Scientists v. Writers

Concerning Black Holes

You see them all the time in science fiction, usually portrayed as great vortexes in space, both beautiful and terrible. The writers in the entertainment industry use their imaginations as well as science to say how they act and appear. But what is a black hole?

By definition, in simple terms, a black hole is basically an object in space into which things can fall but from which nothing can get out. It is the corpse of a star so massive that when it implodes, it warps the four-dimensional spacetime fabric so far that not even light can escape. As one nears the horizon and the center of gravity, time slows until it comes to a near stop.

To visualize a black hole, imagine that the spacetime fabric is a very flexible rubber sheet suspended in the air so that it is flat. A black hole would be represented by placing on this sheet a stone heavy enough to warp part of it into a funnel-like shape with the stone at the very bottom. All three-dimensional objects would be two-dimensional; Earth would be represented by a circle drawn on the sheet.

Since Earth is really a sphere, then the circular “rim” of the funnel shape would also be a sphere. If there were a black hole in reality, then it would look like an extremely black sphere with a sharp outline. This outline would be the horizon—the point of no return. Once something crosses this line, it can never come back.

According to the current theory, black holes are almost always misrepresented physically in movies and TV shows. For example, Dreamworks’ Galaxy Quest uses a black hole to transfer a group of people from one galaxy to another. In the movie, it is illustrated as a giant whirlpool-like object with dots and swirls decorating the rim.

Herein they are mistaken. A black hole does not have another end, and therefore the people could not use it as a gateway between galaxies. Also, since a black hole allows not even light to escape, it cannot be colorful, and because of the way it warps the spacetime fabric, it should be a sphere-like object, not a whirlpool.

Similarly, the Tribune’s TV show "Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda" portrays its black hole as a white sphere with a red disk around it. Although it does point out that time slows as one nears the horizon and that once something goes in, it cannot escape, the show is erroneous in the way it depicts its black hole for the same reason the one in Galaxy Quest is mistaken.

The black hole portrayed in Disney’s Treasure Planet is slightly more accurate in that it is completely black and is created from the death of a star. However, like the one in Galaxy Quest, this one is shaped somewhat like a whirlpool and allows things to escape. In the movie, the hero’s ship encounters a dying star that goes supernova before collapsing into a black hole, which emits wave after wave until the last, greatest surge that carries the ship away from the danger zone.

The problem here is that by definition, a black hole allows nothing to get out. How, then, can it emit waves? It cannot, although the idea works well in the story, as does the inaccurate appearance.

Though they use black holes to serve their purposes, science fiction writers are often incorrect—if one compares them to the current black hole theory.

However, there are too many unknowns to be able to say that they are completely wrong. Scientists in the astrophysics department use their imaginations as well as science to define how a black hole should function and look. In this they are similar to science fiction writers.

So what is a black hole? It is as its definition states. It is also a creation from the human mind, buttressed by math, science, other theories, and fact. The scientist’s black hole and the writer’s black hole are essentially the same things: objects based on what’s known and someone’s imaginings.