From: Stirling Westrup (sti@cam.org)
Date: Tue Feb 15 2000 - 09:59:59 MST
James Swayze wrote:
> I had a thought once. What if two black holes began ever so slowly to collide.
> What effect might one observe as the two event horizons just touch? Assume the
> mass of both for sake of argument is exactly equal. Would particles be pulled in
> two? This would be difficult for plank sized items, no? Or would they have to
> fall to one side or the other of the resultant hump left in space between the
> two dents made in space time? What would determine to which side a particle
> falls? Perhaps this is a foolish thought after all I'm not an expert just an
> inquiring mind. Still though, any thoughts?
Many interesting things happen when black holes collide (at least
theoretically). One is that the final resulting black hole has an apparant
volume less than the sum of the apparant volumes of the two colliding holes.
As for particles being pulled in two, it wouldn't happen. Quantum fluctuations
alone would ensure that the particle went one way or the other. Then again, in
an area of such extreme gravitational stress one would expect to see lots of
spontaneous pair production, one particle of each pair being sucked into each
hole.
Finally, there was an interesting science fiction short story in which one
researcher was extracting information from micro black-holes by colliding them.
She was (somehow) intercepting infinitely red-shifted photons that were being
pulled out of one hole and falling into the other, at the exact moment when
their event horizons touched.
--
Stirling Westrup | Use of the Internet by this poster
sti@cam.org | is not to be construed as a tacit
| endorsement of Western Technological
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