The Black Hole

Einstein and Time Travel

Kerr Black Holes

Cracking the Einstein Code - over an hour long free lecture by John P. Kerr at itunes

Kerr black holes were postulated by the theorist, Roy Kerr, picture at left, in the 1960s. He postulated that a rotating star could collapse into a black hole with a rotating ring of neutrons at its center rather than the usual singularity. Kerr believed that since there wasn't a singularity at the center, one might be able to travel through the black hole without being crushed by the singularity. Another theoretically possible scenario is that a person could enter the Kerr black hole and exit through a white hole on the other side (a white hole would actually push everything away from it using some form of exotic matter with negative energy), and, in this way, one could travel through spacetime.

In 1963 the New Zealand mathematician Roy Kerr, picture at left, achieved something that had eluded scientists for 47 years - he found the solution of Einstein's equations which describes the space outside a rotating star or black hole. Kerr's solution has been described as "the most important exact solution to any equation in physics".
Shortly after Einstein wrote down his gravitational field equations in 1915, Karl Schwarzschild found a solution which describes a non-rotating spherical star or black hole. However, it is known that all stars rotate, and that Schwarzschild's solution is at best an approximation. Kerr's achievement of finding an exact solution for the rotating case - something many had doubted could be done - was therefore a revolution in astrophysics. It ushered in a decade which might be called the Golden Age of Black Hole Physics, when General Relativity saw a Renaissance.

In the words of the legendary astrophysicist S. Chandrasekhar (Nobel laureate, 1983, picture at left): "In my entire scientific life, extending over forty-five years, the most shattering experience has been the realization that an exact solution of Einstein's equations of general relativity, discovered by the New Zealand mathematician, Roy Kerr, provides the absolutely exact representation of untold numbers of massive black holes that populate the universe. This shuddering before the beautiful, this incredible fact that a discovery motivated by a search after the beautiful in mathematics should find its exact replica in Nature, persuades me to say that beauty is that to which the human mind responds at its deepest and most profound."

Over the 41 years since its discovery the Kerr solution has been pivotal in deepening our understanding of astrophysics and gravitation theory. Many new effects arise in the Kerr solution - a rotating object drags space with it, in a way which would not be possible in Newton's theory.

In recent years a wealth of new astronomical observations has provided strong evidence for the existence of rotating Kerr black holes. Most impressively, it has recently been shown from observations of matter falling into the supermassive black hole in the centre of our own galaxy that it must be rotating at close to half of the maximum rate allowed by the Kerr solution.

Roy Kerr's contributions have been recognised by the award of the Hughes Medal (1984) of the Royal Society, and the Hector Medal (1982) and the Rutherford Medal (1993) of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

Visiting a Kerr Black Hole:


Comparing spinning and non spinning black holes:


Cracking the Einstein Code
Relativity and the Birth of Black Hole Physics
Fulvio Melia

Chapter 1
EINSTEIN’S CODE

The scene could have been straight out of Universal Studios, Hollywood. Two men are breathing rhythmically in a smoke-filled modest little room facing south toward the capital of Texas. They sit quietly no more than an arm’s length apart, lost in thought. Roy Kerr, the younger of the two, is hunched over a secondhand desk with his back to the door, studying the equations he has just scribbled in a notebook. His older friend and mentor, Alfred Schild (1921–1977), picture at left, puffs away at a pipe while occupying a worn-out armchair to his right. It is late morning, and rays of sunlight filter through the bushes outside the window, creating a mosaic of light and shadow across the paneled walls.

At stake in this drama is the breakthrough solution to Einstein’s equations of general relativity that have defied the greatest scientific minds of the twentieth century. So impenetrable is this description of nature, that Einstein himself succeeded only partially in divining its impact on the meaning of space and time. But it is now 1963, and the freshly minted mathematician out of Cambridge University, settling in at Schild’s newly established Center for Relativity at the University of Texas at Austin, is about to crack the great physicist’s famous code.

