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Published online 7 January 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.6
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Did black holes form before galaxies?
Astronomers work on universe's chicken-and-egg problem.
The huge black holes that lie at the centre of galaxies grow by devouring gas and stars that come too close, but their gravitational attraction can also encourage the birth of stars and the growth of galaxies. This dual role as creator and destroyer has left astronomers with a puzzle: which came first, the black hole or the galaxy?
Research from radio astronomers now suggests that black holes got off to a faster start, at least in four galaxies that existed in the early Universe.
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"If the observations do hold, astronomers will be faced with a new task: explaining how the black holes came to be so big, so quickly, without a surrounding galaxy for nourishment. They would have to devour gas at maximum rates starting almost immediately after the Big Bang, says Carilli. "It's a total puzzle to me."" -- But this is evidently something one should rather START with, before announcing another "revolutionary hypothesis", unless official science has been completely transformed into self-interested fairy-tale storytelling! Dubious observations of faint effects with innumerable possible "interpretations", where one arbitrarily chooses the most subjectively "exciting" one to attract popular interest and corresponding investment in one's activity. Are we talking about a new post-modern religion, sci-fi branch, or "rigorous" and "objective" science? In any case, the Nature magazine, as a leading tabloid for presenting those post-modern fantasies of official science establishment, has very big perspectives in this emerging genre, FICTION SCIENCE, using exactly the same methods and ?rigour? as its now disappearing predecessor, science fiction. It's not surprising taking into account their common basis: fiction - decorated lie - fantasy - storytelling - public cheating - word play - ... (one can add other relevant "methods and results" from the same series). One feature, however, should be seriously modified, if one wants to repeat the sci-fi success story: the essential support such "serious" and "professional" science gets for this or that fairy tale should be totally and individually determined by the public success of the story (which is the unique final purpose of that kind of science, anyway), instead of being practically "guaranteed" as average, fixed-proportion public fund investment in "our fundamental knowledge" only cosmetically manipulated by self-interested "peer-review" procedures (conducted by beneficiaries themselves!). Happy New Year in the brave new fiction science universe!
It has been claimed by the astrophysical scientists that a black hole has an escape velocity >= c (speed of light in vacuo). However, according to the alleged properties of a black hole, nothing, not even light, can leave the black hole, so the BH has no escape velocity. If its minimum escape velocity is really that of light, then by definition of escape velocity, light would escape in that case. Not only that, if the BH had an escape velocity then material objects with an initial velocity less than that alleged escape velocity could leave the black hole but not escape (just go out, come to a stop and then fall back). Escape velocity does not mean that objects cannot leave; it only means they cannot escape if they have an initial velocity less than the escape velocity. So on the one hand it is claimed that BH's have an escape velocity >=c, but on the other hand that nothing, not even light, can even leave the BH. The claims are contradictory - nothing but a meaningless play on the words "escape velocity". Yet I note the following remark in this report: ?For one thing, the light from the black holes outshines any surrounding stars, making them difficult to see.? I also note the following remarks: "This constant ratio indicates that the black hole and the bulge affect each others' growth in some sort of interactive relationship," said Dominik Riechers of the California Institute of Technology, or Caltech. "The big question has been whether one grows before the other or if they grow together, maintaining their mass ratio throughout the entire process." Carilli et. al. do not specify what kind of black hole you claim at the centres of galaxies. The simplest alleged black hole is the so-called Schwarzschild BH, which comes from a solution to the field equations Ric = 0, which is a spacetime that by construction contains no matter. Now the Principle of Superposition does not apply in General Relativity (in other words, one cannot insert into any given spacetime, by an analogy with Newton's theory, any number of objects into that given spacetime. The Principle of Superposition does apply in Newton's theory). Since the spacetime of the so-called Schwarzschild BH is by construction devoid of matter, one cannot insert another Schwarzschild BH (obtained separately from Ric = 0) into the spacetime of the first Schwarzschild BH, so that the two BH's persist in and mutually interact in a mutual spacetime that by construction contains no matter! Similarly, one cannot simply insert matter other than black holes into the spacetime of the alleged Schwarzschild BH, a spacetime that by construction contains no matter. But that is precisely what the proponents of black holes do, all the time. But one cannot talk of black hole interactions until it has been proven that such configurations of matter are well defined in General Relativity. This can be done in only two possible ways: (a) derivation of an exact solution for two (or more) bodies, or (b) proof of an existence theorem. But there are no known solutions to Einstein's field equations for two or more masses and no existence theorem has been proven by which it can even be asserted that his field equations contain latent solutions for such configurations of matter. Therefore, all talk of the presence of multiple black holes or black holes interacting with anything, is just wishful thinking. Upon what solution to Einstein's field equations do Carilli et. al. rely for the presence of numerous black holes, or even one black hole interacting with other matter, such as alleged at the centres of galactic bulges? And by what solution to Einstein?s field equations do they calculate the mass of the black holes they allege? The alleged signatures of the black hole are (1) an infinitely dense point-mass singularity and (2) an event horizon. Nobody has ever found an infinitely dense point-mass singularity and nobody has ever found an event horizon, so nobody has ever found a black hole, despite the now daily claims by the astrophysical scientists that they have found them all over the place, in great numbers. Nobody has ever observed a celestial body undergo irresistible gravitational collapse and there is no laboratory evidence for such a phenomenon. Similarly, not only has nobody ever found an infinitely dense point-mass singularity anywhere, there is no laboratory evidence that such things exist. And similarly, not only has nobody ever found an event horizon; there is no laboratory evidence that such things exist. All reports of black holes being found are just wishful thinking - patently false ? unless you can provide the coordinates of a verified infinitely dense point-mass singularity and a verified event horizon. But there are of course, as you know, no such coordinates, because no black holes have ever been found. Since Carilli et. al. advocate existence of black holes from General Relativity they (and any proponent of black holes)are invited to provide answers to the following additional questions. 1. In the so-called "Schwarzschild solution" what does the quantity 'r' represent? Provide a proof of what your conception of 'r' therein is. 2. What do you say is the range on 'r' in (1) above? Provide a proof of your claimed range on 'r'. 3. Can you prove that the so-called "Schwarzschild solution" is Schwarzschild's solution? If so, provide the proof. Resorting to mere citation of the usual "authorities" will not do.You must provide arguments and adduce rigorous proofs in explanation and justification of your answers. After all, my questions are not complex.