@tio
Those 2 videos are very good 👍

My confusion regarding this black balls theory is this:

1. Not even light can escape a black hole because its so dense that the gravity is in the extremes. But if it was a ball the same size (of event horizon), then it wouldn't be this dense and wouldn't have that much gravity

2. We don't even know if matter can become dark matter, let alone say that stars exploding will cause it. Its called dark matter cause we literally know nothing about it, lol 😂

@tio
Thank you for engaging as well, we could discuss these things for hours without getting bored, haha 😄

@futureisfoss

Not even light can escape a black hole because its so dense that the gravity is in the extremes. But if it was a ball the same size (of event horizon), then it wouldn't be this dense and wouldn't have that much gravity

Actually the one who first came up with this theory, a mathematician some 200 years ago, called it a dark/black star and proved mathematically you can have such a star where light can't escape it because it is so dense. And black holes are actually stars....same way a neutron star is still a star. They call it "hole" and make things confusing a lot :D.

We don't even know if matter can become dark matter, let alone say that stars exploding will cause it. Its called dark matter cause we literally know nothing about it, lol

Exactly. We don't even know if it is matter. But has similar properties with a black hole that's why they are thinking black matter can in fact be black holes. They both do not interact with light/matter so that we can't see them, and have a strong gravitational pull.

@tio

> Actually the one who first came up with this theory, a mathematician some 200 years ago, called it a dark/black star and proved mathematically you can have such a star

I didn't knew about that, interesting... 🤔
Also, keep in mind that this mathematician can be wrong, there has to be a reason we don't call it a star anymore. Einstein published general relativity in 1915, before that we didn't had a clear picture of how gravity worked.

@tio
Its possible for a star's gravity to bend light, this is actually how we proved general relativity. But a star's gravity is not strong enough that even light can't escape, if it were then it wouldn't be able to glow ;)

Also, when you call it a black ball, a dark planet comes to my mind. And I don't get how a planet can do what a black hole does. Even if your black ball was made of dark matter, the gravitational properties would be kinda the same as a normal ball.

@futureisfoss A "black hole" is a star. It is a collapsed star, same as a neutron star. So we can better call it a "dark star" or something like that. Now the properties of this dark star can be that its size are immensely small and dense, like the singularity of a black hole. Semantics. A dark star, or black ball like I call it, can be so dense that light can't even escape it. Why can't it be? Or can be that is made out of dark matter and combined with gravity it sucks in normal matter and converts it into dark matter.

A star doesn't have to glow. White dwarfs barely glow.

Take normal matter. A neutron star then the Venus planet. Both made out of normal matter. But the neutron star's gravitational pull is immense compared to the one of the planet Venus. Despite them being made out of the same matter. Why can't it be that dark matter that we observe scattered around the universe clump under tremendous pressures into a ball just like a neutron star, and have immense gravitational pull? :P

@tio
As long as we're talking about the singularity, the name we give to it doesn't matter. In my mind, I see stars as something that radiates energy, so its hard to call black holes a star. I know about hawking radiation, but its very different thing. In hawking radiation, none of the energy/matter that's released comes from the black hole itself.

From wikipedia: "A star is an astronomical object consisting of a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its own gravity"

@tio
Its also hard for me to call singularity a "ball" because now I have a better understanding of why they theorized it to be point sized. Even if it wasn't point sized, I still find it hard to call something so tiny a "ball". Would you call atoms a "ball" ? IDK, sounds weird to me.

@tio
About dark matter, there is still the question of where that normal matter went ? If you're saying that normal matter turned into dark matter, then it would work AFAIK. But my question is "why ?". You're just adding an extra step to the whole process, there's no need for matter to become darkmatter for black holes to exist, so why make it more complicated ? 🤷

If scientists are looking into such theories, then they're probably doing it for entirely different reasons than us 😂

@futureisfoss

You're just adding an extra step to the whole process, there's no need for matter to become darkmatter for black holes to exist, so why make it more complicated ?

As explained in the article....it can solve 2 issues: 1. We understand what black balls are. And 2. It may explain how dark matter comes into existence.

Why would you invent the singularity (infinite point), or the "event horizon"? These are completely new things. To say that the blackness of a black hole is just stuff that we can't see because light can't escape the gravitational pull, is also an invention, isn't it?

@tio

> 2. It may explain how dark matter comes into existence.

