Anything Else

I always wanted to learn star gazing, but never knew where to begin. This site teaches the absolute basics. Trust me you will want to go out and gaze after going through it.

I did not realize but looks like I solved the black hole information paradox when I posted about black holes a few days back.

Real scientists have come to the same conclusion. Via /.

A para from The Physics of Star Trek.

... the only black holes we have any evidence for in the universe today result from the collapse of stars much more massive than the Sun. These collapsed objects are so dense that a teaspoon of material inside would weigh many tons. However, it is another remarkable property of black holes that the more massive they are, the less dense they need be when they form. For example, the density of the black hole formed by the collapse of an object 100 million times as massive as our Sun need only be equal to the density of water. An object of larger mass will collapse to form a black hole at a point when it is even less dense. If you keep on extrapolating, you will find that the density required to form a black hole with a mass equal to the mass of the observable universe would be roughly the same as the average density of matter in the universe! We may be living inside a black hole.

Wow! Interesting if true. Another para about blackholes:

You may notice that I referred to a black hole as "hiding" a singularity at its center. The reason is that at the outskirts of a black hole is a mathematically defined surface we call the "event horizon," which shields our view of what happens to objects that fall into the hole. Inside the event horizon, everything must eventually hit the ominous singularity. Outside the event horizon, objects can escape. While an observer unlucky enough to fall into a black hole will notice nothing special at all as he or she (soon to be "it") crosses the event horizon, an observer watching the process from far away sees something very different. Time slows down for the observer freely falling in the vicinity of the event horizon, relative to an observer located far away. As a result, the falling observer appears from the outside to slow down as he or she nears the event horizon. The closer the falling observer gets to the event horizon, the slower is his or her clock relative to the outside observer's. While it may take the falling observer a few moments (local time) to cross the event horizon—where, I repeat, nothing special happens and nothing special sits—it will take an eternity as observed by someone on the outside. The infalling object appears to become frozen in time.

Emphasis mine. What it means is nothing can fall in a black hole in any finite amount of time, so nothing can be inside event horizon that was not already there.

UPDATED: Last paragraph actually stated a solution for black hole information paradox. More.

If you have time, check out this blog, the atom smashers, by a documentary film maker. About making of a file and higgs bosons, and race to find them.