Gravity is not the only way to make a black hole. A new type of black hole, one that cannot swallow Earth, is near to being created experimentally, and our understanding of Creation will change dramatically – it is called the OPTICAL black hole.
Gravitic black holes are differentiated by mass. There exist giant black holes at the center of galaxies, often called “galactic black holes”. Also, there are smaller size black holes, i.e. “stellar size”, that move through our Milky Way and are observed by noticing when a nearby star seems to be orbiting around nothing!
Apparently there are no mid-sized black holes….Astronomical observations have not detected evidence for anything between stellar size, and galactic size black holes. Stephen Hawking has predicted that minute, atomic size, black holes may exist…but they haven’t been discovered yet either.
All these types are GRAVITIC black holes, produced by the effects of gravity….but Science is on the verge of creating a new type of black hole….
When Einstein discovered the space-time continuum, curvature of space became the new model of gravity, replacing Sir Isaac Newton’s mass attractor model. Space took on a structure – a structure that could be ruptured ! If the EARTH were shrunk to the diameter of a dime, while retaining its present mass, the structure of space-time (it’s “fabric” to use a common term) would “tear” because the mass of the EARTH concentrated in such a small area would cause a rupture in the structure of space-time, and a black hole would be formed. This describes the typical gravitic black hole.
Presently,The Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland will theoretically be able to generate enough power to rupture space-time and create a black hole. I, personally am opposed to the creation of gravity induced black holes on Earth. I agree with a former director of our own Z-LAB, a “pinch” fusion device designed to ignite a plasma nuclear fusion reaction similar to the sun, that such a black hole could could be lost control of, and fall to the center of the Earth, and begin consuming the planet! Other scientists dispute that. At the present moment (10/2008) the CERN implosion devise has been shut down due a malfunction, so we have to wait until they restart it to find out our fate….
Optical black holes represent another type of black hole that may also be soon possible.
A student once pointed out to Herr Professor Einstein, as Einstein was esplaining that “c” in his formula E=mc2 stands for the constant speed of light, that light slows down when it travels through glass, or water. Einstein instantly realized that he had never sufficiently considered HOW SLOW light might travel trough a dense translucent substance.
Working with another mathematician, in 1935 Einstein published calculations describing the conditions which would cause light to STOP. This is known as the Einstein-Bose Condensate, a super cold gas. The atomic motion of the gas, reduced to temperatures near Absolute Zero, ceases. At this point the atoms act as a SINGLE ATOM !
In recent years the Einstein-Bose Condensate has been created experimentally. Laser beams fired into a super cooled cloud of sodium gas, have stopped, for as long as eight and a half minutes. Experiments with the Condensate are currently ongoing…. Dr. Lene Hau, of Harvard, has apparently been able to teleport the laser beam between clouds of the Condensate, without intermediary space-time travel…. Scotty of Star Trek would have been pleased to see the earliest workings of the TRANSPORTER. “Beam me up!”
But there is something else that can be done with the Einstein-Bose condensate besides stopping light, and teleporting laser beams. (And I wonder whether it IS being done at this very moment!) Were the Condensate able to be subjected to centrifugal force, a vortex might form in the center…. Since the entire Condensate functions as a SINGLE ATOM…what have we got? We have a hole in space that is not gravitic! Voila: an optical black hole. A laser, theoretically, would disappear into the hole, and vanish from our Universe. Might it not leave some data trail as to where it went?
We are at a technological threshold where humans are now able to construct devices which can rupture the fabric of space-time, like supernovas do in space, like the Big Bang did at the origin of the Universe. I think the OPTICAL black hole holds more promise, and less danger, for exploring higher dimensionality than gravitic black holes.
