EWyatt

QUOTE: Nothing travels faster than light, so the point that it would move backward in time is a myth. There was an incredible expansion of the universe (not "space") just after the Big Bang, many times faster than the speed of light. Call it "energy" or primordial soup, or whatever, but this did happen. Perhaps nothing can travel faster than the speed of light only in our minds (thus relativity). 　

I've read and done some research about the "singularity" inside a black hole. Really? A singularity?? Isn't that just conjecture? Has anyone ever proven a singularity? Was the singularity at Big Bang's startup the same "size" as is a singularity for a 100 solar mass black hole as is the "size" of a singularity within a 50 million solar mass black hole, and on and on?? If a singularity is some form of matter, then it must have various sizes for different mass equivalents. If a singularity is pure energy, then why the gravitation (unless energy can provide gravitons....)? I personally feel all this speculation about infinitesimally small singularities for different masses of black holes is just that: baseless speculation. A better answer would simply be "we don't have a clue!" Actually, we don't really know that singularites even exist at all, do we? If not, then why all the buzz? When someone writes about anything "infinitely" small or large or powerful inside this finite universe, run!

Be wary of any "expert" that uses the word "infinite" when dealing with anything material. It is so pathetic to hear from these "experts" on how the core of any black hole is an "infinitesimal" small singularity. Or that the Big Bang began from an infinitesimal point, etc. Bottom line: when you deal with matter, nothing is infinite!

Interesting reading, StringJunky. 128 bit encryption is truly the way to go. Nevertheless, I still don't understand the paranoia about username and passwords, and the incredible amount of resources needed for hackers to access a simple account. . Perhaps all this crud about "having complex passwords" is a bunch of bunk, especially if the computer being used is clean and virus-free.

When I input my username and password to my banking sites, and other sites, the site usually takes several seconds to analyze my input and regard it as valid or not. Let's start there. . I've read that brute-force automated techniques are used by hackers to get into peoples' sites; however, if it takes several seconds to analyze a username and password, and the hackers have to try millions/billions of combinations of usernames and passwords, it would take weeks! Or longer. And that's just working on one account. Am I wrong here? . My point is if a person's computer hasn't been hacked for stolen data, or if a person's login info hasn't been found out physically (from a piece of paper, etc) then it's VERY difficult for a brute-force system to manage a login from scratch. Just my 2 cents.... I'm missing something, right?

Visible light, I presume, is a photon product. And since photons have no mass or charge, how are they affected by gravity? Black holes don't allow photons to escape, and light is "curved" when passing a large body toward Earth from a distant star, etc. So how can a mass-less unit be affected by gravitational pull?

Spyman, thanks for the fine reply and explanations. I learned a lot from that. However, in 75 years, most of what we "know" now may be relegated to what the Dark Age scientists called "fact" then. But maybe not.........

A great question, one that I've asked myself. I'm not sure about the previous reply -- that space has no speed limit when expanding. Then the writer says that space is infinite. Oh well. But as has been explained to me, the time after the initial Big Bang did not operate according to our current laws of physics. Light speed meant nothing then because matter/energy wasn't "finalized" for a very long time to the condition it's now. Therefore, whatever "goop" there was initially could have expanded at MUCH higher speeds that our current light-speed scenario. But who really knows! Scientists and pseudo-scientists say whatever feels good to them. Personally, I don't buy into this "singularity" bit regarding black holes, whereby the core is an infinitely dense point smaller than an atom. Or so. If that singularity is "infinitely dense and small," shouldn't ALL black hole cores have the same gravitational attraction, therefore same accretion disk size? Anyway, keep thinking! Good luck. EW

In my opinion, black holes are NOT an opening, portal, magical escape, to another dimension. They have a defined area in space, as you can see. They are probably more simple in terms of "area of effect" than you make out. They're just high gravity feeder monsters, nothing more, in terms of magical portals to Wonderland.

OK, is there a point, or question, here? Or are you just bored and rambling on with your keyboard? Please advise the rest of us.

