Black holes and theories of gravity

AI Thread Summary
Black holes trap everything, including light, within their event horizon, making them seemingly invisible. However, they still exert a gravitational field outside this horizon, allowing them to be detected by observers. The discussion raises the theoretical idea that if a black hole could withdraw its gravitational influence, it would become undetectable, appearing as a "gap in space." This notion is countered by the observable gravitational effects that black holes have on their surroundings. The conversation also touches on the implications for gravity theories, suggesting gravity may be more about the influence of matter's surroundings rather than a direct pulling force.
robheus
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In the perception of General Relativity a Black hole can form in which anything (including light) is trapped inside the horizon of the Black hole and can never escape, because nothing can exceed light speed.

However, still something escapes the Black hole, which is the presence of the gravitational field outside of the horizon of the Black hole. Since in General Relativity also gravity itself can not be faster then light speed, this is - in a sense - some kind of peculiarity.
One could (in theory) propose that a Black hole, after it has formed, would withdraw it's presence of the gravitational field outside the horizon altogether under the assumption that also the gravity field itself can not escape from the Black hole, and with which the Black hole would effectively disappear for outside observers, and only objects that cross the horizon (without being drawn in by the Black hole as there would be no extreme force of gravity outside the horizon), would experience the presence of the Black hole and disappear inside the horizon. A black hole would then just be a 'gap in space' without making it's presence observable for outside observers.

Appearently, however, this is not the case, since Black holes manifest themselves by the strong gravity fields that exists outside the horizon of the Black hole, which makes a Black hole observable for observers outside the horizon. Else, we would probably not know that a Black hole exists.

What does this mean in terms of the theory of Gravity? In so far particle physics for example predicts the existence of 'gravitons' (particles that exert the force of gravity, similar to how photons exert the electro-magnetic force), those particles can't themselves 'sense' the force of gravity, although a 'graviton' would not exceed light speed.
 
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robheus said:
However, still something escapes the Black hole, which is the presence of the gravitational field outside of the horizon of the Black hole. Since in General Relativity also gravity itself can not be faster then light speed, this is - in a sense - some kind of peculiarity.

A very good observation and I think this is a very strong argument against the idea of gravity being caused by any kind of wave.

In my opinion, it reinforces the concept of gravity being caused by matter's surroundings rather than matter somehow reaching out and pulling you down, more like a pushing down by space itself.
 
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/BlackHoles/black_gravity.html"
 
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Thx.
 
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