Occam's Universe:Black Spirals

Black holes have become a commonplace of astronomy, and almost as frequent explanatory entities therein as comets were in an earlier era.

Furthermore, not just black holes but supermassive black holes, with estimated masses several million times that of our sun, have been inferred at the centers of many if not all galaxies, first postulated for our own galaxy by Lynden-Bell and Rees (1971), and bolstered by radio-telescopic studies, most beautifully by Roberts and Goss using the US NRAO Very Large Array radio telescope in 1990-1 (results published in 1993).

It is hypothesized here that such supermassive black holes are themselves at simplest each composed of two black holes orbiting one another at relativistic angular velocities, their masses increased by Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction.

Such "black binary" hypothesis immediately opens the door to systems analogous to those of ordinary multiple stars, a third black hole orbiting the central binary, two black binaries orbiting one another, etc.

Duration of black binary black hole spin-down into one another is obviously important to the hypothesis, and just as obviously depends on angles and velocities of approach. Head-on collisions and the briefest spin-downs would essentially be discrete events. But the relatively small volumes of black hole singularities argue for generally more prolonged spin-downs, even after event horizon coalescences.

Angles of approach and differences of mass and velocity dictate variety of early black binary geometry, dynamics and effects; relative angles of the axes of spin of the black holes involved add variety to middle; and the varying shapes of the coalescing event horizons, from double sphere to conjoined double sphere, spindle, dimpled oblate sphere, oblate and sphere, to late.

Black binaries, especially those whose orbital velocities have become relativistic, would act as sling-shot gravitational accelerators, of photons (which can't go any faster but can be angulated and blue-shifted), particles, dust, rocks, asteroids, planets, and even, in later relativistic and supermassive stages, latecomer stars, neutron stars and black holes, accelerating them out mostly into the orbital plane of the black binary, forming, and continually feeding and imparting radial and angular velocities to, a coplanar nearby astronomical mayhem and cloud and outer wider thinner disk.

Such planar acceleration cloud and disk must distinguish relativistic and near relativistic black binaries from simple black holes, regardless of mass.

Relativistic slingshotting of latecomer neutron stars or black holes with consequent mass and gravitational increases of their own might produce the jets observed protruding from some galaxies.

And particle acceleration by the tightest, fastest and most massive relativistic binaries whose event horizons have not yet coalesced, so that there exists a collider region for accelerated materials from both sides of and at the center of the orbital plane, should produce much higher energy particle collisions and much more exotic particles than anything safely produceable if at all on Earth.

Relativistic black binaries afford a mechanism by which an elliptical galaxy might be transformed into a disk-and-plane if not spiral galaxy, by two black holes spinning down into each other, with the rest of the elliptical feeding and being influenced by the growing mass of and gravitation and angular and radial accelerations exerted by the black binary, which might well not form at the center of that galaxy, although since ellipticals are densest there that would seem to be the greatest probability.

Such scenario does not explain the emergence of spiral arms, although planar inflow and outflow currents in late disk-and-plane might account for some, and jetting might account for others, including the very wide elliptical-to-spherical "ring" arms noticeable in some.

Some spiral barring might be accounted for a new acceleration disk forming angled to the original; other by jetting, and still other by latecomer black binary orbit of a core black binary.

And two black binaries forming two spirals from an elliptical galaxy would present two small spirals almost or actually conjoined or intermingled.

Finally, black binary terminal spin-down and consumption of a galaxy might account for quasars, the gravity involved reddening the image and giving a false impression of distance.

If black binaries exist, and they do not seem to be impossible, one would expect if not their component black holes themselves then their effects to be observable. Black binary invocation seems to illuminate some problems of galactic astronomy. And, indeed, as explanatory entities, black binaries intrinsically afford a great variety of galactic phenomena and evolutions and morphologies, seemingly largely corresponding to that observable.

Still, at least one spiral galactic morphology seems inconsistent with such hypothesis, some barred spirals apparently having spiral arms attached to the edges or ends of and running at right angles to the planes of the bars if any.


