If you have somebody who's brilliant and highly creative with a different point of view than you have, and a very different intellectual background, great things can happen.
From Kip Thorne
'Closed timelike curve' is the jargon for time travel. It means you go out, come back and meet yourself in the past.
A black hole really is an object with very rich structure, just like Earth has a rich structure of mountains, valleys, oceans, and so forth. Its warped space whirls around the central singularity like air in a tornado.
A big misconception is that a black hole is made of matter that has just been compacted to a very small size. That's not true. A black hole is made from warped space and time.
Each black hole spins on its axis like the Earth spins. That spin creates two vortexes of twisting space, somewhat like vortexes in a bathtub or a whirlpool.
We're going to need a definitive quantum theory of gravity, which is part of a grand unified theory - it's the main missing piece.
We have to have a combination of general relativity that describes the warping of space and time, and quantum physics, which describes the uncertainties in that warping and how they change.
Whether you can go back in time is held in the grip of the law of quantum gravity.
Sending people into space is very important culturally. That's really the justification. You cannot rationally justify it on the basis of the science and technology we get out of it.
The human race has a yearning to explore. That's part of our biological and psychological makeup.
15 perspectives
13 perspectives
12 perspectives
7 perspectives
2 perspectives
1 perspectives