The Existence of White Holes May Settle One of Physics’ Biggest Debates

Published on December 14, 2019
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Captions provided by CCTubes – Captioning the Internet! Chances are you are familiar with black holes, we at Seeker love to discuss black holes—but what about white holes? It’s time we talk about the black hole’s hypothetical opposite.
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A black hole is a region of space where so much mass is packed together so densely that it forms what is called a singularity, and nothing can move fast enough to escape its gravitational pull—not even the fastest thing in the universe (we’re talking light) can escape the clutches of a black hole.

And because light can’t escape, no one can really see what is going on inside a black hole. So we end up relying on theories and equations to deduce exactly what is happening at the center of the event horizon.

There are two competing explanations to describe black holes: Einstein’s theory of general relativity and quantum mechanics.

Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity states the mass of a black hole bends spacetime so much that it becomes one single point of infinite density, but according to quantum mechanics there cannot be an infinitely small point.

It can be very very small, but not infinitely so. And this irreconcilable difference is one of the greatest debates in physics, since general relativity is our best description of gravity, while quantum mechanics has been called the most successful theory ever.

But some physicists believe white holes could square these two predictions.

Find out more about white holes and how a white hole could reveal what is really happening inside a black hole on this episode of Elements.

#BlackHoles #WhiteHoles #QuantumMechanics #Elements #Science #Seeker

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Read More:
What Are White Holes?
https://phys.org/news/2015-10-white-holes.html
“White holes are completely theoretical mathematical concepts. In fact, if you do black hole mathematics for a living, I’m told, ignoring the mass of the singularity makes your life so much easier.”

Black Holes
https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/black-holes
“Don’t let the name fool you: a black hole is anything but empty space. Rather, it is a great amount of matter packed into a very small area – think of a star ten times more massive than the Sun squeezed into a sphere approximately the diameter of New York City. The result is a gravitational field so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. ”

If you think black holes are strange, white holes will blow your mind
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24032080-100-if-you-think-black-holes-are-strange-white-holes-will-blow-your-mind/
“Because of the peculiar elasticity of space-time as understood with Einstein’s theory, “the other side of the centre” can simply be in the future of the hole. This is hard to visualise, but the result is simple: in the first part of its life, the hole is black and matter falls in; but during the second, after the quantum transition, it is white and matter bounces out.”
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