If black holes never exceed a certain mass....

In summary: But you haven't stated how we would know that their mass represents an 'upper' limit. These could be two BHs which coincidentally have the same...whatever 'limit' you're hypothesizing.
  • #1
stooch
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Does this imply that we are looking at wormholes?
 
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  • #2
Your conclusion doesn't follow from your premise, and your premise is not correct.
 
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  • #3
Please state how much mass is never exceeded by a BH.

The largest BH discovered so far has a mass of approx. 2×1010 solar masses, which is pretty large. Astronomers are also pretty sure it's not a wormhole. Where's your evidence?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermassive_black_hole

A friendly word of advice. Tone down the attitude or you'll find your threads lost down a BH on this site. :wink:
 
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  • #4
I don't think that you understood my question. If we were to find that multiple black holes share a maximum mass, would that imply we are looking at wormholes since the mass stops growing at a certain threshold? I said nothing about maximum size of black holes, I am also familiar with Wikipedia and its definition of black holes...

My "premise" is that a wormhole would not be distinguishable from a black hole and the fact that they stop increasing mass would imply that matter is traveling through the wormhole instead of adding to the mass. So if one was to catalog all of the masses of black holes, my hypothesis is that we should be finding an upper limit that is constant. It is my supposition that any black hole that is sharing this upper limit may be in fact a wormhole.

Finding two black holes with exactly the same mass would be highly interesting to me because of my hypothesis.


My response was perfectly fine for the previous post. As it was not constructive and was more interested to tell me that I'm wrong about something without explaining what he thought my "premise" was and why it wasn't correct. I found his response snobby and arrogant.
 
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  • #5
stooch said:
I don't think that you understood my question. If we were to find that multiple black holes share a maximum mass, would that imply we are looking at wormholes since the mass stops growing at a certain threshold?

My "premise" is that a wormhole would not be distinguishable from a black hole and the fact that they stop growing at certain mass would imply that matter is traveling through the wormhole instead of adding to the mass. So if one was to catalog all of the masses of black holes, my hypothesis is that we should be finding an upper limit that is constant. It is my supposition that any black hole that is sharing this upper limit may be in fact a wormhole. Finding two black holes with exactly the same mass would be highly interesting to me becasue of this hypothesis.


My response was perfectly fine for the previous post. As it was not constructive and made by a person who seemed to misunderstand my question and was more interested to tell me that I'm wrong about something without explaining what he thought my "premise" was and why it wasn't correct. I found his response snobby and arrogant.

That's just it with your premise. I don't think anyone, except yourself, postulates that black holes stop growing (whatever that means) after reaching a certain mass. That there are observable black holes with a mass of 20 billion suns suggests that there may not be an upper limit to BH mass. I'm certainly not aware of any fundamental scientific limits which cause a BH to put out a "Sorry, No Vacancy" sign to incoming matter. If you are aware of some physical limits, please state what they are.
 
  • #6
SteamKing said:
That's just it with your premise. I don't think anyone, except yourself, postulates that black holes stop growing (whatever that means) after reaching a certain mass. That there are observable black holes with a mass of 20 billion suns suggests that there may not be an upper limit to BH mass. I'm certainly not aware of any fundamental scientific limits which cause a BH to put out a "Sorry, No Vacancy" sign to incoming matter. If you are aware of some physical limits, please state what they are.
I did not postulate any limits. I'm postulating that if we find two or more black holes that share an upper limit, what would be the implication. Also your "sorry no vacancy sign" quote completely missed the point. Matter would enter the black hole just fine. It would not add to its mass because it would be traveling through it.

Also I did not say that black holes would stop growing... I said that mass would stop increasing. Please pay attention.
 
  • #7
stooch said:
I did not postulate any limits. I'm postulating that if we find two or more black holes that share an upper limit, what would be the implication.
But you haven't stated how we would know that their mass represents an 'upper' limit. These could be two BHs which coincidentally have the same mass. It's an unlikely event, I'll admit, but it is not impossible for it to occur.

For example, white dwarf stars can be shown by calculation to have a maximum mass of about 1.4 solar masses. If any white dwarf star has more than this mass, for whatever reason, further collapse is possible, which turns the white dwarf star into something else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar_limit

You still haven't stated any fundamental physical principles which would lead one to conclude that there is a similar upper limit on the mass of a BH. If you can't provide this, you're just idly speculating.
 
  • #8
stooch said:
I did not postulate any limits. I'm postulating that if we find two or more black holes that share an upper limit, what would be the implication. Also your "sorry no vacancy sign" quote completely missed the point. Matter would enter the black hole just fine. It would not add to its mass because it would be traveling through it.
SteamKing said:
But you haven't stated how we would know that their mass represents an 'upper' limit. These could be two BHs which coincidentally have the same mass. It's an unlikely event, I'll admit, but it is not impossible for it to occur.

For example, white dwarf stars can be shown by calculation to have a maximum mass of about 1.4 solar masses. If any white dwarf star has more than this mass, for whatever reason, further collapse is possible, which turns the white dwarf star into something else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar_limit

You still haven't stated any fundamental physical principles which would lead one to conclude that there is a similar upper limit on the mass of a BH. If you can't provide this, you're just idly speculating.
SteamKing said:
But you haven't stated how we would know that their mass represents an 'upper' limit. These could be two BHs which coincidentally have the same mass. It's an unlikely event, I'll admit, but it is not impossible for it to occur.