I don't understand this point, that's why I asked this question:

> How does this dark matter singularity become that foggy patches shown in the NASA Hubble map ?

The gravity of a black hole is so strong that nothing can escape it, so how can dark matter escape it considering their gravitational properties are similar to normal matter ?

@tio
> To say that the blackness of a black hole is just stuff that we can't see because light can't escape the gravitational pull, is also an invention, isn't it?

I don't think its an invention, that's how we define black holes !
(AFAIK, We defined them even before finding one IRL)
From Wikipedia: "A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing — no particles or even electromagnetic radiation such as light — can escape from it."

@futureisfoss Yes but that's still not fully demonstrated. It is an idea, that so far has some predictability. But so did so many other theories/ideas. It is a reason why I don't start to say that maybe atoms are just dark matter that absorb light, since we have "touched" the atom and humans have very well understood it so far. Not so for black holes.

AFAIK, We defined them even before finding one IRL

I was reading through the history of black holes and from what I got from it, at first it was theorized that there can be dark stars, as I said in other comments. So dense that light can't escape them.

@tio
If your theory proved to be right, they'll probably change the name from black holes to something like black balls (which you suggested) since it wouldn't fit the definition of a black hole. So instead of saying there's a black hole at the centre of every galaxy, they'll be saying there's a black ball there 😉

@futureisfoss And I explained: a normal star produces the chemical elements (atoms) we know of today. That means atoms made out of protons, neutrons and electrons. We understand that.

Now the same matter can form a cloud of gas that has a very weak gravitational pull, or under tremendous pressures a more dense object like a planet or a star, or a neutron star.

So, same matter, different "objects": from clouds of gas, to planets, asteroids, or stars of wildly different sizes and densities.

Why can't this be true for dark matter? What if dark matter is made out of different particles (atoms) and in most cases you see it as a sort of "gas" that still has a decent gravitational pull from my understanding, but at times under tremendous pressures it coalesces in the form of a star.

ofc this is pure speculation but an interesting thought experiment.

@tio
> in most cases you see it as a sort of "gas" that still has a decent gravitational pull from my understanding, but at times under tremendous pressures it coalesces in the form of a star.

Ofc, this is a possibility, I understand that. But my point here is that it can't go from a planet to a gas, only the other way around. So if you're saying all dark matter are created when black holes are born, be it a black ball/star, it'll never become that foggy patches shown in the NASA Hubble map.

@futureisfoss When a star becomes a neutron star it loses mass/energy in the process of collapsing, and those remains will transform into gas clouds of the normal matter that this star was made of. That's what my "brian" :) told me one night, maybe when a star becomes a dark star, it transforms matter into dark matter and it also shoots out this sort of dark matter when it collapses, like all stars do.

Also I find it bizarre that this super strange "point" (singularity) has a magnetic field like all stars have. As far as I understand it. It makes more sense for it to have a magnetic filed if it is a dark ball in my mind at least.

@tio

> When a star becomes a neutron star it loses mass/energy in the process of collapsing, and those remains will transform into gas clouds of the normal matter that this star was made of.

Ok, this is actually what I wanted to hear, now your theory is making more sense to me, and I understand it better now 😀

I just couldn't think of any way its mass could spread out, haha 😂
So the answer is a supernova explosion that spreads out the mass of these black balls that are made of dark matter.

@futureisfoss Yah well when a star becomes a black hole I suppose it loses mass in the process of collapsing, squashing all of those atoms in the process.

@futureisfoss I find it impossible to imagine it is a "point sized". What in the world does that mean? haha. Ofc this can be true, but I find this one to be so wild. Much wilder than perhaps it is a "dark star" made out of matter we do not grasp now.

@tio
Yes, you'll find it hard to imagine a point sized object cause its vastly different from anything we've ever seen. I don't know how to explain this, but I'll try. You just have to think about why a point sized object can't exist in our day to day life. If you think about it from the perspective of atoms and particles, then you'll understand that its because of the repulsion between these particles. Black holes are born when stars collapse that are massive enough to overcome all repulsions.

@tio

> Ofc this can be true, but I find this one to be so wild.

Yes, and that's what makes black holes interesting, they are wild 😀

@futureisfoss

Black holes are born when stars collapse that are massive enough to overcome all repulsions.

That's the theory. But we do not know for sure. Maybe there are all sorts of matter out there and forces. After all the normal physics and the quantum one are still not shaking hands from what I know. They had to invent a new kind of physics to explain those new particles.

