Okay, here goes.

Thesis:
I theorize that black holes may just be a naturally occurring form of Bose-Einstein Condensation.


Background on BEC:

All states of matter thus discovered are all found naturally occurring, so it stands to reason the B.E.C. will also be naturally occurring somewhere.

Bose-Einstein Condensation is a state of matter that occurs when the temperature of a substance approaches absolute zero. All atoms in a substance are fluctuating between different energy levels.

Explanation of the above information, and an introduction to Bose-Einstein Condensation can be found at : http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/bec/t...emperature.html

These fluctuations are what we call temperature. Faster moving atoms are considered a higher temperature. The site above describes temperature as a RANGE of speeds. Thats because of the fluctuations. Anyways, when a substance is cooled to within a BILLIONTH of absolute zero, all the atoms jump to the lowest energy level. The fact that they are all within this energy level makes it impossible to tell the difference between the atoms. to quote the link I'm about to give you, "It means that all the atoms are absolutely identical. There is no possible measurement that can tell them apart. "

This link will further explain the energy levels and explain WHY all the atoms are indistinguishable from one another: http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/bec/w...what_is_it.html

When you think "Atoms" you probably think of small dots, or spheres. you imagine them as well defined, like a baseball. However, atoms are not well defined. They are blurry, like a smudge. When super coled, they get even more blurry, until they reach BEC.

Some very cold atoms: http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/bec/i.../cold_atoms.gif

Atoms in a BEC: http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/bec/i.../super_atom.gif

They all just sort of merge into a "super atom", and as long as they are this cold, they will stay in this form. After being heated above this low, low temperature, they spread out into whatever form they were in before. It hasn't been discovered whether a solid in BEC would reform into it's original shape, but the component substances of it would all be there.

Background on Black Holes:

A black hole is an infinitely dense object with an infinitely powerful gravitational pull within it's event horizon. They are formed when a dying star's gravity causes the star to collapse in on itself, and it then begins to pull everything in within a certain distance. A basic overview is all that is, as it is not necessary for a very large working knowledge of black holes. You will either understand my theory or you won't.

Getting to the point:
So we have a working knowledge of what a BEC is, and what a black hole is, right? Or maybe you skipped reading that and jumped to where I said I was getting to the point. If that's the case, you may not understand anything of what I'm about to talk about.

My theory is that a black hole is a Bose- Einstein Condensate. I believe that the temperatures within the actual "hole" (though it isn't a hole) are cold enough to form a Bose-Einstein Condensate. So far, scientists have said that nothing in the universe can be colder than 3 degrees above absolute zero due to residual heat left over from the Big Bang. However, we also didn't think that black holes really existed 20 years ago and now we know that they do. I believe that the gravity is so intense near the "core" of the black hole, that it slows the atoms down to within a few billionths of absolute zero, causing it to become a BEC. Much in the same way that putting an ice cube on your hand will cool your hand, I believe that the base BEC would cool any incoming matter as it entered the black hole. The closer the new matter gets to the hole, the colder they get, until they get to the "core" and reach the right temperature and become part of the BEC. This gradual cooling would keep something hot from going into the BEC, heating it up, and causing it to separate. This massive amount of...mass...would have such great density and...mass....that it would create a large gravitational field around it.

This would serve to explain where matter goes when it enters a black hole's event horizon, since the Law of Conservation of Matter says that matter cannot be created or destroyed.

Ever since the theory of black holes started going around, there has been a spin-off theory of a "White hole", something that would EMIT matter, instead of absorbing it. It has been theorized that these came in pairs, for every black hole taking in matter, there is a white hole somewhere else in the universe re-emitting that matter. This has thus far been an explanation to satisfy the Law of Conservation of Matter. Even though their existence hasn't been proven, my theory could be expanded to include these white holes as well, though it would not be "paired" with a black hole in the same manner. The white hole would be the end of a black hole, much in the same way that a black hole is the end of a star. In my theory, the black hole would do one of two things.

A) It would reach a sort of "critical mass" in which it could take in no more matter, lest it not be able to keep the BEC cold enough. More matter gets near it, heats it up, and it beguns to emit the substances that it "sucked up" while it was in it's black hole state.

or

B) Some sort of energy, not affected by gravity, would make it's way into the core of the black hole, heats it up, and it beguns to emit the substances that it "sucked up" while it was in it's black hole state.


