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During my conversation with my colleagues we all seemed to have a natural interest in

learning more about black holes, when we understood more about the physics of black holes we

shared our thoughts and ideas to try and answer some questions we previously had, even with

extra research there still seemed to be questions that even the smartest person on earth could only

just hypothesize.

When discussing what to watch and learn about for our papers my peers and I didn’t want

to do something we were all familiar with we wanted new information. After some deliberation

we came to a conclusion that we all knew the least about black holes. My knowledge was very

limited. I knew that black holes are incredibly dense objects with such powerful gravity that they

could pull in light. We started to watch the video on black holes called ”Black Hole

Apocalypse'' on PBS. It all starts off with when we first discovered black holes on September

14th, 2015 by detecting two black holes colliding, sending out a wave of gravity at the speed of

light taking over a billion years to reach us(PBS). To have built a device that detects waves of

gravity just before it reaches us is mind boggling. That wave was traveling over 1 billion years

before that and we happened to just be far away enough to evolve and have the knowledge to

build something like this not knowing if it was going to work. Since then it has happened 11 total

times that LIGO and VIRGO(another station similar to LIGO) 10 of which have been black hole

mergers(Forbes). If you got sucked into a black hole and you would see the universe age right

before your eyes(PBS). This is because the gravity that they possess bends time and space to

almost a standstill before taking you apart molecule by molecule(PBS). When hearing this I just

wondered if there was a way to calculate the way mass affects time. According to Einstein all

objects cause the space around them to curve. One man took it a little further in WWI Germany

Karl Schwarzschild found out that he could concentrate a mass like the mass of a star then he

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could calculate how that mass would bend light and he found out that at a certain point the light

stopped time stopped this was the point of no return in which nothing could come back from

even light(PBS). He was able to figure out that any amount of mass compressed into a small

enough space would create a black hole(PBS). He died two months before the end of WWI and

he was not able to expand upon his discovery(PBS). What and where in nature could create a

black hole for a long time this question remained unanswered. Until we figured out that any sun

born heavier then 10 solar masses will create a black hole(PBS). So when huge stars collapse this

is how black holes can occur naturally in our universe.

After the video there were a few points I wanted to expand on. The first thing I remember

thinking was could black holes or something that would create a great enough mass be the way

to time travel forward only. Now when researching this I came across an article talking about

how time travel could exist but only forward into the future unless when you enter a black hole it

connects you to another point in time via a wormhole(Purch). So with this idea that you could

possibly travel back into time I visualized it as if time was a straight line and gravity is the only

thing that could move that line. Black holes are dots on the line because they are the most intense

gravitational force. Slowing time to a halt per Karl Schwarzchild finding the point of no return

while he was fighting on the front lines for Germany in WWI(PBS). One could argue that it is

possible that instead of time stopping time ceases to exist allowing one see all of time because

there time doesn't affect you or exist. This is all just some theory and ideas I came up with when

I heard that if you were floating into a black hole you would see the universe unravel right in

front of you(PBS). Another couple question that arose regarding the fact that time moves slower

to you when you are near extreme gravitational fields. First question was if we lived on mars

which only has 38 percent the gravitational field earth has(Sharp). Would this make our life

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spans be decreased by 62 percent being on a planet where time is accelerated compared to earth.

The only things I could find talking about lifespan on Mars say yes our lifespan would decrease

but they give the reason as for why are because of radiation getting past the thin atmosphere or

that the decreased gravity would mean our bodies wouldn't get the exercise they require so our

bone and muscle mass would decrease rapidly(Marwaha). My question still remained

unanswered if you took away the other aspects of us living on mars except the gravitational

difference would speed up the fourth dimension of space/time. It seems logical to think that if

something is slowing down because of an increase of a variable that the reverse would make

sense too. If the reverse was true then would living on heavier planets increase our lifespan could

we live longer and our bodies endure longer because the flow of time is slowed or would it just

seem like the same amount of time but someone on a different planet would just see you as

moving slowly all the time. Incredibly mind blowing ideas, just processing over them takes time

just connecting the pieces, with so much unknown it is incredible how many questions black

holes could answer. With time we believe that science will be forever changed once we

understand more about black holes and their mysteries.

There are plenty of questions I have regarding black holes and I could write 5 pages just

on theories and ideas I have regarding them. Instead I kept finding questions that required

information that does not exist within humanity. The biggest question or paradox that I found

was the black hole information paradox. The basic idea of it is that black holes suck in

information then contain that information and matter in it. Now this is all fine but over time that

black hole will start to fade along with the energy and matter in it(Sutter). This breaks one of the

most basic laws on physics that matter energy and information can not be made or destroyed. I

will leave you with two more educated guesses for why I believe this occurs inside a black holes.

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First one is time goes backward putting the matter, energy and information it was carrying to

another spot in time. Second idea is that black holes carry all of this information to a completely

different reality switching from one reality to another.

Black holes truly are one of the most interesting naturally occurring objects in the

known universe. With help from my peers and outside sources we were able to understand more

about these incredible objects, with more knowledge of black holes we were able to hypothesize

and give educational guess to question we think that black holes hold the answers to, even with

my peers there is just to much unknown about black holes for us to understand everything

leaving us with questions and paradoxes that may never be answered in my lifetime.

Work Cited
Cofield, Calla. “Gravitational-Wave Detector Catches Lightest Black Hole Smashup Yet.”

Space.com, Space, 17 Nov. 2017, www.space.com/38816-gravitational-waves-fifth-ligo-

black-hole-crash.html.

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Goudarzi, Sara. “You Can't Travel Back in Time, Scientists Say.” LiveScience, Purch, 7 Mar.

2007, www.livescience.com/1339-travel-time-scientists.html.

Marwaha, Nikita, et al. “How Will Living On Mars Affect Our Human Body?” Space Safety

Magazine, 11 Feb. 2014, www.spacesafetymagazine.com/space-exploration/mars-

mission/earthlings-martians-living-red-planet-affect-human-bodies/.

PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 11 Jan. 2018, www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/black-hole-

apocalypse/.

Sharp, Tim. “How Big Is Mars?: Size of Planet Mars.” Space.com, Space, 2 Aug. 2012,

www.space.com/16871-how-big-is-mars.html.

Siegel, Ethan. “Has LIGO Just Detected The 'Trifecta' Signal That All Astronomers Have

Been Hoping For?” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 30 July 2019,

www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/07/30/has-ligo-just-detected-the-trifecta-

signal-that-all-astronomers-have-been-hoping-for/#72a6b601bf67.

Sutter, Paul. “What Is the Black Hole Information Paradox?” Space.com, Space, 6 June 2019,

www.space.com/black-hole-information-paradox-mystery.html.