Put me firmly in the camp that believes the speed of light is a hard limit on the universe and I'll use Isaac Arthur dismissal of FTL travel as to why.<p>He contends that there likely isn't a sentient civilization within about a billion light years of us because the signature of Dyson spheres would be unmistabkable and unmissable. Now this isn't to say there isn't one that's say, 600 million light years away that built their first Dyson sphere 500 million years ago although, in practice, this doesn't really change the probabilities that much.<p>If there's FTL then that billion light year practical limit really goes out the window as you can effectively get anywhere in the universe, making the volume of absence be many, many times the size of the observable universe.<p>I'm not sure why the author is talking about gravity ripping you apart in a black hole. It Is Known [tm] that larger black holes have pretty gentle event horizons.<p>I'm not sure why it matters that a black hole would be spinning. You can pretty much assume every significant mass in the universe is spinning to some degree (a state of zero spin being highly unlikely over even small amounts of time).<p>The author talks about the inner event horizon and I guess that's the point. But all of that is highly theoretical. Nothing is known about the inner workings of a black hole. It's all highly theoretical and beyond the ability of general relativity to describe. No other theory has been able to adequately explain or describe gravity let alone extreme gravity so your view on what's within the event horizon probably depends on which unproven theory (eg string theory) you subscribe to.<p>So this is speculation based on speculation.
I'm not quite sure how do we start with a "probability to survive trip to the event horizon" and end up with a possibility to travel faster than light? What is that hyperspace the article talks about? How falling down the black hole would transport the object anywhere spatially?<p>The only thing such a trip could be used for is to see the end of the universe. As every object getting near the event horizon experiences the time slowing down compared with the outside a person on board a ship could probably see stars going out etc as billions of years passed. The time slows down so much one could never "pass through" a black hole as reaching the singularity would require the time to stop. So as the ship approaches the singularity the black hole would get smaller and smaller as it evaporated during those billions of years until it eventually disappeared. However, a ship wouldn't survive the disappearance as when the black hole is getting smaller the tidal forces increase eventually ripping the ship to shreds.
Yes, they might. And then again they might not. Probably not. In fact, there’s not a snowflakes chance in hell they will. This is the scientific equivalent of wondering how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Oh, except now they have a computer model. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
I'm just confused, I thought a black hole was where gravity was so strong light could not escape it just starts looping back on itself like a coin in a large funnel, then how could we escape? We would just spiral down the drain? Why would there be a portal?
Is it just me, or does the article not attempt to explain what this has to do with "hyperspace travel"? The only thing new here is that you can plunge into oblivion without getting torn apart in the process.
My sci-fi plot theory: our universe is what is inside a black hole. The big bang was the formation of a black hole on another universe pulling matter to ours.
This looks a lot like what was proposed back in the 70s by Adrian Berry in his book "The Iron Sun: Crossing the Universe through black holes": <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1091779.The_Iron_Sun" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1091779.The_Iron_Sun</a>
I recall reading somewhere the density at the event horizon of the super massive black hole at the center of our galaxy is about the same as water. The singularity is supposedly infinite, but the event horizon depends on the size of the black hole.
A halo drive sends light, instead of people, slingshotting around binary black holes and harvests the energy (via solar sales) in the blue-shifted life. Much safer!
I do wonder though if you travel at the speed of light wouldn't your ship break apart even if you accidentally hit a tiny rock in space? Maybe even dust?
Original source: <a href="https://theconversation.com/rotating-black-holes-may-serve-as-gentle-portals-for-hyperspace-travel-107062" rel="nofollow">https://theconversation.com/rotating-black-holes-may-serve-a...</a>
As much as I love science fiction. In reality, even making it the nearest star is an impossible feat. Even traveling at the speed of light (which we are not even sure the human body can handle) it would take 100 years to reach our nearest star; let alone the nearest black hole. Even whether black holes exist, and what they really are is hotly debated. I think the idea of interstellar travel is futile, and we should focus on improving our quality of life here (free energy i.e. Telsa tech, transporting goods with electrogravitic vehicles, curing diseases, more scientific agricultural practices, easing access to education/job skills, etc).