This theory could also be expanded to cover the origins of the universe and verify the Big Bang theory. As of now, the lowest temperature naturally occurring in regular space is 3 degrees above absolute zero, due to leftover heat from the Big Bang. If the universe is indeed continually expanding, this temperature would be spread out over a larger and larger distance, until the temperature at the coldest parts of the universe would be just above absolute zero, causing these cold objects to become BEC. Eventually the entire universe would become so cold that it would coalesce into a single condensate, where it would reach a "critical mass" and expand, emitting it's component atoms back out. The expanding/Contracting universe theory would be supported by this.
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PS: I wrote it in the format I did in case i want to use it for a research project this year in chemistry.

Now I'm going to take some aspirin. I will be back in a minute to answer any questions from you guys.

Hi Scooley, welcome to the forum.

I'm reading through your proposal. The first statement I saw that seemed unsupportable was this one. Just because we've seen other naturally occuring states of matter doesn't mean that BEC has to be naturally occuring. To my knowledge there is no natural place in the universe cold enough to make a BEC, but we can, and have, created it in the lab. It certainly didn't achieve black-hole density.

There may also be states of matter associated with particle energies above 10^29 eV, they cannot exist in nature, but given a desire to create them, we might be able to.

It is great that you are thinking about these things. I suggest working on topics that can be proven, or which might have some bearing on what we are trying to observe or measure.

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Forming opinions as we speak

Well the way I see it, everything has a small amount of gravitational pull. We notice it with celestial bodies because the gravitational pullis immensly greater than, say, your toothbrush. In this way, the BEC formed from the rubidium in 1995 would have (Even though it takes up less space) the same relative gravitational pull. When applied to celestial bodies (stars, planets) it would fit into my theory perfectly, because the entire gravitational pull of the body would then be radiating out from the singularity.

Of course, this would suggest that a black hole's gravity would continue to grow so long as it was being "fed" vy the acreation disc, but this is where the Critical Mass kicks in. Basically, once a certain amount of mass has entered the condensate, I theorize that it can no longer maintain the temperatures needed for BEC and would thus break down into component atoms, molecules, etc.

If this were applied to my theory of expanding/contracting universe, it might also be necessary to point out that, if the same elements are re emitted, the universe could be a "loop" so to speak. Basically, the universe as we know it would contain all of the elements of a "previous" universe, and those elements would be released by the big bang in the same way each time it went critical. Those elements, being released in the same way each time, would form the same stars, planets, etc. This would mean that the universe is stuck in a large, repeating loop.

While your theory must have had a lot of grueling thinking behind it, I do not see how the mathematics kicks in, because B-E condensates are unique forms of matter that occur at extremely cold temperatures. I find it unlikely such condensates could be found in an object that tears atoms apart rather than fusing them together. Also, is not appropriate for professionalism. "Well, the way I see it" tells people you are ignoring the conventional wisdom, and that you seek to prove rather than disprove. Science revolves around disproving.

A BEC does condense somewhat, but statements that it becomes one giant atom aren't completely accurate for every interpretation. The condensate does not shrink to the size of one atom. It is still distributed over almost the same size area as the pre-BEC material. So yes, it is a little more dense, but it is not super-dense like white-dwarf or neutron star material.

A lot of times when we try to explain something we use analogies that work for part of the explanation. Scientists do this too, but science writers are notorious for it. You can't rely on these analogies outside the bounds of the original context. I think you are in one of these traps with this idea.

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Forming opinions as we speak

Scooley,

I like it and agree that a black hole is a form of BEC. I have been reading up on this and have some ideas to share. First, the condensation requires that the same energy level be reached. Is there an upper temperature limit to matter? Could you superheat atoms to a point where they share the same energy level? If this were true you could perhaps explain the corona effect. Where the plasma surface being condensed atoms that express their cumulative energy level at a distance. Well maybe not....but it is a thought.

What if the matter in a black hole is reduced to pure energy with no particle structure, will this condense? I think so, and the mass of the BH would determine the area inside the hole where these energies would exist. The more mass the larger the area. This is because there would be a larger area where the gravity would crush any particle produced, all of the area within this sphere would be full of condensed energy.

I'd be interested to know how "atoms" can exist in a black hole?

Does intense gravity NOT overwhelm electron degeneracy or neutron degeneracy?

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