Monday, April 27, 2009

Review of a Scientist speaking in Lay Terms

from CNN: "Astronomers take virtual plunge into black hole", April 27, 2009.

She-Ra read this to me.

"Black holes are some of the simplest things in the universe..." says [Professor Andrew] Hamilton.

"I think of a black hole as rather like a waterfall, except it's not a fall of water but rather a fall of space," he said. "Even light itself, which is struggling to get out, pointed away from the black hole, will find itself dragged inward, like doing a Michael Jackson moonwalk."

...You feel this difference in gravity between your feet and your head as a tidal force, which pulls you apart vertically in a process called 'spaghettification,' " Hamilton writes...

It's fun to imagine what might happen in a black hole...

Anyone worried about Earth being swallowed by a black hole should also be relieved to know the closest one astronomers know about is 3,000 light years away, which McClintock called a "super, super, super safe" distance. He added that we wouldn't be sucked in even if the sun, which is only 8 light minutes away from Earth, were suddenly replaced by a black hole of the same mass.
"All the planets would keep going around just the same. ... Nothing would change except there wouldn't be any light and heat," [Another Scientist] said.


I wish I was a scientist. These guys simultaneously amused the general public while making us feel dumb. It works on so many levels!

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