Black holes hide a lot of secrets, and scientists around the world have teamed up to learn more about them. The latest study includes researching whether humans are able to survive black holes, and their massive gravity, where not even the laws of physics can be applied.
A team of researchers led by Peter Hintz at the University of California, Berkeley conducted a study, which tries to reveal some of the most well-kept secrets of black holes. Their findings were published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
“No physicist is going to travel into a black hole and measure it. This is a math question. But from that point of view, this makes Einstein’s equations mathematically more interesting,” Hintz said in a statement. “This is a question one can really only study mathematically, but it has physical, almost philosophical implications, which makes it very cool.”
It’s important to note that there are types of black holes that have an electromagnetic charge, while there are some types that don’t. However, all black holes have something that is called an event horizon, a point from which there is no point of return, and is deadly to whatever gets inside of it.
So, anything that gets sucked into a black hole with an electromagnetic charge, and passes through the event horizon, would then encounter the Cauchy horizon, and scientists are trying to answer the question on what’s beyond the Cauchy horizon.
“Given that we don’t know what happens past the Cauchy horizon, it could be crazy things as long as they’re mathematically possible,” Hintz told New Scientist in an interview.
Nevertheless, if the sucked-in objects remain near the Cauchy horizon long enough, the massive gravity will stretch it, as well as the concept of space and time. Given that at the edge of the Cauchy horizon no laws of physics apply, scientists can’t make predictions about what could be located beyond it.
“[The singularity] could emit elephants, planets, radiation – basically anything,” Hintz told New Scientist.
Still, Hintz’s team pointed out the rapid expanding of the universe. That means that all the energy in the black hole would be evenly distributed. That means that if scientists built a spaceship which would pass through the Cauchy horizon fast enough, we would maybe get to know what’s beyond and that way find a method to survive black holes, and learn even more about them in the process.
Those calculations could work only with black holes with an electric charge. However, they exist only in theory. The team believes, though, that this behavior could be seen in the black holes that actually exist. For instance, rotating black holes.
Hintz’s paper has sparked other papers. One of those aims is to show that the well-behaved black holes don’t affect determinism.
“People had been complacent for some 20 years, since the mid ’90s, that strong cosmological censorship is always verified,” he said in a statement. “We challenge that point of view.”
Hintz’s work is supported by the Clay Mathematics Institute and the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science at UC Berkeley.
Most likely, you won’t ever be exposed to the enormous gravity of black holes, hence you don’t have to worry about being stretched to death. However, to science, the capability to survive black holes and its cruel properties allows scientists to learn more about them.
