2844: Black Holes vs Regular Holes

|< < Prev Comic #2844 (October 20, 2023) Next > >|

Black Holes vs Regular Holes

Title text: Created by the collapse of: [massive stars] [Florida limestone bedrock]

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a BLACK HOLE CREATED BY CHILDREN AT THE BEACH - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

This comic is a comparison between black holes and regular, everyday holes.

	Black hole	Regular hole	Explanation
Usually formed by...	Supernovas, colliding stars	Shovels, small mammals	Black holes are created by stars going into supernova, and occasionally by two stars colliding. On the contrary, regular holes are often created by humans using shovels, as well as small animals such as ants, moles, and dogs.
Falling in is...	Definitely fatal	Sometimes fatal	Falling into a black hole is almost always fatal.[citation needed] On the other hand, if a regular hole is deep enough, it is possible for someone to die by falling into it.
Created by the Big Bang	Maybe	No	Like many other celestial objects, black holes may have been created by the Big Bang, however ordinary holes were almost definitely not created this way.
Created by children playing at the beach	I really hope not	Yes	Children commonly dig holes in sand at beaches, however if one were to create a black hole at the beach, this could prove cataclysmic.
Source of many precious metals	Indirectly	Yes	Both the supernovae that create black holes and various events involving black holes, such as black hole/neutron star mergers, produce large quantities of heavy elements, including precious metals found on Earth. Those metals are often underground, and are thus recovered by a mine, i.e. a regular hole.
Einstein imagined falling into one	Yes	Probably at least once	The thought experiments of Albert Einstein, particularly in relation to general relativity, involve consideration of what happens when one falls through gravitationally-curved space. Aside from this, almost everyone has had a reason to consider the possibility of falling into a normal hole.
A component of dark matter	Maybe	Probably not	Dark matter is a theoretical part of the universe, a large amount of its total calculated mass which cannot (yet) be directly seen. It is considered possible that at least some of this 'missing mass' is in the form of black holes. It is not generally considered an option that ordinary holes have anything to do with this.
Created by the Large Hadron Collider	No	Yes	There were concerns when the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a particle supercollider, was initially put into operation that it would create a black hole that would destroy the Earth. This did not happen.[citation needed] However, the LHC is mostly underground, and its construction required the digging of many holes.
Massive stars often collapse into them	Yes	No	If a star is large enough, when the star dies, it may still have enough gravity to collapse back into itself, commonly creating black holes. This does not happen with regular holes, and would likely mean the end of the world if one did.
Explored by humans in famous sci-fi stories	Yes	Yes	Many sci-fi stories and movies explore black holes and regular holes alike. In particular, there's the eponimous classic The Black Hole and more recent films such as Interstellar, both about space missions that encounter a black hole. Journey to the Center of the Earth is a classic novel by Jules Verne (and made into various films) which involve going into a volcano tube (a kind of hole).
Fatal to get a big one in your body	Yes	Yes	If a black hole appeared inside of a person's body, they would almost definitely die instantly.[citation needed] The same goes for a regular hole - if you cut out a massive section of a human's body, they would likely bleed out.
Some of them are the mouths of wormholes	Maybe	Yes	Black holes are commonly portrayed to be the entrances of wormholes, especially in sci-fi stories. On the other side, many species of worms live in shallow holes, with a "mouth" on the surface - the "mouth" of the "worm hole".
Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne argued that any information that falls into them is lost forever	Yes	No	The Black hole information paradox is a paradox arising from the storage of information within black holes. Scientist Stephen Hawking, who is famous for his research into black holes, said that black holes release their energy over time, eventually disappearing, through Hawking Radiation. According to this theory, if information was also to enter the black hole, it would be released alongside this radiation. On the other hand, the No-hair theorem states that all black holes are completely identical outside of three key features: mass, spin, and electric charge. If information that fell into a black hole is released with Hawking radiation, then that means that there must be more than three properties of black holes. On the other hand, information that falls into a normal hole is not lost forever, and can likely still be reobtained, especially if the information is stored physically. Hawking and Kip Thorne famously made a bet with John Preskill over this paradox.
Commonly inhabited by meerkats	Undetermined	Yes	Meerkats commonly live in holes underground. It is highly unlikely that Earth mammals live in black holes, but because it is impossible to know what lies beyond the event horizon it is technically possible that there are meerkats.
(title text) Created by the collapse of	Massive stars	Florida limestone bedrock	As mentioned before, Black holes are often created by the collapse of massive stars. On the other hand, many sinkholes in Florida are caused due to most bedrock in the state being made of limestone, which is naturally soluble - that is, easily dissolved in water. Sinkholes in the state are commonly attributed to the collapse of this limestone.

