Re: On the controversy about the Schwarzschild radius and black holes


cafei...@xxxxxxx wrote:
JanPB wrote:
cafeinst@xxxxxxx wrote:
[...]
I goofed here. dr^2-c^2dt^2 is assumed to be zero only for special
relativity. I only meant that originally, space-time was conceived as 3
coordinates plus 1 time coordinate, not 4 arbitrary parameters. So it
is a valid argument that black holes are not consistent with general
relativity, since when general relativity was first formulated, the
change of coordinates trick to get rid of coordinate singularities was
never considered valid.

No, that's not a valid argument because arguments only refer theories
as they are, not as they have been understood by Mr. X in the year Z
(even if X=Einstein :-) ) GR from day one was what it was, all
misunderstanding of it by its initial researchers notwithstanding.

--
Jan Bielawski

Consider this:

Before the 1960's, the scientific community basically rejected the
notion that the Schwarzschild solution could be extended to r<=2M.

Pure supposition unless you have an actual literature citation that
documents this.

Physics in the 1960s is different from physics in 2007.

Einstein even wrote a paper arguing that it could not be extended.

Not even Einstein batted a thousand.

Today, we have the reverse. Reading some of the comments in this
newsgroup, we see that many scientists consider the anti-black hole
arguments to be crankish.

....because they are. Black holes are well supported in theory and
observation.


The big question is what has changed since the 1960's? Is there any new
evidence that we didn't have before the 1960's that has fundamentally
changed the way scientists think about things? It doesn't seem so. Only
more and better telescope observations.

The discovery of Kruskal coordinates and others that actually work
inside the event horizon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kruskal_coordinates

The existence of the coordinate maps that extend into the event horizon
for the Schwarzschild geometry means your argument is bunk.


This indicates to me that the controversy about black holes is really
about how far one can extrapolate a theory and is similar to the
evolution/intelligent design controversy. All scientists, whether
evolutionists or intelligent designists, agree that micro-evolution is
a real phenomenon. However, they disagree as to whether one can
extrapolate this phenomenon to explain the variation that we see in
biological organisms today. Evolutionists say yes, we can safely
extrapolate. Intelligent designists say no, we can't.

....and why should we listen to the creationists who don't have a theory
beyond 'god did it' ?

I see you make the fundamental mistake of placing the two groups on
equal footing when they are in reality not so placed.


The black hole believers believe that we can extrapolate Einstein's
theory of relativity to situations in which traditional labelings of
coordinates break down, i.e., coordinate-singularities are not a
problem since coordinates are just human inventions. The black hole
skeptics say no - if the traditional coordinates break down, then
things don't make sense and one cannot extrapolate Einstein's theory of
relativity to explain such situations.

The 'black hole skeptics', if written as such, are morons. I see you
make the same mistake again. Stop pretending both sides have an equal
say - there is right, and there is wrong. These people are wrong. It
goes against the very foundations of general relativity for something
physical to only exist in one coordinate system. End of story.




So I see this controversy as a controversy about the nature of science
and how much we should trust a scientific theory.

Like with the creationists, the only controversy is getting people who
reject science to accept it.


Craig

.

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