neufer wrote: ...
When two black holes merge they first form a rapidly rotating prolate black hole
which radiates circularly polarized gravitational waves containing angular momentum.
Yes, mergers present a very complex case in this regard. I'll buy what you're telling me, and so mostly I want to consider the simpler case of one BH with various events of normal matter falling into it. If matter in an accretion disk swirls into a BH, then it will be rotating faster once it has fallen below the event horizon and I assume the BH will spin more and more as a result.
BDanielMayfield wrote:...
Side point: Since at least most of a black hole’s angular momentum will be retained how can it be that its mass is truly crushed down to a singularly? How can a point with no size possess angular momentum?
Bruce
Nice! You read my mind, Bruce. Admitting that a classical view of what is going on here may be inadequate, nevertheless, I imagine matter inside the BH swirling around the central point at a speed approaching c, and then that matter cannot get any closer to the center. Using
then to conserve angular momentum as r decreased for that matter, v would need to increase.
I can imagine a number of reasons that might be part of the current thinking on this that would get around this problem, but as far as I have imagined black holes so far, this would be a reason that the mass can't get to the center. Surely, this issue of the theory that has been discussed by physicists. Perhaps they agreed with us on this point.
[quote="neufer"] ...
When two black holes merge they first form a rapidly rotating prolate black hole
which radiates circularly polarized gravitational waves containing angular momentum.[/quote]
Yes, mergers present a very complex case in this regard. I'll buy what you're telling me, and so mostly I want to consider the simpler case of one BH with various events of normal matter falling into it. If matter in an accretion disk swirls into a BH, then it will be rotating faster once it has fallen below the event horizon and I assume the BH will spin more and more as a result.
[quote="BDanielMayfield"]...
Side point: Since at least most of a black hole’s angular momentum will be retained how can it be that its mass is truly crushed down to a singularly? How can a point with no size possess angular momentum?
Bruce[/quote]
Nice! You read my mind, Bruce. Admitting that a classical view of what is going on here may be inadequate, nevertheless, I imagine matter inside the BH swirling around the central point at a speed approaching c, and then that matter cannot get any closer to the center. Using[list]L = mrv[/list]then to conserve angular momentum as r decreased for that matter, v would need to increase.
I can imagine a number of reasons that might be part of the current thinking on this that would get around this problem, but as far as I have imagined black holes so far, this would be a reason that the mass can't get to the center. Surely, this issue of the theory that has been discussed by physicists. Perhaps they agreed with us on this point.