Related papers: Presentism meets black holes
Our assumption that spacetime is a continuum leads to many challenges in mathematical physics. Singularities, divergent integrals and the like threaten many of our favorite theories, from Newtonian gravity to classical electrodynamics,…
This is a review of current black-hole theory, concentrating on local, dynamical aspects.
It has been shown that black holes can be quantized by using Bohr's idea of quantizing the motion of an electron inside the atom. We apply these ideas to the universe as a whole. This approach reinforces the suggestion that it may be a way…
The article summarizes the observational evidence for the existence of massive black holes, as well as the current knowledge about their abundance, their mass and spin distributions, and their cosmic evolution within and together with their…
To derive black hole thermodynamics in any quantum theory of gravity, one must introduce constraints that ensure that a black hole is actually present. For a large class of black holes, the imposition of such ``horizon constraints'' allows…
We prove variants of known singularity theorems ensuring the existence of a region of finite lifetime that are particularly well applicable if the solution admits a conformal extension, a property satisfied e.g. by maximal Cauchy…
In recent work, Nina Emery has defended the view that, in the context of naturalistic metaphysics, one should maintain the same epistemic attitude towards science and metaphysics. That is, naturalists who are scientific realists ought to be…
Although black holes are objects of central importance across many fields of physics, there is no agreed upon definition for them, a fact that does not seem to be widely recognized. Physicists in different fields conceive of and reason…
Small black holes should have formed in the early Universe if the density contrast was high enough. This article aims at giving a - biased and partial - short overview of the latest breakthroughs in this field. It first deals with tentative…
In this paper, the theoretical terms of contemporary cosmology are examined as intellectual artefacts. An ontology and methodology are introduced for this purpose, which includes defining the concept of a hypothetical object. Introducing a…
At the time it celebrates one century of existence, general relativity---Einstein's theory for gravitation---is given a companion theory: the so-called teleparallel gravity, or teleparallelism for short. This new theory is fully equivalent…
A definition of a {\it Realistic} Physics Theory is proposed based on the idea that, at all time, the set of physical properties possessed (at that time) by a system should unequivocally determine the probabilities of outcomes of all…
As incarnations of gravity in its prime, black holes are arguably the best target for us to demystify gravity. Keeping in mind the prominent role black holes play in gravitational wave astronomy, it becomes a must for a theory to possess…
In this chapter I focus on asking and answering the following questions: (1) What is a black hole? Answer: There are three types of black holes, namely mathematical black holes, physical black holes and astrophysical black holes. An…
Black holes are presumed to have an ideal ability to absorb and keep matter. Whatever comes close to the event horizon, a boundary separating the inside region of a black hole from the outside world, inevitably goes in and remains inside…
In this paper I argue that the fundamental aspect of our notion of time is that it defines an order relation, be it a total order relation between configurations of the world or just a partial order relation between events. This position is…
A thought experiment is described and the probability of a particular type of results is predicted according to the quantum formalism. Then, the assumption is made that there exists a particle that travels from the source to one of the…
Recently, a variational principle has been derived from Einstein-Hilbert and a matter Lagrangian for the spherically symmetric system of a dust shell and a black hole. The so-called physical region of the phase space, which contains all…
Recent developments in foundations of physics have given rise to a class of views suggesting that physically meaningful descriptions must always be relativized to a physical perspective. In this article I distinguish between strong physical…
While until recently they were often considered as exotic objects of dubious existence, in the last decades there have been overwhelming observational evidences for the presence of stellar mass black holes in binary systems, supermassive…