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Debate Score:14
Arguments:11
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 Black Holes Can't Be Holes (10)

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daver(1771) pic



Black Holes Can't Be Holes

If a black hole gains mass as matter is drawn in by gravity, then can it truly be a hole?

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2 points

OK for starters there is no light in there so it is described as "Black" and the density causes such a strong gravitational pull stuff goes in but nothing can escape from it.

So if nothing ever escape out of it, I can only guess that the astro scientists could not come up with a better word description than a "Hole".

It's like calling a street "River Street" because it is a street and it runs alongside a river.

I guess "Black Hole" is a better description and a bit easier on the tongue than calling it a "Very Big Very Dark Bottomless Pit".....?

daver(1771) Clarified
1 point

Did I say a black hole can't be black. No

I said it can't be a hole.

This poorly chosen word implies, and has even lead to speculation about conduits to other universes. Or "worm holes" leading to who knows what. Since research has shown that these objects actually increase in size as the collect matter, the whole idea of a hole seems wholly out of place. Does it not?

2 points

I guess that our basic concept of a hole is something that is round and has a finite shape like a well, and if stuff gets collected in it then it would fill up on the other hand if it is an aperture to somewhere else that is constantly growing it would be like a hole in my sock that links my boot with my foot and keeps on getting bigger.

Maybe call it a black void, space, rent, cavity, chasm, gorge...?

I'm easy, whatever suits, because the word hole in the context of a black hole doesn't really bother me.

Cartman(18192) Disputed
2 points

This poorly chosen word implies, and has even lead to speculation about conduits to other universes. Or "worm holes" leading to who knows what.

In science FICTION.

Since research has shown that these objects actually increase in size as the collect matter, the whole idea of a hole seems wholly out of place. Does it not?

It isn't an idea, it is a name.

If you lived next to a black hole and it was sucking everything around you into itself (including you and your stuff), you would probably be like, "Jeez, what an A-hole!!!" But you can't teach that in school so you settle on "B-hole" and when someone asks you what does the 'B' stand for, you can't say, "Butt" so you say "Black." ;)

If you were to make a hole inside of earths atmosphere by your implicit criteria it wouldn't actually be a hole. For instance, if you made a hole in a sheet of paper that hole will still be filled with air particles and molecules, basically it's not an empty void.

Yes, "hole" is probably not the most accurate term. "Black holes" sound more interesting than "black singularities".

1 point

The term "hole" is only misleading in the sense that the definition of a hole includes the idea of a hole as an opening through which something can pass. However, a hole can also refer to an area that is "missing" from a surface; if I punch a hole in a piece of paper, there is a finite region of the paper that is missing. This is the sense in which a black hole is a hole; it is meant to suggest that there is a "finite" (see note) region of spacetime , cloaked by a surface which we call the event horizon, that is "missing" from our view.

Note: It is finite in the sense that one can construct a circular hoop around a black hole with a finite diameter larger than the size of the black hole--otherwise, we can also regard the cosmological horizon as a hole. This is, by the way, distinct from the hoop conjecture, which requires that you be able to rotate the hoop all the way around the black hole.

1 point

You get pulled into any hole by gravity.

1 point

The 'hole' description is perhaps unfortunate in some ways, since as you rightly picked up on it naturally conjures up images of a swirling plug-hole which material can only fall into from one direction. The idea of a 'black hole' was first suggested back in the 18th century by John Michell, though at the time he called them 'dark stars'. If you increase mass of an object then the speed at which you have to travel to escape it's surface increases, so Jupiter has a larger escape velocity than Earth for example. John Michell hypothesised that if a star could be massive enough then it might have an escape velocity greater than the speed of light, such that it would appear dark, hence 'dark star'.

The name 'black hole' dates from the 1960s when work on general relativity showed that massive enough objects will collapse down to an infinitesimal point (a singularity) due to the effects of gravity. At some distance from this singularity the escape velocity is equal to the speed of light, and since relativity says that nothing can travel faster than light, once anything passes within this distance (called the event horizon), it cannot escape. The 'hole' label is a partly result of this idea, that nothing can escape from it, it is simply sucked in and can never get out, like a bottomless pit. The description of it as a 'hole' also references the existence of a singularity at the centre of the event horizon, since at the singularity the laws of physics break down and so it is in some ways a 'hole in space' that we can't describe.

However, as you have surmised while the name 'black hole' does make some sense, it is indeed a spherical hole. It doesn't matter what direction material approaches the black hole from, once it passes the event horizon it will be unable to escape.

1 point

In my opinion, black holes are considered to be described simply as black/no light coming out and is a hole. Why they called it with a hole?. Well for starters, It is easier to explain if it is a hole because logically, it has only one way to go in or out if we think about it. One opening,,,, no escaping. Just pulling in the center and no way out.