Random Twaddle: Black Holes & Spiral Galaxies

This is an old blog post that I transferred here from another website of mine that I recently deleted. The original date of this post is January 9th, 2012.

Well, I’ve just been running into debatable subjects all week it seems, like I mentioned on my last post about Altruism & Conscience. I never thought there was much to debate about on whether or not black holes exist, but that the questions would be more about understanding them and how they work. One of the biggest questions non-scientific people often ask doesn’t really have to do with the concepts behind it, by what scientists theorize. That question would be: What is on the other side of a black hole? Of course, a creative science fiction answer would be: Another dimension or perhaps another universe. Sounds great, but is that true? [Nah, probably not. Sure, there could definitely be other dimensions and universes, but a "black hole" is a doubtful portal to such.]

Well, it seems more like black holes create or shall I say “form” spiral galaxies for this 3-dimensional universe, and that black holes are formed from large dying stars. It sounds more like a recycle bin, galactic garbage can, and a galaxy creator, if ya ask me. I noticed many years ago, before I ever heard such talk (before the Internet was available and everybody was a genius or a feign online scientist), while looking through my space books and encyclopedias, that spiral galaxies appeared as if they were spiraling down a toilet, as if a hole or vacuum formed it, etc. Now, many years later, scientists are openly stating such things. Damn, all I did was look at the pretty pictures, and came to that conclusion as a kid. Well, I’m not going to blog about the joys of intuition, as that would be another subject; ha!

The universe is so vast that the sheer size of the cosmos is beyond our comprehension, as we can only theorize, use deductive reasoning, logic, and rational thoughts to a certain point. …And after a while, it all becomes land of the woo-woos for us humanoids, but ain’t it fun, though?

Now, back to this black hole stuff… Here’s an excerpt from NASA’s website: “Don’t let the name fool you: a black hole is anything but empty space. Rather, it is a great amount of matter packed into a very small area – think of a star ten times more massive than the Sun squeezed into a sphere approximately the diameter of New York City. The result is a gravitational field so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. In recent years, NASA instruments have painted a new picture of these strange objects that are, to many, the most fascinating objects in space.”

I mentioned earlier that they are formed from large dying stars, going by what I have read and studied in the past. Personally, I haven’t buzzed around the cosmos lately, since my high-tech flying saucers are all out of order at the moment and in desperate need of repair. But, as NASA states on their website: “Most black holes form from the remnants of a large star that dies in a supernova explosion. (Smaller stars become dense neutron stars, which are not massive enough to trap light.) If the total mass of the star is large enough (about three times the mass of the Sun), it can be proven theoretically that no force can keep the star from collapsing under the influence of gravity.” Sounds good to me… You can read more about this subject, here: https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/black-holes/

Anyway, one of the main reasons why I’m doing this post, is because some clown (along with several others) that was on a discussion forum while claiming to be knowledgeable in all subjects related to science, space, astrophysics, etc., said that black holes are fairy tales and voodoo for stupid mathematicians. WTF? This is the same guy that also has to “Google” everything for most of his replies, but somehow got lost in his/her own black hole on that particular subject. Once again, the word “hole” is what screws some people up, as it does sound like they are describing something that rips a hole through the fabric of space and whatnot, but that’s not what they mean – at least at the moment, but then again, scientific understandings of the universe tend to change over time, so who really freakin’ knows?

Now, back to this multiple dimension stuff… If we are talking about a possible way to travel through the cosmos by way of a shortcut and/or possibly into another universe, dimension, whatever, I would at least use a theory involving wormholes, artificial or natural, but not black holes, unless I just felt like being funny and wanted to get in touch with my inner science fictional fantasies…

I suppose there is no reason for me to delve into the land of wormholes, since there is, at the time I’m writing this, no observational evidence for such, just theory, etc. If you’re interested, just do what a lot of these self-professed gurus do online and perform Internet searches for it so you can be an expert within minutes and can call yourself a “scientist,” as well. After you copy & paste some material into the comment sections and/or use ’em for forum replies, you can achieve the credit that took some people years to learn. Ha-ha! Okay, enough jokes about that asinine crap…

Spiral Galaxies… What a beauty they are to look at, thanks to NASA. Another good thing about their images, is that they are not copyright material and can be posted and shared by anyone. Speaking of such, I was going to end this post with a few images of these spectacular spiral galaxies. Oh, by the way, in case you’re really young or not very educated, we live within a spiral galaxy called the Milky Way, just saying… LOL!

Oh, and one more thing before I drop down the galactic depictions: If you’re interested in a book that elaborately covers several topics related to black holes, wormholes, and time warps along with many other interesting subjects, all in an easy-to-understand fashion, go here: “Kip S. Thorne – Black Holes & Time Warps – Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy – The Book” [link is no longer active]

Images of Spiral Galaxies via NASA; click to enlarge: