spin
are spinning spacetime
along with them.
Spinning black holes
actually have two horizons,
the event horizon that you
can see here, and inside it
the Cauchy horizon.
From what I understand,
this is where
you would go from traveling
through space to traveling
through time.
This horizon is inside
the event horizon,
so we never actually
see this one
but mathematically
it does exist.
The reason we would want to do
this is because it increases
the possibility--
again this is a quote
from the researchers--
"that humans
could use large rotating
black holes as portals
for hyperspace travel."
Holy schnikes!
Let's just let that
marinate for a second.
This is bonkers.
Your mind is blown right now.
Consider subscribing because
you're definitely one of us.
What this means for you
and me right now today
other than fodder for
the science fiction novel
that you're working on Andy
Weir is not actually a lot.
This paper was really
about what happens
leading up to the singularity.
It doesn't-- we don't actually
make any suggestions about what
happens on the other side.
We have some idea of
what might be behind it,
but it could connect to the
other side of the galaxy.
It's just you can cut and paste
spacetime like you want there
because it's not continuous.
It breaks there.
I guess hyperspace
makes good headlines so.
We can't actually do
experiments on black holes,
so we just know this is one
more thing about them for when
we do encounter one in space.
What it means for the
future is that black holes
are more interesting
than we thought.
If humans can set
sail into a black hole
and harness these monsters
for our own purposes, what?
I have no idea what
that could mean.
More research is
definitely needed.
There is one last
consideration here.
This mathematical
model, it was too good.
It didn't take into
account the interaction
of the traveler with
radiation or gas or dust
or the remnants of the
star the black hole was
eating at the time.
It assumed the black hole was
solitary and perfect like me.
There's more to learn here
for sure, so watch this space.
So what do you think about this.
Is your mind expanded
because holy crap mine--
I'm going to have to sit and
think about this for a bit.
Super, super huge thanks
to Caroline Mallory
for joining us at
the last minute
to just tell you all about this.
I'm sorry if I talk really fast.
This stuff just gets me
jazzed, and it's just
the edge of what I know
and I love it so much.
Thanks for tuning in to
Uno Dos of Trace everyone.
Make sure that you
click that sub button
because next week is the
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