Much has been written about Albert Einstein (1879–1955) and his profound influence on our view of the universe, but very little is known about the golden age of relativity, spanning the period 1960–75 following his death. This book is the story of the brilliant young scientists of that era who accepted the challenge of unraveling the mysteries hidden within the seemingly unfathomable language of general relativity, culminating with Kerr’s uncloaking of one of the most important and famous equations in all of science.

It is not always possible to discern the reasons why a scientific investigation meanders raggedly or slowly toward its ultimate goal, but in the development of relativity, the complexity of its mathematical formalism is certainly one of them. The difficulty of designing suitable experiments to test Einstein’s theory is another. But neither of these reasons emerged for want of interest. Einstein became an instant celebrity soon after founding general relativity in 1915–16, with the quick, auspicious confirmation of one of his predictions—that gravity should bend the path of light as well as that of any particle with mass. This result resounded across the front pages of newspapers around the world, and scientists took note of the new ideas almost right away.

Indeed, only a few months after Einstein’s publications began circulating around Europe, Karl Schwarzschild (1873–1916), picture at left, a soldier on the Russian front, amazingly already succeeded in finding a description of space and time consistent with Einstein’s theory, but only for a highly idealized situation, that is, for the gravitational field surrounding a static, spherically symmetric mass. Einstein greeted Schwarzschild’s news with enthusiasm, and his solution is used to this day to describe phenomena in regions of strong gravity. How odd, then, that arguably the most elegant scientific theory ever devised should slowly wither into the decades that followed this remarkable beginning. Those who knew him best have written that already by the 1930s Einstein’s interest in general relativity had almost completely lapsed. Having by then moved to Princeton, he could count the number of colleagues working in this field on just one hand. Relativity theory had become irrelevant to science—a situation that sadly persisted up until Einstein’s death. He would never know about the breathtaking discovery that would be announced just a few years later—a splendid confirmation of another prediction made several decades earlier.

This experimental achievement—a compelling demonstration in 1960 by the Harvard physicists Robert Pound and Glen Rebka that time slows down in the presence of gravity—sparked the revolution that followed during relativity’s golden age, leading to that special moment in Roy Kerr’s sepia-tinted office shortly afterward.

In the intervening years, failure to uncover practical applications of Einstein’s theory was compounded by the lack of progress in the experimental verification of general relativity as the correct description of nature. Ironically, part of the problem was the Schwarzschild solution itself, which in time would be used to predict that truly bizarre objects, variously called dark or frozen stars, must exist somewhere in the cosmos. Today we call them black holes, but back then no one—particularly Einstein—believed they could be real. Yet the Schwarzschild solution clearly demonstrated that the end result of a gravitational collapse must be the formation of a singularity—a point of infinite density—that creates a closed pocket of space and time forever disconnected from the outside world.

Many thought that nature could not possibly create something so unreasonable, believing that no object in the universe is truly static and that, at the very least, its rotation would inhibit any collapse toward a singularity. And so began the search for the “holy grail” of relativity—a description of space and time surrounding a spinning object. Everything we see in the universe rotates, the argument went, so in order to demonstrate that Einstein’s theory is a true description of gravity, we must be able to show that his equations do in fact describe space and time surrounding a spinning mass.

But what a challenge this turned out to be! Some of the world’s most renowned physicists spent their entire careers working on this problem, making some progress, but losing interest or hope in their waning years. Of course, by the middle of the twentieth century, quantum mechanics had forged well ahead of relativity in relevance and measurability, cementing its place as the overarching theory in the physics pantheon. It didn’t help that relativity and quantum mechanics seemed to be incompatible with each other, since the former uses perfectly measurable locations and times, whereas the latter is essentially a theory of spatial imprecision.

The Pound-Rebka experiment changed all that, principally because even the quantum mechanicists could not easily discount its remarkable implications. In fact, among the staunchest supporters of relativity and its relevance to modern physics was Vitaly Ginzburg, co-recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in physics for his work in the 1950s on superconductivity, a phenomenon in which some materials carry currents freely, without any resistance, by virtue of a quantum effect that becomes important at very low temperatures.

Though his interests were mainly in quantum mechanics, Ginzburg would nonetheless become an inspirational figure to many young physicists drawn to Einstein’s theory in the early 1960s. Listening to him, the twenty-eight-year-old Roy Kerr understood that “cracking Einstein’s code” was indeed the challenge he should ply with his mathematical talents—a task that would soon bring him to that fateful day sitting next to Alfred Schild in his smoke-filled office.

But the story begins well before Kerr’s arrival in Texas, even before Einstein himself, in fact. Musings concerning the nature of space and the meaning of time began to appear thousands of years earlier, in places such as the Greek colony of Elea in southern Italy. Before we explore the evolution in Einstein’s thinking that led to his theory of general relativity, and the inspired work that followed during its golden age, we will therefore begin by tracing some of the incipient thinking that led to the problem in the first place. Our journey commences in the fifth century BC with the Greek philosopher Zeno, a man clearly far ahead of his time. Zeno realized even back then that the notion of an absolute space independent of time was paradoxical—anticipating by several thousand years the eventual unification of the two into the structure we now refer to as simply spacetime.

This post is in memory of pioneering black hole researcher Doctor Robert Hamilton Boyer (December 11, 1932 to August 1, 1966), picture below, who was killed by Charles Whitman on August 1, 1966. He was only 33 when he was murdered. Mr. Boyer was a former mathematics instructor at the University of Texas at Austin and a Rhodes Scholar. He had just completed a month of teaching in Mexico. He was visiting friends in Austin, and was on his way to Liverpool University, where he would have taught applied mathematics and be nearer to his pregnant wife Lyndsey and their children. Upset by a national airline strike, Boyer left his friends' house to buy a train ticket. On his way, he was to stop at the Main Building to take care of some last-minute business. He was shot in the back and died immediately:

Romney to Announce Soon - Painful Campaign Shakeup Now Underway - 177th Now Part of the Campaign - Job Creation is the Message

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The 177th team is now embedded with the Romney campaign. The team has advised President Romney to formally announce as soon as possible. This campaign in critical for America. The mission of the 177th is clear and simple - Romney must be elected President in 2012. His campaign this year has to be different than the 2008 campaign, with clear and unambiguous positions on the issues. The key number is 270, the number of electoral votes to win. The campaign will concentrate on the economy and jobs. Look for a formal announcement as early as next week.

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Key to Victory in 2012: Its all about getting those 270 votes. This is where we stand today. The purple states are the tossup states, the campaign will be concentrating on three states: Florida, Nevada and Ohio. These three states are the key to a Romney victory. Since the Civil War through the 2032 elections, Nevada has been the best predictor of the presidential election. As Nevada goes, so goes the nation.

2012 Final: Romney 274 electoral votes, Obama 266 electoral votes









Why Romney Can Win, by George Will:
Ten states that will lose electoral votes because of the 2010 census. Eight of those went for Obama in 2008.
The states that gave John McCain 173 electoral votes in 2008 now have 180 electoral votes.
A GOP nominee need only hold those states and gain Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Indiana, Virginia and Nevada to get the 272 electoral votes to win the election.
78% of the citizenry is dissatisfied with the direction the country is going.
43% of the most severe unemployment in the last 63 years has occurred in the last two and half years.
No postwar president has sought re-election with 8 percent unemployment.
Obama won all, but only, states where Bush’s favorable rating was below 35 percent in 2008.
Obama was a relatively blank slate in 2008. He won only 53 percent of the popular vote. He won’t be a novelty the second time around.



Mitt's vice president, Herman Cain, did well in the first Republican candidate debate:


Mitt Romney's vice president, Herman Cain:

Mirage Cuts Off Our Parlay Action

DATELINE: Las Vegas, Nevada

Tom: The Mirage cut me off yesterday on $5 parlay cards. I better lose there the next few days with some straight bets. I sent you another Fedex package.

John: Don't get greedy.





