What If Planet Nine Is A Bowling Ball-Size Black Hole?
“Primordial black holes” are a class of proposed objects that formed as a result of the chaotic early days of the universe. Like any other black hole, they would be incredibly dense regions where gravity warps space so much that light cannot escape.I didn't realise Hawking radiation would work so slowly.
But these would weigh far less than stars, since they weren’t formed out of stars like the black holes we’ve actually observed — they would have formed out of places of leftover extra density in the rapidly expanding early universe. (And no, they wouldn’t contribute significantly to dark matter, the mysterious stuff that seems to comprise the lion’s share of the universe’s mass.)
Unwin and his collaborator Jakub Scholtz, a junior research fellow at the Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology at Durham University, proposed that perhaps a primordial black hole whizzed by, interacted with the solar system’s other members, and became trapped in an orbit.
I asked Uniwn and Scholtz whether such an object would evaporate from tiny physical effects called Hawking radiation; they said that no, even a five-Earth-mass black hole would last for a very long time, far longer than the age of the universe.
If the planet really were a primordial black hole, rather than a planet-sized mass of regular matter, then it would be no use trying to find it with typical planet-searching means.
A figure in the paper, shared above, demonstrates that a five-Earth-mass black hole could fit in the palm of your hand (yes, this encounter would kill you), and a 10-Earth-mass black hole would be the size of a bowling ball.
"There is no such thing as Hawking radiation. There were at least three spastic Hawkings and the later public figure Hawking never was involved in science in his life. What would happen is that one cripple would die, and then they would dump him and place another spastic on the chair, wheeling him out brand new."
ReplyDeleteI hesitate to ask, but what exactly would be the evidence for this claim?
Do some of your ideas come to you as dreams, by any chance?
Well there you go Steve. As if 'Planet Nine the Black Hole Returns' wasn't the idea for one good SF story already, Graham has graciously given you another one: 'I was Stephen Hawking's Crisis Actor'.
ReplyDeletePut them together for a *really* fun SF story!
By the way, Tim, aren't you going to rise to my Boris Johnson bait at some point?
ReplyDeleteI did, unless you're referring to the post above that of the 'Bonking Boris' variety.
ReplyDeleteSorry, missed it.
ReplyDeleteI think everyone knows that a large part of it is performance, but he seems to have no idea of appropriate time or place for it.
Once again, I hesitate to ask: but Graeme, what would be the interest of the oligarchy in promoting a physics idea that they know (according to you) is laughably wrong? It makes no difference to life on Earth whether Hawking radiation works or not. What is their motivation?
ReplyDeleteI would also add that Hawking radiation is not all that difficult to understand, as long as you accept quantum effects. I assume you do not accept quantum effects.
Go ahead and blather away...
.." the psychological operation of inducing existential hopelessness in the gentile kids."
ReplyDeleteWhat about their own "not gentile" kids? Or is your harebrain fever dream that Jewish physicists instruct their children that of course this quantum physics/relativity/black hole science stuff they keep hearing about is not true, and of course there is an aether, and modern science since Einstein is just a plot to demoralise the gentiles?
And those kids maintain the secret and pass it on to their kids?
No one ever leaks the truth of the conspiracy of how Jewish kids know the truth about modern science?