Just a very brief thought.

Not sure if the author means "spherical" vs round [ in other words, symmetric in 2 dimensions ]

Probably spherical [ symmetric in 3 dimensions ].

The event horizon has to be non - symmetric [ imho ] since attraction of mass occurs in a non - symmetric space and with a non - symmetric distribution of matter.

Galaxies [ where many black holes occur ] are non -symmetric by mass distribution. [ another poster is welcome to differ, however ]

When you look in the direction of a really hot grill on a sunny day and look at something beyond it. The visual appearance of the things beyond it are hazy because the rising heat distorts the visible appearance of things beyond it.

I'm just going to out and out hypothesize, without a whit of training in Physics or anything related to space, that what is going on is that since we don't actually see black holes. we only see things around them, that our perspective on them is probably distorted. I cannot fathom how it would not be round.

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I do like this answer better than my own. So the black hole is reacting to the distribution of the mass of matter around it. That makes sense. I also said round rather than spherical.

Puffin 1 Andy 0

Hi. Thanks. The answer of non - 3 D symmetry could be quite wrong, under a few circumstances:

(1) Enforced symmetries due to Standard Model extensions to black and white holes

(2) And [ very similar if not the same ] the outcome of General Relativity for rotating black holes [ or white holes ].

The questions about how to account for rotational momentum for the Standard Model when merged with General Relativity singularities is something that probably should be left to expert mathematicians. { : < }

“We can’t see black holes”

That was a whole lot of qualifiers just to say something everyone knows lmao.

They know it but they seem to be forgetting that they know it. I think that they are waaaay out on a limb claiming to know the shape of what they cannot see. They know what is happening around it to a degree but they are assuming that what they "See" is an accurate representation of what "Is". My opinion is that their extrapolations that some black holes are in the shape of a birthday hat are likely a bridge too far. I may not be an "expert" but I call Shenanigans.

I guess I am confused. If you add an arbitrary number of dimensions, are you not adding additional degrees of freedom? And if yes, then is it surprising you can get an infinite number of shapes?

Also, I did not buy the quote, "if it spins too fast, it will break apart". Huh? I'm sure there is mathematical justification for that statement. But physical justification? Everything is within the event horizon. Where would it break apart to without falling back in?

I trust Quanta, generally, as a source. So I am sure their results are valid. Just explained very poorly. (Or so complicated no one can make an analogy for layfolks).

I think you should look at Swartzschild radius and why the event horizion accually occurs. I believe that there is such a large density of mass in a black hole that most asymetries in the event horizion would be indistiguishable from a perfect sphere.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_radius

>In 2002, three decades after Hawking’s result, the physicists Roberto Emparan and Harvey Reall — now at the University of Barcelona and the University of Cambridge, respectively — found a highly symmetrical black hole solution to the Einstein equations in five dimensions (four of space plus one of time). Emparan and Reall called this object a “black ring” — a three-dimensional surface with the general contours of a doughnut.

A hypersphere, or a sphere in 5 dimensions, would render in our frame of reference as a Kerr (ring) black hole.

Unsure about those infinite configurations and their stability in a spacetime frame of reference. Most probably rapidly decay.

Well, the mathematics for this are way beyond me, but isn't the existence of higher dimensions pure theory anyway?

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One big problem with this.

All recently observed and verified information about black holes indicates they exist in only 2 dimensions.

Yes indeed, but apparently they had to write an article so might as well start speculating and shit and people will click and repost on reddit🤷

You mean 3?

No I mean 2.

Black holes are 2 dimensional objects.

And you know what 2 dimensional means right? A truly 2 dimensional object would have zero thickness, zero volume and thus zero mass.

I’m not sure what it is you think you’ve read but maybe check again

Spinning and breaking apart might have been their way of referring to naked singularities in layman’s terms, but I don’t know. I’m not an expert or amateur, I just read this kind of stuff for fun

Me too. But how do you break apart something with (near) infinite density whose own gravity nothing can escape from?

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I know exactly what I mean.

Do you?

First off, mass has nothing to do with volume.

Nobody is quite sure what causes mass. But it absolutely is not volume. The two are not connected in any way other than taking shortcuts to estimate the mass of 3+ dimensional objects by assuming a fixed volume of a given substance has a fixed mass.

You are trying to apply the rules of baking a cake to physics at the cosmological scale. It just doesn't work that way.

And yes. Two dimensional objects don't have what we consider thickness. That's what makes them 2 dimensional.

Neither do black holes. Feel free to try to calculate the thickness of a black hole. Or the thickness of anything in it.

Go for it. Try to calculate the 3+ dimensional "space" between any two known or proposed particles in the presence of the gravitational forces observed in black holes.

Please show where all the Z vectors and time dependent values end up.

By the way...what force are you proposing that can maintain a Z distance between these particles?

In opposition to the known gravitational forces present in black holes?

The electromagnetic repulsion from electrons that normally maintains Z?

Past the event horizon?

Electrons?

Repelling with sufficient force to overcome the gravitational forces present?

And this is exactly what the latest information from gravitational wave study and hawking radiation says as well. That a black hole is what it means to observe and attempt to measure an infinitely (or near infinitely) massive 2 dimensional object from 4+ dimensional space.

It also probably means that everything "in" a black hole is pure data that somehow maintains mass or mass like gravitational effects on 4+ dimensional space. But again, we don't know what causes mass. Or gravity for that matter.

It's really weird compared to average observations of reality at human scale. But so is the fact that all protein expression is completely dependent on shape.

And who knows, maybe 50 years from now we will have a completely different and clearer understanding of black holes. But the current, best, approximation of reality is this. However weird it is.

Hell, when I was a kid the best Nobel laureates in physics and cosmology said black holes were fairy tales.

So nothing much would surprise me.

But this "finding" seems more like an exploration of what is mathematically possible, than an attempt to observe and describe reality in a better way.

Could you source us up on that one please?

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