John: Time is fluid. By knowing the future, the future will be different. But geophysical events, like earthquakes or comets don't change. That is why I must have self contained time travel apparatus. I have to depend on myself to get back to the future. It would happen in any case, just by my presence now in your time changes history.

Tom: Bring back the exact time and date and magnitude of that Great Quake. We have to warn them.

John: I doubt they would believe us. Two many phonies out there. So easy to spot, you go to their websites and there are advertisements or they are charging a hundred bucks for a lecture, or trying to sell their latest book. I am talking to you because I have known you the last ten years. I appreciate your help in looking for computer equipment and funding my operations. I know you will never advertise, never try to sell a book, never sell sports picks and never go on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. You make plenty of money as it is. You must allow people to make comments here too without moderation.

Tom: Yeah, you can spot those guys a mile away. Always a book to sell. I think people can make comments on here. I have not tested that yet though. We should warn the world of any upcoming earthquakes. Maybe not give them an exact time, just say this week there will be a big quake, but give them the exact location and warn of tsunamis. Will, I better hit the sports books. I will make sure I lose big at the Mirage today. Who are the winners?

John: Just giving you five picks, no more parlay cards for awhile.  Take the Giants,  Seattle, Rockies, Colorado and San Diego.

Tom: Thanks John, gonna hit the books hard....

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This woman will never be President:

Varmint hunter President Romney gives tips on how to hunt for polar bears:

The Time Traveling Toddler: Crackpot Andrew Basiago Makes Ed Dames Look Like Nostradamus

DATELINE: Las Vegas, Nevada

Who is the best dressed time traveler? Pictures above, Andrew Basiago at top, age five and John Titor, age eight here - We got a phone call today from our time traveler friend and baseball betting partner, John Titor, who is in Omaha, Nebraska today. He had just heard the Coast to Coast show with "time traveler" Andrew Basiago. He was wondering how such a show as Coast to Coast AM could put on such a crackpot for four hours. John agreed to do a short interview with us on the phone after listening to this show:



Tom Verona: Thanks for agreeing to this interview John.

John Titor: I had to say something about this guy Andrew Basiago. He said he is a time traveler but could not give us any information about the future. He claims to have been teleported to Mars, which would have certainly killed him. Its beyond me how anyone could believe such a crackpot as this guy. He kind of reminds me of that Dr. Doom guy.

Tom Verona: Ed Dames, yeah I don't think any of that guys predictions have come true.

John Titor: The guy claims to be a lawyer from Seattle and a time traveler and he does not even warn the people about the Great Quake ahead for the Pacific Northwest. Even Ed Dames has put out an earthquake warning I see for the New Madras area. Of course, there will be no big earthquake there in your near future.

Tom Verona: The guy is a real name dropper, he claims to have seen Abraham Lincoln at the Gettysburg Address. He claims to be the kid below, with his hands in his pockets and big shoes on, facing the camera. What a crock, LOL.

John Titor: LOL. You can't even make out the kid's face. He give us absolutely no proof of being a time traveler. What a fraud, LOL.

Tom Verona: Well they could say the same thing about you John.

John Titor: True enough, too many crazies in the soup! Ask me a question about the future Tom.

Tom Verona: Who will out next president be?

John Titor: Mitt Romney


Tom Verona: Thanks John. I sent you some more money yesterday. Got your sports almanac handy?

John Titor: Plays today, Yankees, Philly, Tampa Bay, Mets, Boston, Pittsburgh, Cubs, Texas, White Sox, St. Louis, Minnesota, Arizona, Minnesota, Milwaukee, Seattle and San Francisco. Be sure to make sure you have more losing days, take some of the heat off.

Tom Verona: They look at me funny now when I go into the Mirage, after that parlay last week.

John Titor: Cool it on the parlays, bet straight up.

Tom Verona: Talk to you later John


LISTEN FOR YOURSELF - GEORGE ADAMSKI, FRIEND OF THE VENUSIANS, YOU HAVE BEEN OUT CRACKPOTTED!





