They’d been theorized for decades, scientists knew what they were seeing
Must’ve felt surreal…
But when was it conclusive to say yep these exist and we call them black holes and don’t need a theory anymore because they are fact? How come scientists say that a black hole will rip anything that enters apart. But what if treated like a shower drain. Match the speed at the lip of the black hole and slowly go down increasing speed when you get deeper. Like a funnel. Speaking of that what is the speed at which a black hole “disintegrates” stuff?
You misunderstand what a theory vs a fact is. If a fact is a lego brick,a theory is a what you build.
A theory collects facts and builds a cohesive narrative to explain why they are. Most importantly there will be gaps, so a theory makes predictions about facts that we don’t have yet. When a new finding fits expectations, then the theory is supported. When a new finding is unexpected or doesn’t fit, it’s time to reclaim the bricks and build a new structure.
So black holes were predicted and fit the theory very well. It increased our confidence that the theory was moving in the right direction.
A black hole is a single point. The “funnel” doesn’t go “down” like a drain…it goes inward towards the center of that point from all directions at once.
That funnel idea is just a graphical representation that they use to illustrate the idea. But, in reality, it doesn’t make sense to represent it that way. The effect is similar, but you have to try and imagine it happening in all directions at the same time…like a spherical funnel…which is difficult to visualise.
As was already stated, they’d been theorized for a long time, the first one discovered was very much specifically looked for, not stumbled upon.
As far as destroying everything it ingests, and why it’s not a funnel, that’s all to do with gravity.
Gravity is by far the weakest force, but in a black hole, it simply wins.
The density of matter is so great, all the other forces are for lack of a better term, over powered. The forces that hold atoms together to form molecules, the forces that hold particles together to form atoms, particles that make up light, all fail to the might of gravity, all get pulled into what is called a singularity.
What is a singularity? Well, no one knows. It’s what is at the heart of a black hole, it’s whatever is left when everything is smashed into a point that not even light can escape. There is very complex math describing singularities, which I don’t pretend to understand, but in all practical sense, we don’t know what it’s like in there because we have no way of reproducing those conditions or look inside one.
The point of no return in this gravity well is called the event horizon, and it’s just about the only meaningful way to judge the size of a black hole. That and its mass.
It is theorized that energy/mass can radiate from a black hole, when spontaneous particle pairs form along the events horizon in a energy into matter solution to E=MC2, where one has enough momentum to escape, and it’s pair does not. Under lab conditions these virtual and opposite particle pairs usually just destroy each other and return to being energy.
Not sure where the debate is at now, but the information loss caused by the destruction of this matter over here, and the formation of new unrelated matter over there, was a big deal in physics.
A back hole was the answer to the question, what happens when stuff gets so packed together gravity just wins? Discovering one in nature proves that that can actually happen.
It’s also the spot where much of known physics and math just breaks down. We study them, but they really are a true mystery to science.
As to why it’s not a funnel, well, in theory it sort of can be.
If the black hole is large enough, the tidal gravity forces increase gradually enough that a person could survive crossing the event horizon, though it would be a one way trip.
The time dilation caused by the high gravity means that time would slow down, functionally stop, from point of view of an outside observer watching this jump.
From the point of view of the spacewalker looking outward, time would speed up, and in principle they could watch the entire rest of the history of the universe play out.
Unfortunately, from their point of view in relation to falling into a black hole, time would just go on ticking, until the tidal forces grew strong enough to turn them into spaghetti.
So, is spaghettification a real phenomena?
It’s what I’ve heard it called. The closer to the center of mass, and the smaller the black hole, the greater the change in gravity as you get closer.
The pull at your feet and the pull at your head when standing on Earth is so close to identical that it makes no difference.
Picture it like the lines on a topographical map of an open plain, they’re all spread out, almost no change over a long distance.
The more you fall, the closer the lines get together, so that the gravity up top isn’t the same as at your feet anymore, and that difference only continues to grow.
When the change in the gravity rate is high enough, the pull on your feet is so much stronger than at your head you get pulled apart like taffy.
They probably thought they were cool af like I did when I learned about them in 1987.
Here’s something to keep you up at night. Black holes arent always stationary.
