by Markus Schwarz » Mon Feb 01, 2016 10:13 am
messier.palette wrote:
The first paragraph of my print article says, "...we USED to think that an astronaut falling past the point of no return -- the so-called event horizon -- would not feel anything special."
[Emphasis mine on the operative word.]
The article goes on to describe something different than you are leading people to believe. You haven't even read the article. Make your case after you've read it -- or don't read it, and leave it be.
But don't imagine that the article merely repeats Hawking's POV, when you haven't even read it [and it doesn't].
And for those of you who are interested in the actual possibilities that new information is giving us the chance to ponder, the author, Joseph Polchinski states that what the astronaut might experience is instant death.
Dear Messier Palette,
since you emphasised a sentence of the first paragraph, let me emphasise the title "Black Hole “Firewalls”
Could Change Physics Forever" and the subtitle "“Firewalls” of particles
may border black holes, confounding both general relativity and quantum mechanics".
Both general relativity and quantum mechanics are incredible successful where they apply (in the "large" and "small", respectively). There is no experiment which is not described by them and both allowed precise predictions, which have been verified. In all our experiments/observations we did so far, we could ignore the influence of the other. We don't have experimental access to a regime where both have to be taken into account (e.g. a large mass, say that of the sun, compressed into a tiny space, say that of an atom). However, it is also long known that both theories, as we currently understand them, are incompatible. Theoretical calculations either yield infinites, inconsistent results, or paradoxes. The
firewall paradox is one of them. To resolve it, we would need a theory of quantum gravity, which, alas, we don’t have yet. That is why the title uses the subjunctive rather then the indicative! I did not read the article in Scientific American, because it's behind a paywall. Does it discuss several different approaches to resolve the paradox or does it merely present one (possibly the author's?)?
[quote="messier.palette"]
The first paragraph of my print article says, "...we [b][u][color=#0000FF][size=150]USED[/size][/color][/u][/b] to think that an astronaut falling past the point of no return -- the so-called event horizon -- would not feel anything special."
[Emphasis mine on the operative word.]
The article goes on to describe something different than you are leading people to believe. You haven't even read the article. Make your case [b][u][i]after[/i][/u][/b] you've read it -- or don't read it, and leave it be.
But don't imagine that the article merely repeats Hawking's POV, when you haven't even read it [and it doesn't].
And for those of you who are interested in the actual possibilities that new information is giving us the chance to ponder, the author, Joseph Polchinski states that what the astronaut might experience is instant death.
[/quote]
Dear Messier Palette,
since you emphasised a sentence of the first paragraph, let me emphasise the title "Black Hole “Firewalls” [b]Could[/b] Change Physics Forever" and the subtitle "“Firewalls” of particles [b]may[/b] border black holes, confounding both general relativity and quantum mechanics".
Both general relativity and quantum mechanics are incredible successful where they apply (in the "large" and "small", respectively). There is no experiment which is not described by them and both allowed precise predictions, which have been verified. In all our experiments/observations we did so far, we could ignore the influence of the other. We don't have experimental access to a regime where both have to be taken into account (e.g. a large mass, say that of the sun, compressed into a tiny space, say that of an atom). However, it is also long known that both theories, as we currently understand them, are incompatible. Theoretical calculations either yield infinites, inconsistent results, or paradoxes. The [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewall_%28physics%29]firewall paradox[/url] is one of them. To resolve it, we would need a theory of quantum gravity, which, alas, we don’t have yet. That is why the title uses the subjunctive rather then the indicative! I did not read the article in Scientific American, because it's behind a paywall. Does it discuss several different approaches to resolve the paradox or does it merely present one (possibly the author's?)?