The difference between Venusian women and Martian women:

George Adamski told us the Venusian women were blonde and good looking:

Andrew Basiago tells us the Martian women are built bigger and tougher than the fragile Venusians. Their bodies are "rock hard," LOL:

PIA10214: This picture is supposed to be the one that reveals life on Mars, click on the picture to enlarge it - do you see signs of past life on Mars in this picture?:

The Discovery of Life on Mars by Andrew D. Basiago

The Discovery of Life on Mars by Andrew D. Basiago PDF File

Time traveler toddler Andrew Basiago at the Free Your Mind Conference: Time Travel, DARPA and More:

Getting to Know President Mitt Romney - Why Mitt Hates to Drive in France

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Romney to the Rescue: By Ronald Kessler

Mitt Romney was faced with a crisis in July 1996. The 14-year-old daughter of Robert Gay, a partner in Romney's new venture capital firm, Bain Capital, had disappeared. As it turned out, she had attended a rave party in New York City and had become high on ecstasy. Three days later, her distraught father had no idea where she was.

Romney took immediate action. He closed down the entire firm and asked all 30 partners and employees to fly to New York to try to find Gay's daughter.

Romney set up a command center in a conference room at the LaGuardia Marriott just outside Manhattan. He hired a private detective firm to assist with the search and established a toll-free number for tips, coordinating the effort with the New York City Police Department, but he still wasn't satisfied. He raced through his Rolodex and called everyone Bain did business with in New York. He asked them to help his company find their friend's missing daughter.

The company's accounting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and its law firm, put up posters on street poles with a photo of the missing teenager. Cashiers at Duane Reade Pharmacies, which was owned by Bain Capital, put fliers in the bag of each shopper.

Romney and others from the Bain Capital posse trudged through every part of New York, even scouring Central Park, and talked with everyone they could - prostitutes, drug addicts - anyone who may have seen her. They also made rounds at the local nightclubs at 3 a.m., hoping someone somewhere could identify her.

The same day the Romney team came to New York, the hunt made the evening news. Television cameras showed photos of the girl and video of investment banker types prowling through Central Park.

The next day, a teenage boy she was with phoned in. He asked if there was a reward. But the boy got nervous and quickly hung up. Luckily, the police traced the call to a home in Montville Township, N.J.

Gay's daughter, when they found her in the basement of that home, was shivering through detox after a massive dose of ecstasy. Doctors later told Gay that he was indeed fortunate - his daughter probably would not have lasted another day.

"It was the most amazing thing, and I'll never forget this to the day I die," Gay says, adding of Romney's intervention, "I'm not sure we would have gotten her back without him."

It is often during a crisis that we gain insight into a person's real character. Romney's action demonstrated leadership, loyalty, and selflessness - attributes that Americans just might like to see in a president of the United States.

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Massachusetts Governor Helps Rescue Boaters
Published: July 08, 2003, New York Times

Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and two of his sons helped rescue a New Jersey family from a sinking boat over the weekend, a New Hampshire official said today.

The 19-foot vintage wooden boat with six people and a dog on board started taking on water Saturday evening about 300 yards from the shore of Lake Winnipesaukee, in central New Hampshire, Sgt. Eric Robertson of the New Hampshire State Marine Patrol said.

"It took on water very quickly and they donned their life vests and jumped out," Sergeant Robertson said. One passenger tried to dial 911, but water soaked the cellphone, he said.

The Romneys, who were at their lakeside summer home in Wolfeboro, and other people in the area quickly came to the rescue.

"The Romneys took two of the passengers and brought them back to shore," Sergeant Robertson said. "There were other people, Good Samaritans, out there, about three vessels including the Romneys', helping out."

The governor's spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, said today that Governor Romney was vacationing at the lake for a week with his family.

"He's not looking for any special attention," Mr. Fehrnstrom said. "I think he's just grateful he was in the right place at the right time to be able to offer some assistance."

Josh Romney, one of the governor's sons, told The Boston Herald that he and his brother were cleaning the beach when they heard "a whole bunch of screaming" from the lake.