[After I brooded over this for months, and actively worked on it for weeks, I decided to check the Web to see if anyone else had been working on it, and, well, for example:

Binary black hole

Some lessons need repeating (I've done this kind of thing before).

But existing theory seems to be that the supermassive black holes with which it is concerned are themselves simple black holes.

Nonetheless, the study of such with regard to their roles in "active galactic nuclei" is very pertinent to the present hypothesis, which is concerned mostly with black binary role in ordinary galactic evolution and morphology.

]

[20150414 Added the note on quasars.]


Keywords: astronomizing, astronomy, black binary, black hole, galactic core, galaxy, Milky Way, radiotelescope, Sagittarius, VLA

Idle Pastoralism

I'm out here as an advance guard for plastic.

—Moderan

The hunter kills prey for food and skins, the gatherer kills plants for food.

The pastoralist not only hunts and gathers, but kills his own flock or herd for food and skins, and in addition kills other predators which try to or might prey upon his flock or herd.

And the farmer not only hunts and gathers and herds, but kills everything, animal and plant, above and below the ground he intends to farm:

Sing the peaceful farmer!

Then there's Monsanto/Bayer-style corporate chemical and biological "Roundup Ready", neonicotinoid, GMO, "Agent Orange" and "suicide seed" farming . . . :

How long before "Neutron Ready" corn? *

And finally of course there's the developer who paves and concretes the farms.


* Just lift Deinococcus' hardened genetic system and voila.


[See also "Walls", "Population Law: The 1% Approximation" and "Photonomics: The Photosynthetic Economy".]


Keywords: agriculture, Bayer, BigFarmer, coevolution, coexistence, corporations, corporocracy, development, farming, future, GMO, green, Monsanto, neonicotinoids, plutocracy, sustainability, violence

A Cosmic Shock

I was visiting a friend last night in the hospital, and he was so fascinated by my company that he switched on the new Cosmos, of which he is a fan.

I had never been a fan of the old Cosmos, since if I want to know about something scientific I go read up on it, assuming it's not locked behind a paywall, and I found Carl Sagan irritating on the few occasions I tuned across the show, although if I'd known at the time he was "the world's biggest pot-head" I might've viewed him more favorably ("Let's see how buzzed Carl is in this episode!"), but I do remember the show as being a respectable attempt to popularize scientific subjects for the non-scientific population, those having attained only a high-school diploma or perhaps a non-scientific bachelor's degree.

What I saw last night was pathetic. I was, quite literally, and with no exaggeration whatsoever, shocked by it. The presentation I saw was geared to what I'd expect would be the apprehension and comprehension of an eighth-grader, if that.

Now, it may be—as a matter of fact, it probably is—the case that the new Cosmos is geared to the most common intellectual level of the American "televisariat", as ascertained by polling or testing.

And if that is the case, the present American intellectual level presents us with a national existential crisis that by far dwarfs our present political and Constitutional crisis, the present plutocracy-corporocracy operating through two-plutocratic-party-system and police-state erected on the ruins of our Constitution.

And if those viewers to which the new Cosmos is geared are all high-school-diploma-holders, then either the standards for obtaining high-school diplomas, which one would reasonably expect to guarantee that those diploma-holders have attained the minimum intellectual properties and procedures needed to be minimally-competent adult citizens, have, or the level of  integrity in awarding those diplomas has, been lowered to an astonishing level, or both.

At any rate, this does seem to explain why a passing grade in an ordinary college-freshman-level non-mathematical logic-course has never been and is not being pushed to be required in the "core curriculum" for high-school diplomas:

A huge proportion, perhaps even a majority, of Americans would be unable to pass it.

And these are our present-day voters and jurors.

Our small business-people, once the backbone of our economy, and our soldiers.

And if this state of affairs suits our present plutocracy-corporocracy, as it apparently does, then one must ask just what the intent of that plutocracy-corporocracy is, with regard to the American people, and to America.