@tio
A big factor for confusion here is that I'm not really sure how much of the stuff I've heard about black holes are just a theory vs how much is actually evidence based. Everytime I hear about black holes, I hear all of these same things, singularity, event horizon, etc.

One thing we both agree here is that our knowledge about the universe is limited. I'm not saying your theory can't be true, I'm just trying to explain why I find it confusing. Ofc, we have different POV about black holes 🙂

@tio
Its interesting you mentioned quantum mechanics, cause that's even crazier, haha

> They had to invent a new kind of physics to explain those new particles.

New physics ? Dude, quantum mechanics is literally MAGIC !

Did you know that they actually teleported data using quantum entanglement ? If this isn't magic, IDK what is......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb38jozeDOs

@futureisfoss Yah quantum entanglement is the craziest shit I've ever heard of. I highly recommend this documentary about the topic www.videoneat.com/documentarie…

@tio
Thanks, I'll take a loot at that. I like learning about quantum mechanics, its probably the most insane/craziest fields of science ever. It feels literally like magic to me, and I can't believe these things are REAL, I mean WTF ?

BTW, you can try doing the double slit experiment at home - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKdaRJ3vAmA
I'll do this one day when I buy a laser, a cheap one should be enough I think.

@futureisfoss Very cool I will try. I am not not confused by this at all!

@futureisfoss Atoms are different. We are talking here about a collapsed star, not atoms. But a group of atoms or some new kind of particles. A group of.

@tio
Atoms are spherical shaped and are made of even smaller sub particles, so its not that different from a star/planet (which is made of many small particles as well), atoms are just tiny.

I think of singularity as a point, its more exciting for me that way ;)

And considering how little we know about the universe, maybe the closest we can get to truth is to consider the latest science we know. Ofc, it can always be wrong, but that's just the best we can know from a scientific perspective 🙂

@futureisfoss Yes but as far as I know sub atomic particles do not "obey" the laws of physics. They had to come up with quantum physics to explain them. A star is different, on a different level. I get your point, but an atom is not a "point" either. And is not round either, of course. It is a wobbly thing with clouds of electrons around them, and a core made out of protons and neutrons.

@tio
Yeah, I was just trying to say how I can't call something so tiny like singularity a ball. Ofc, it'd be different if your theory is right and is actually a star/planet, then we can call it a ball. This is why I said we have different POV when we think about a black hole, the singularity comes to my mind but maybe a ball made of dark matter comes to your mind 🙂

@futureisfoss Stars do not have to be a "luminous spheroid of plasma", same way that what they call a planet should not necessarily be an object of X size that clears its orbiting path of debris/asteroids. Also, aren't moons same as planets?

@tio

> Also, aren't moons same as planets?

This is actually an interesting question. I think technically they're kinda the same, but we gave them different names just to make communication easier for us.

@futureisfoss We call it a blach "hole" because of a movie theater or something like that, which was called the "black hole". About a prison where inmates will go but never come back. Just like matter seems to go inside of these "black stars" and never come back. So the naming was quite random.

@tio
That's interesting, I didn't know that. I only have a rough idea of what black holes are, I don't know anything about its academic background 😁

@futureisfoss And ofc that mathematician could be wrong, same as Einstein, Hawking, and the rest.

@tio
True, but the chance of us being wrong is much higher, lol 😂

@futureisfoss Oh ofc, that's how I started the article. I am quite sure I am wrong, but I am also quite sure that science is more than capable of making fun of itself later on in life. So many scientists, the height of academia, thought of aether as a medium through which light travels en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminife… and they were so wrong. Or the theory about fire that was making a lot of sense and was accepted by all scientists at the time, yet it was so wrong en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogist…

So considering scientists say that we have almost no cue about what dark holes really are, or what dark matter/energy are, then maybe they can be totally wrong. That makes me even more excited :)

@futureisfoss Or gravity....they thought for sure it is a force...

@tio
Of course I agree that scientists can be wrong. Coming from a scientific guy like you, it makes sense. You know very well where the limits of science are.

Funny story, I've heard this argument from a religious person, saying that science will say one thing today and another thing tomorrow, so its not reliable. I later said to him that where there's change there's progress, so science will keep correcting its mistakes and become better as time goes on, while religion is stuck in the past 🙂

@futureisfoss If science corrects itself, is always through science ;) . That's the cool part about it!