Sunday, April 18, 2004

AniMatrix?
Well, I saw the Animatrix, and I've got mixed feelings. (Such feelings should be expected coming from an anthology.)

On the whole, it was okay, but I think it was hurt by the really, really lame introductory films, Final Flight of the Osiris, and the Second Renissance I & II.

FFotO had all the plot of a Pringles commercial, and, although the CGI was good, it wasn't like we have'nt seen this level of skill before. (Final Fantasy: Spirit Within).

SR I&II was a mess, in my opinion. It was graphic for graphic's sake, and the early plot made no sense. It was also pretensious with it's refereces to historical events. Comparing the UN to Nazis wasn't really tasteful either. (Dark Sky was referred to as 'The Final Solution'.)

After those disappointments, things looked up. A Kid's Story was pretty good, as was Program; loved the ending on that one. My favorite of the lot was the film noir style detective story, followed closely by World Record.

Anyway, you might as well see it if you haven't. It's pretty good, and the animation is excellent.

(The other movie I saw this weekend, Timeline, sucked. Stay away!)

Anyway, today, while working on my Astronomy homework, I learned a lot about black holes. They're fascinating, and I'd like to share some of this with you.

First, a black hole is created by the gravity collapse of a nuetron star, a star that's gotten so massive it falls in upon itself. It's got a huge amount of mass, but it's so super-compressed that it creates a well of gravity that attracts anything that passes it to its core, even light.

The black hole is surrounded by an area called the event horizon, kind of like it's sphere of influence. Anything inside the event horizon will be pulled ('pulled', not 'sucked') into the black hole. The center of a black hole is actually a physical object of unimaginable density and mass.

It gets cooler, too: black holes are actually getting larger all the time. Because it pulls light particles into its center, the hole is expanding, slowly but surely. As the black hole's core increases in size and mass, so does the radius of the event horizon.

Now, here's where it gets wonky: We can't actually observe a black hole. We can't see it, because it attracts the light. We can't detect it, because it sucks up all radio and electromagnetic waves.

In fact, the only way we know about the black holes is *because of* the fact that we can't see or detect it. We detect 'blank spots' in space, and that is theorized to be where the black hole is.

What this means is that there's no actual observational evidence for the black hole, so everything we know about its properties is the result of mathmatical computations and quantom physics.

This creates a problem, because mathmatics doesn't completely correlate to the real world, at least not in the way we view it.

See, here's the thing: the black hole scientific model predicts that a black hole's core collapses on itself as it gains more mass. Eventually, it would become so dense that it would transform into a singularity.

A sigularity is a single point in space. What's that mean? We don't know.

See, in geometry (which I despise, BTW), a 'point' is a single spot on a plane. However...that doesn't mean anything, not literally. Geometrically, a 'line' is a connection of points that continues for infinity, so, again, it's not exactly easy to understand.

So, eventually, a black hole becomes a singularity, except we don't know what a singularity is. There's only one (other) problem with that scenario: it's physically impossible.

See, for the black hole to become a singularity, the core's size would have to reduce to a size smaller than that of a single electron. That's impossible, but that's what the math says would need to happen.

So, you see why this is confusing. This is what we apparently call a "breakdown of a theory".

Just one more correlation, then I'm out. All right, there's a school of thought that's widely adopted, that says that matter and energy are niether created nor destroyed. All the molecules in your body are hand-me-downs, and you might be sharing them with a rock, or a dinosaur, or Elvis.

However, because all matter can become energy on the sub-atomic level, all matter can also become light. Light travels the universe at the highest speed known to man.

Light also gets sucked into black holes.

Do you see where I'm going with this? Matter --> light --> Black hole --> Singulatrity (?)

One of the things a singularity is theorized to be is simple noexistance. (Thus, a fluke in the 'materr can't be destroyed' rule).

So, assuming (BIG assumptions) that all these theories are correct, all matter in the universe will eventually cease to exist.

Cool, huh?

Yeah, but don't take my rambling too seriously; this is just after weeek's worth of lectures in what's been, until now, a pretty pedestrian class. I'm really into this stuff, though. If you ever get a chance to read an article or watch a TV show about black holes, you should; they're fascinating. ^__^

Thought of the moment: After tomorrow, I'll be prepped for Prom.

Quote of the moment: "You're using her memory to get to me, you little troll. I swear I'll kill you for that." -The Lizard, "Spectacular Spider-Man # 13."
Comments (2)