For example, white dwarf stars can be shown by calculation to have a maximum mass of about 1.4 solar masses. If any white dwarf star has more than this mass, for whatever reason, further collapse is possible, which turns the white dwarf star into something else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar_limit

You still haven't stated any fundamental physical principles which would lead one to conclude that there is a similar upper limit on the mass of a BH. If you can't provide this, you're just idly speculating.

The existence of black holes was "idle speculation" at one time.

What if we find 4 supermassive black holes and allshare the same mass. What would that imply?
 
  • #9
phinds said:
Actually his reply was the only reasonable reply to your post, I think. All of what he said is true.

Say we find many supermassive black holes and find that many share an upper limit. My question is, does this imply that they are wormholes. Explain why his answer was reasonable.
 
  • #10
stooch said:
The existence of black holes was "idle speculation" at one time.

What if we find 4 supermassive black holes and allshare the same mass. What would that imply?
It's still not sufficient proof that no BH may be more massive than those 4.

Actually, the possibility that a body might be so massive that light could not escape it goes back a couple hundred years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole

Physicist John Mitchell first proposed such an idea in a letter written to Henry Cavendish in 1783, well before the theory of relativity was ever imagined. This idea is not solely speculative, either, since Mitchell's theory can be established by manipulating standard Newtonian gravitational math. Now,if Mitchell had said that there would be bodies which are so massive that light cannot escape and that these bodies will be bright red, then the latter is 'idle speculation', since the color of such a body cannot be established from the math which led to the possibility of its existence.
 
  • #11
SteamKing said:
It's still not sufficient proof that no BH may be more massive than those 4.

Actually, the possibility that a body might be so massive that light could not escape it goes back a couple hundred years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole

Physicist John Mitchell first proposed such an idea in a letter written to Henry Cavendish in 1783, well before the theory of relativity was ever imagined. This idea is not solely speculative, either, since Mitchell's theory can be established by manipulating standard Newtonian gravitational math. Now,if Mitchell had said that there would be bodies which are so massive that light cannot escape and that these bodies will be bright red, then the latter is 'idle speculation', since the color of such a body cannot be established from the math which led to the possibility of its existence.
Fine. How would you explain the existence of 4 or more supermassive black holes with exactly the same mass?

I'm familiar with the history of black holes, i think you are getting away from the subject though.
 
  • #12
stooch said:
Say we find many supermassive black holes and find that many share an upper limit. My question is, does this imply that they are wormholes. Explain why his answer was reasonable.
His answer was reasonable because finding several black holes that have the same mass is irrelevant to anything. The only thing that matters is whether BHs have an upper limit on mass and as has already been explained, there is no reason at all to believe they do.

Also, even if they did, the thought that this leads to the conclusion that they magically transform into white holes is a leap of unfounded speculation that is massively unlikely.

This whole thing seems to me to be pointless speculation and will teach you about as much about physics as would taking up numerology.
 
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  • #13
phinds said:
His answer was reasonable because finding several black holes that have the same mass is irrelevant to anything. The only thing that matters is whether BHs have an upper limit on mass and as has already been explained, there is no reason at all to believe they do.

Also, even if they did, the thought that this leads to the conclusion that they magically transform into white holes is a leap of unfounded speculation that is massively unlikely.

This whole thing seems to me to be pointless speculation and will teach you about as much about physics as would taking up numerology.

So you are saying that finding multiple black holes thst are exactly the same mass is nothing special and does not in any way raise any questions? My answer to that would be that it is you who are engaging in pointless speculation... I think that I have an interesting notion that could be applied to existing or future datasets as we continue to analyse space. Of course I fully expect people like you who don't understand the implications to discount my idea. Just like the idea of black holes was discounted back in the day.
 
  • #14
stooch said:
'm postulating that if we find two or more black holes that share an upper limit,
There is no evidence that any black hole anywhere is subject to any limit on its mass. Perhaps you are asking whether if we found two black holes that happened to have the same mass, might they be the two ends of a wormhole?

The answer to that question is no. The wormhole solution to the equations of GR is unrelated to black holes, and the pop-sci noise about how a black hole might be a wormhole or connected to a white hole elsewhere in space is just a misinterpretation of the maximally extended Kruskal solution.
 
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1. What is the maximum mass that a black hole can reach?

The maximum mass that a black hole can reach is known as the Chandrasekhar limit, which is approximately 1.4 times the mass of our sun. Beyond this limit, the gravitational force becomes too strong and the star collapses into a black hole.

2. Why do black holes have a maximum mass?

Black holes have a maximum mass because of the Pauli exclusion principle, which states that no two particles can occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. This principle applies to the particles that make up a star, preventing them from being squeezed together beyond a certain point.

3. What happens when a black hole exceeds its maximum mass?

When a black hole exceeds its maximum mass, it will continue to grow in size due to the accretion of matter. However, it will also emit Hawking radiation, which causes it to slowly lose mass. Eventually, the black hole will reach a point where it is no longer able to sustain itself and will evaporate completely.

4. Is there any evidence of black holes exceeding their maximum mass?

Currently, there is no evidence to suggest that black holes can exceed their maximum mass. However, there are theories that suggest supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies may have formed through the merging of smaller black holes, potentially exceeding the Chandrasekhar limit.

5. Could a black hole ever become too large for the universe?

No, a black hole cannot become too large for the universe. The universe is constantly expanding, and as a black hole grows in size, it also gains mass from the surrounding matter. This allows the black hole to continue to exist within the bounds of the expanding universe.

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