On Astronomy Cast podcast there's some guy talking about White Holes and Black Holes orbiting each other.

These are intelligent people so I'm thinking I obviously have an incorrect understanding of just what a "White Hole" is. It couldn't orbit anything unless it had mass, I would have thought.

White Holes sound a bit like Homeopathy to me, as if the complete absence of anything is a meaningful entity that can have properties and do things.

Is this a case of a theoretical construct that is merely a curious artifact generated by putting some negative values into the mathematical equations that apply to Black Holes or are Astronomers assuming that they exist and looking for them?

Airtime

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Which Astronomy Cast podcast is that (can you give a date and title)? You are right that it makes no sense to discuss White Holes doing anything until someone says what the heck a White Hole is supposed to be.

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Yes, it was 16th Feb 2008 (2 days ago) 8 minutes into the podcast.

thanks

Airtime

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Airtime:

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Jennifer Michael Hecht

As far as I'm aware, no professional astronomers (and few if any amateurs) take the concept literally or are searching for them specifically.

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The question (Astronomy Cast, MP3, February 16, 2008, Curtis High School around 8:00 in) from "Rocks" is whether white holes really exist. It is recapitulated by Fraser: "All right. I've heard white holes theorized. Are they really out there?" and Pamela's answer given is: "No." and later: "These things can't actually exist in today's universe."

I didn't hear about white holes orbiting black holes -- only contrasted with, as Pamela's way of describing them.

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Well, it has been known for a while now that black holes could be produced with there time-reversed partners... white holes.

What do you mean "it has been known"?

There's some more recent speculations about white holes, but they remain just that, speculations. A far cry from "it has been known for a while". Personally, I find it unbecoming for someone to assert speculations as fact on a science board, as you have done repeatedly.

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If reversed properties do indeed exist, then one cannot peculate the reverse of black holes.

More on why white holes are not taken seriously by astronomers and physicists:

Curious about Astronomy

OG, this is a science board, so stick to science.

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Yet another fine example of Bad Astronomy... While in mathematics the possibility exists in reality it does not. No evidence exists that supports the notion of there being a white hole, or a worm hole.

To support Astromark's position, can you show me a negative number?

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White holes are in the same class as Tachyons.
They are possible solutions to Einsteins equations, but only under very tight boundary conditions. In reality they do not exist.

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