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Lately I have been watching videos we have around the place. Videos which were not much watched when they were new and especially videos which play documentary series and which were gifts from relatives.
I started with one which excited me when I saw the word Cosmos prominently on the front of the case. I was disappointed to discover the title is actually Mysteries of the Cosmos and it is not the famous series hosted by Carl Sagan, a series I have long wanted to see. I thought I'd mentioned that already on my journal but apparently not.
Tonight I am watching a series called Universe. In between, my sister and I watched Amadeus but it turns out that is not actually a documentary despite a) featuring people in costumes and b) playing a lot of classical music composed by someone not involved in the production. So, Universe. Am prompted to be posting now by thoughts inspired from the latter part of the first tape, concerning black holes.
They talked a lot about what happens to stuff which falls into a black hole, how it is inevitably drawn into the singularity and utterly destroyed. The thing is, that does not actually happen, at least from the perspective of an outside observer. The gravitational effect of a black hole is strongly attractive, yes, up close, but like all gravitational fields it also affects time. Watching from the outside we see time pass more slowly for an object as it approaches the event horizon until eventually it effectively stops, and we do not actually get to see it cross that point of no return. From the perspective of an object falling into a black hole it falls right in, but it also sees time speed up in the distance and all the stars go out first.
As far as I am aware this makes no practical difference; mass within a radius is still mass within a radius, but it does make me wish I were more mathematically proficient so I could explore.
Earlier parts of the video gave me an idea for a story too, so that's great. It has been done before and I find I do not actually care about that. Have the characters (been a while since they got a new tale), have the scene. If we get the details then we do the typing.
Time to put in the second tape.
I started with one which excited me when I saw the word Cosmos prominently on the front of the case. I was disappointed to discover the title is actually Mysteries of the Cosmos and it is not the famous series hosted by Carl Sagan, a series I have long wanted to see. I thought I'd mentioned that already on my journal but apparently not.
Tonight I am watching a series called Universe. In between, my sister and I watched Amadeus but it turns out that is not actually a documentary despite a) featuring people in costumes and b) playing a lot of classical music composed by someone not involved in the production. So, Universe. Am prompted to be posting now by thoughts inspired from the latter part of the first tape, concerning black holes.
They talked a lot about what happens to stuff which falls into a black hole, how it is inevitably drawn into the singularity and utterly destroyed. The thing is, that does not actually happen, at least from the perspective of an outside observer. The gravitational effect of a black hole is strongly attractive, yes, up close, but like all gravitational fields it also affects time. Watching from the outside we see time pass more slowly for an object as it approaches the event horizon until eventually it effectively stops, and we do not actually get to see it cross that point of no return. From the perspective of an object falling into a black hole it falls right in, but it also sees time speed up in the distance and all the stars go out first.
As far as I am aware this makes no practical difference; mass within a radius is still mass within a radius, but it does make me wish I were more mathematically proficient so I could explore.
Earlier parts of the video gave me an idea for a story too, so that's great. It has been done before and I find I do not actually care about that. Have the characters (been a while since they got a new tale), have the scene. If we get the details then we do the typing.
Time to put in the second tape.
