Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Fall Into Black Hole Video
A video showing what happens if you fall into a black hole has been created by researchers Andrew Hamilton and Gavin Polhemus of the University of Colorado. If you fell into a black hole, what would it look like? Could you see beyond the event horizon? Take a look inside a black hole.
(Video shows inside of black hole)
Obviously, this is a CGI realization of the work done in predicting the characteristics of spacetime inside the event horizon of a Schwarzchild black hole. Sorry, nobody's sent in a camera! Here's an excerpt from the paper backing the simulation.
The view as the observer approaches the central singularity is of particular interest because, according to ideas arising from “observer complementarity,” points in opposite directions along the observer’s past light cone are at “the edge of locality,” where standard flat-space quantum-field-theory commutation rules may beat the brink of failure. Near the singularity, the observer’s view is aberrated by the diverging tidal force into a horizontal plane. The view in the horizontal plane is highly blue shifted, but all directions other than horizontal appear highly red shifted. We argue that the affine distance provides a canonical measure of distance along a light ray from emitter to observer. Since the affine distance is not directly measurable by the observer, we also consider perceptual distances, and argue that the trinocular distance (binocular distance is inadequate) provides an estimate of affine distance that would allow tree-leaping apes to survive in highly curved spacetime.
Considerately, the authors provide us with a nice sketch of the three-eyed inhabitants of a highly curved spacetime.
(Black Hole inhabitant with trinocular vision [pdf])
One must assume that acute inhabitants [shown above] of highly curved spacetime would evolve three eyes, trinocular vision, to process the ellipsoidal wavefront into a best distance, one that allows them to leap from tree to tree with the least incidence of death....the mean of the reciprocal polar and azimuthal binocular distances agrees well with the affine distance even well off-axis where the wavefront is quite non-spherical. This suggests that a good strategy for the brains of three-eyed apes would be to infer a distance from the mean of the reciprocal binocular distances, that is, from the trace of the wavefront curvature matrix.
Can you see outside a black hole?
“When an observer outside the horizon observes the horizon of a black hole,” the researchers say, “they are actually observing the outgoing horizon. When they subsequently fall through the horizon, they do not fall through the horizon they were looking at, the outgoing horizon; rather, they fall through the ingoing horizon, which was invisible to them until they actually passed through it. Once inside the horizon, the in-faller sees both outgoing and ingoing horizons.”
One good sf reference for this situation (falling into a black hole) comes from the Farscape series. John Crichton is an IASA astronaut working on an experimental project dubbed "Farscape". During a test flight above Earth's orbit, a wormhole suddenly appears, hurling John to a distant part of the universe.
(Falling into a wormhole)
What's your favorite falling into a black hole scenario?
I particularly enjoyed this video; for the past two Saturdays, I've been treated to Saturday Morning Physics lectures at the University of Michigan campus on the subject of black holes. Professor Doug Richstone, Lawrence H. Aller Professor of Astronomy, presented an excellent talk on Supermassive Black Holes and the Evolution of Galaxies. Professor Marta Volonteri contributed a fascinating talk on Black Holes Along Cosmic Time.
From MIT's Technology Review; see also the paper The edge of locality: visualizing a black hole from the inside [pdf]. Also, take a look at the resources at this University of Colorado site Journey into a Schwarzschild black hole for more details and extra videos. Thanks to Moira for the tip and reference.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 4/2/2009)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Space Tech ")
SpaceX Wants A Moonbase Alpha
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.' - L. Ron Hubbard, 1948.
NASA Wants Self-Driving Or Remote-Controlled Vehicles For Lunar Astronauts
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
Orbital Mechanics, The Liftoff, The Turnover, The Retrograde Burn
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.' - EE 'Doc' Smith, 1928.
Can A Human Land A SpaceX Rocket On Its Tail?
'If she starts to roll sideways — blooey! The underjets only hold you up when they’re pointing down, you know.' - Stanley G. Weinbaum, 1936.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
SpaceX Wants A Moonbase Alpha
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
Vast Apartment Living Will Get Even More Vast
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
NASA Wants Self-Driving Or Remote-Controlled Vehicles For Lunar Astronauts
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
Elon Musk Says Robotaxis Will Be Ready This August, 2024
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Moonwalkers AI-Controlled Electric Shoes
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
Steve Jobs: 'Capture The Next Aristotle - With AI'
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
No Tips! Robotic Food Delivery In Phoenix
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
Electric Catamaran 'Explorer Eco 40m' Has 'Solar Skin'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
Orbital Mechanics, The Liftoff, The Turnover, The Retrograde Burn
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
Harvest Power From Tears And Blinking With Smart Contact Lens
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
Europa Clipper Plate Carries A Special Message
'...a universal cryptogram — yet it is one which can be interpreted by any intelligent creature on any planet in the Solar System!'
Micro-Robots Are Smallest, Fully Functional
'With a whir, the Scarab shot from the concealing shadows of the corner where it had hidden itself.'
AI Enhances Images Your Brain Sees
'I could have sworn the psychomat showed pictures almost as sharp and detailed as reality itself'
Illustrating Classic Heinlein With AI
'Stasis, cold sleep, hibernation, hypothermia, reduced metabolism, call it what you will - the logistics-medicine research teams had found a way to stack people like cordwood and use them when needed.'
Deflector Plasma Screen For Drones ala Star Wars
'If the enemy persists in attacking or even intensifies their power, the density of the plasma in space will suddenly increase, causing it to reflect most of the incoming energy like a mirror.'
DIY Robotic Hand Made After Loss Of Fingers
'I made them... with the fine work of the watchmaker...'
