Is a black hole a massive ball of photons?

[Kyran]

TL;DR

I'm a young (16) aspiring physicist and I think about physics a lot. I'm not sure about this which is why I'm here but let me explain. If this is dumb, explain to me why because I really want to learn and know more.

Black holes suck things in and the current explanation is that they bend spacetime. I have my own hypothesis though. If electrons shoot out photons when they switch positions in the atom that would mean that at the very least electronshave photons in them. Atoms always try to have the right amount of electrons each power level. My thought is that black holes always have room for more electrons and have places for them to go so they pull electrons into the black hole and snap them into place in the black hole.

 

[PeterDonis]

Black holes suck things in

No more than any other object of the same mass. A black hole with the mass of the Sun doesn't "suck things in" any more than the Sun does.

the current explanation is that they bend spacetime

It's not that black holes bend spacetime; black holes are curved spacetime. Curved spacetime is what black holes are made of.

I have my own hypothesis though.

Please review the PF rules on personal speculation.

You say you want to learn, which is good. But forming your own personal hypothesis and then asking whether it is correct is not a good way to learn. The rest of your post is, in the words of Wolfgang Pauli, "not even wrong": knowing that it is wrong (which it is) doesn't even help you make any progress towards learning what is not wrong.

If you want to learn about black holes, I strongly suggest starting with a good introductory textbook on GR that covers them, such as Sean Carroll's online lecture notes:

https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9712019

 

[PeterDonis]

If electrons shoot out photons when they switch positions in the atom that would mean that at the very least electronshave photons in them.

First, this has nothing whatever to do with black holes.

Second, it's wrong: the fact that electrons can emit photons does not mean that electrons contain photons. Photon number is not conserved; photons can be created or destroyed in arbitrary numbers. When an electron emits a photon, the photon gets created on the spot. When an electron absorbs a photon, the photon gets destroyed.

 

[PeterDonis]

Black holes

Btw, questions about black holes really belong in the relativity forum, not this one. I'm not going to move this thread because it seems to be as much about photons as about black holes.

 

[PeroK]

Summary:: I'm a young (16) aspiring physicist and I think about physics a lot. I'm not sure about this which is why I'm here but let me explain. If this is dumb, explain to me why because I really want to learn and know more.

Just to corroborate what Peter said. If you want to be a physicist it's a lot of hard work, with a focus on understanding the key concepts and the underlying mathematics. If you are keen on relativity, you could takle a look at the first chapter of Morin's book, which he's made available here:

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/david-morin/files/relativity_chap_1.pdf

 

[hilbert2]

The name of this thread made me imagine a thought experiment where so much light is directed to a small focal point that the EM field energy density makes it collapse gravitationally.

 

[Delta2]

Summary:: I'm a young (16) aspiring physicist and I think about physics a lot. I'm not sure about this which is why I'm here but let me explain. If this is dumb, explain to me why because I really want to learn and know more.

If electrons shoot out photons when they switch positions in the atom that would mean that at the very least electrons have photons in them

That electrons have photons inside them is a very interesting proposition but it is not supported by our best current theory the standard model of particle physics and its subtheory quantum electrodynamics. The standard particle model says that electron is an elementary particle and does not contain any other particle inside it. Proton on the other hand is a composite particle and it contains quarks which in turn are elementary particles.
You can read more about the standard model of particle physics at wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model

 

[PeterDonis]

The name of this thread made me imagine a thought experiment where so much light is directed to a small focal point that the EM field energy density makes it collapse gravitationally.

This scenario has a name: the ingoing Vaidya metric:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaidya_metric#Ingoing_Vaidya_with_pure_absorbing_field

It turns out not to be as simple as it appears; if you really want to see some gory details, try this paper:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1603.00849.pdf