Your entire question/commentary is pointless. You imply that you are against imprisoning the "less violent" criminals; however, you don't supply a solution. So what's YOUR answer? Just let them keep committing "small" crimes and ...forgive? They probably can't pay fines, it's too inhumane (only in America) to put them to work, and they could just NOT comply with any judicial sentence because that would only be a "small" crime which isn't punishable, according to your thinking. Well? Got any other wise ideas?

Fine opinions above. If only we knew just what's inside that event horizon. Maybe some day we/they will. However, one thing that frustrates me is how some geniuses have the audacity to claim that the singularity (condensed matter) inside the black hole is infinitely small -- or atomic -- in size. I'm not a rocket scientist, but that seems ridiculous! Something the size of an atom can affect an entire galaxy with it's gravity hole??? Right.

Gravity needs mass to happen, right? So, theoretically, at the center of the Earth, mass is equivalent all around, and one would seem to be weight-less, right? In other words, the closer you get to the Earth's center, the less one should weigh. So, with that in mind, why did iron settle in the earth's interior during the initial Earth formation? Gravity would have drawn iron down initially, but due to the surrounding mass, that attraction of gravity would have been diminished, right? Where am I wrong in this discussion?

Thanks for the reply, however, I was asking about those massive stars during their main sequence (much prior to red giant stage). And again, I suppose all/most stars "ignite" at about the same size, but get larger simply by eating up more matter. The early solar system of our sun apparently didn't have a lot of matter to digest, thus its smaller size.

As we know, stars are born when they fuse hydrogen, then continue with that long fusion process. This ignition would "seem" to come at a standard model size during the star's formation. So how do some stars like Eta Carinae, R136a1, and even larger stars get so huge? Is the answer simply that they keep sucking in more and more matter from the local system after the initial ignition? Simple as that? Or is the star's eventual size somehow determined during its initial formative stage? Thnx....

Thanks to all, esp DH, for the excellent responses.

Ummmm.... so after the supernova, you're saying there was enough hydrogen left for a new solar system w/ sun? Really?

The gold in my molars, the uranium within the earth, and all the other heavy elements in our solar system were once "created" by our local "mother" star that had gone supernova -- you know the drill. Its demise was caused by lack of fuel (hydrogen, helium ....iron) to burn, so it went boom, and all resultant local matter was spread around thinly in a nebula (I'm assuming). So now, after a few billion years, here comes our newly-ignited Sun and solar system, rich with hydrogen, and helium! So where did this "new" hydrogen come from? The supernova blasted away any hope of remaining hydrogen. Did gravity from the resultant nebula just suck in more hydrogen from a few light years around our system? Or what? Or did God just create "new hydrogen" for us just to show us he's our bud? Thanks....

Thanks, doG..... What you suggested is indeed a way for hacks to get past the password requirements. This answers most of my concerns. Thnx again!

Thanks to some for the information. To the others -- I can't understand why a person cannot ask ask a simple question without being accused of underground motives. Note: I DON'T want to hack anyone or anything! I'd just like to understand how someone can throw tens of thousands of password attempts at a system effectively. My original question still stands -- and I understand the simplicity of cracking the "12345" or "iloveyou" type passwords; however, most people aren't that stupid.

Regarding passwords. How can a hacker find a usable password to another's Internet account in a relatively short time? It takes several seconds for the accepting server to accept/deny a provided password. It would seem to take weeks to shotgun a brute-force number of passwords to finally come across the right one, even with software doing the work, right? This doesn't seem feasible. Where am I wrong?

Quick reply: No. If yes, I think we'd see the effects of such a "pinch" in astronomical observations.

If NOTHING has never existed, how then did ANYTHING come to exist in the first place? Note: by ANYTHING, I mean energy too!

For me, the only problem with your comment is that the extreme gravity within the Event Horizon destroys matter -- the radiation spewing from the hole when matter arrives proves that. And if matter gets destroyed, it ain't coming out elsewhere intact! IMHO.

Got it, Schrodinger, and thanks for that. Now let me think........