Transcript

	Black Hole	Regular Hole
Usually formed by...	Supernovas, colliding stars	Shovels, small mammals
Falling in is...	Definitely fatal	Sometimes fatal
Created by the Big Bang	Maybe	No
Created by children playing at the beach	I really hope not	Yes
Source of many precious metals	Indirectly	Yes
Einstein imagined falling into one	Yes	Probably at least once
A component of dark matter	Maybe	Probably not
Created by the Large Hadron Collider	No	Yes
Massive stars often collapse into them	Yes	No
Explored by humans in famous sci-fi stories	Yes	Yes
Fatal to get a big one in your body	Yes	Yes
Some of them are the mouths of wormholes	Maybe	Yes
Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne argued that any information that falls into them is lost forever	Yes	No
Commonly inhabited by meerkats	Undetermined	Yes

 add a comment! ⋅  add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅  refresh comments!

Discussion

FIRST! hehehe someone, i guess (talk) 17:05, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
Alright, working on transcript now. someone, i guess (talk) 17:08, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Done! someone, i guess (talk) 17:16, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Transcripts should really not be markup-tables, ideally. I know some (that describe tables) are, but you really need to set it all out in 'Transcript markup', such as:

[A table with three columns, the column headers are:] ... ... ...

[Row:] ...thing which the row says... [Black hole:] ...foo... [Normal hole:] ...bar...

...etc

You need to think about how a screen-reader might interact with this text. Not all can 'deconstruct' an HTML table and make as much sense as a good description.

Although kudos for you for typing the text in, which the rest of the description should at least pad out fairly easily. 172.69.79.131 18:46, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Also got some of the explanation in, but i don't know too much. if anyone can improve on it please go ahead someone, i guess (talk) 17:33, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

DougM (talk) 18:05, 20 October 2023 (UTC) I think I disagree with his assessment that regular holes are not a result of the big bang. Convince me regular holes would exist without it?

Only in the sense that everything is ultimately caused by the big bang. But "created by" is not the same as "caused by" -- we usually interpret creation as a more direct process. Barmar (talk)

The LHC caused a regular hole by being built deep in the ground. 172.70.200.142 18:08, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

That's so unsatisfying though. The LHC didn't cause that hole: it was the people who built it who did. Isn't there a better explanation, something to do with positrons ("electron holes") or something else that would manifest inside the LHC? Jkshapiro (talk) 02:28, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

"Regular" holes? Like square? Or perhaps strictly periodic in nature? 172.69.79.131 18:36, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Regular == ordinary, normal. Barmar (talk) 16:37, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

An awful Americanism. If it isn't actually periodic, or of maximum symmetry, it shouldn't be called "regular". If it's "the usual or common thing" then there are already other words. 141.101.98.79 18:15, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

So I put common gasoline in my car? Nutster (talk) 18:56, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Maybe you do. I tend to put standard (E10, these days) unleaded petrol in mine! 162.158.74.49 21:15, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Everyone knows that SERN used the LHC to create Kerr black holes to make jelly. Randall must be an agent of the Organization if he's trying to hide it. 172.70.90.132 18:57, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

I could not locate any references to Kerr black holes and jelly. Is that an original concept?These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For (talk) 14:39, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

If you get too close to a black hole, Kerr or otherwise, much of your body will resemble jelly, then resemble spaghetti, then quark soup. Excuse me while I prepare lunch. Nutster (talk) 18:54, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

I believe this was a pun on the Kerr brand of mason jars, which one could use to make jelly at home. 172.69.214.204 23:30, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

It was a reference to the Steins;Gate franchise (spoilers). "Jelly" refers to the result of SERN's human experiments (also spoilers). 172.70.91.229 02:42, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

"Fatal to get a big one in your body"? Even medium-sized black hole is significantly bigger than human body, how would it fit inside? That said, being even just near any black hole is fatal: if it's not big enough to eat you, it's small enough to release dangerous amount of radiation. -- Hkmaly (talk) 21:20, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

An Earth-mass black hole would be about 1.8 cm in diameter, which could pass through a human, but it would indeed be totally disruptive. Nutster (talk) 18:54, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Not necessarily if it's small enough. We don't know what would happen to a black hole of Planck mass. If it's stable, then it wouldn't really affect you, because it would be unable to radiate and also unable to accrete matter gravitationally. It would orbit the Earth as a WIMP doing practically nothing. Even if it's unstable and evaporates while releasing a colossal amount of energy (about 1.2 × 10¹⁶ TeV), it might not be a problem, because the particles might be moving too fast to transfer any meaningful amount of energy to your body. They would basically just pass right out of you with no effect. But of course we don't really know. EebstertheGreat (talk) 21:50, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

I would have liked to see a row: There are songs about them: Yes (e.g., Spaghettification by Christine Lavin) and Yes (e.g., Sea of Holes by the Beatles) Matchups (talk) 00:32, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Don't forget that Soundgarden song: Regular Hole Sun. 172.69.247.62 05:19, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Now they know how many black holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.172.71.242.62 10:04, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

One obvious type of hole was not discussed. The Acme Portable Hole™ is an entirely different class of holes as extensively demonstrated in this documentation. 141.101.98.127 (talk) 10:27, 31 October 2023 (please sign your comments with ~~~~) <= originally posted to Talk:2845

"I REALLY hope not" made me cackle the first time I read it, and still does. Psychoticpotato (talk) 20:33, 6 May 2024 (UTC)