Mr. Fehrnstrom, who spoke to Governor Romney on Sunday about the incident, said the governor's two sons hopped on a motorized water scooter, while the governor got on another. They went to the sinking boat, and Governor Romney brought people to shore while his sons stood by at the scene. The Romneys also saved the family's dog, he said.

The boat was operated by Robert Morrissey, 57, of Tewksbury Township, N.J. Melinda Morrissey, 56, Mr. Morrissey's wife, was also rescued, as were Ross, 29, and Rebecca, 25, their children, and two of their friends, along with McKenzie, a Scotty, the family dog.

"This happened really, really fast," Mr. Morrissey said today in a telephone interview from New Hampshire. He said that when the boat began to sink, he dialed 911 on his cellphone. "As I'm making the call, the boat is going down under my feet."

He said the family was in the water for about a half-hour.

Mr. Fehrnstrom said the passengers were wearing life vests but added that "I think the larger danger would have been from other boats going by."

A boat motoring by as the survivors paddled in the water in the dark had come "close enough to cause some concern," he said.

Mr. Robertson said the passengers were uninjured and were fine after the rescue, because of the ''good response of the people nearby."

"It's the rules of the high seas," Mr. Robertson said. "You help out who you can because you're on your own when you're in the water."

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Going Back in Time, June 16, 1968 - The Day Mitt Romney Almost Died - Mitt's Terrible Car Accident in France - The car Mitt Romney was driving, a Citroen DS, was hit head-on by a Mercedes driven by a possibly inebriated Catholic priest. Romney's car was totaled, and all six occupants were injured, one fatally. Mitt was knocked unconscious in the crash. The witnesses describe Romney as a cautious driver and he was not in any way responsible for the accident. The police officer who first responded believed him to be dead and wrote "Il est mort'' - he is dead - in Romney's passport. In December 1968, Mitt was in another accident in France, in which the Peugeot Romney was driving through Le Mons was hit from behind by a dump truck. "I looked in the rearview mirror, and there was a garbage truck coming quickly behind us, with people in the front seat, all laughing and talking, and it was a snowy day,'' Romney said. "He ... slammed into the back of my vehicle, which caused it to slam into the car in front of us, and they kept going - bang, bang, bang, bang!":

Following video, courtesy of the Romney campaign, Mitt knows French!:


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The Life and Times of Willard Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney’s life has taken a number of twists and turns on the road to his presidential candidacy.

1947: Willard Mitt Romney born in Detroit on March 12. His middle name is the nickname of an NFL player.

1965: Meets 15-year-old Ann Davies at a party. They would wed four years later.

1968: In June 1968 nearly killed in an auto accident while serving as a Mormon missionary in France. In December a garbage truck crashes into the back of his car in France. Mitt gives up driving in France.

1971: Graduates from Brigham Young University at the top of his class.

1975: Graduates from a joint program at Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School. George Romney told his son would become a future president.

1978: Named vice president of management consulting firm Bain & Co.

1984: Founds Bain Capital, a venture capital firm.

1990: Returns to Bain & Co. as interim CEO.

1994: Runs unsuccessfully for the Senate against Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts; makes statements in support of abortion and gay rights that will later come back to haunt him.

1998: Wife Ann diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

1999: Takes over the debt-ridden 2002 Winter Olympics; goes on to spearhead turnaround of the Salt Lake Olympics Organizing Committee.

2002: Elected governor of Massachusetts with 50 percent of the vote.

2003: Pushes for a constitutional amendment in Massachusetts that would outlaw gay marriage.

2004: Publishes the book Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games.

2005: Elected chairman of the Republican Governors Association on Dec. 2.

2005: On Dec. 14, announces that he will not seek re-election as governor.

2007: On Jan. 8, raises $6.5 million in a single day for his presidential exploratory committee.

2007: Formally announces his candidacy for the White House at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich. on Feb. 13

2012: Elected the 45th President of the United States in a close election defeating President Obama.

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Washington Post article on Romney