In 1997 I interviewed him for the newspaper "Haaretz" when he came to receive the Wolf Prize. The article that was published under the title "The holes that hold the universe" is no longer relevant after the discovery of Hubble from the late nineties - according to which the expansion of the universe is accelerating
John Archibald Wheeler, one of the most important physicists of the 20th century and the man who coined the term "black hole", passed away yesterday at his home in Houston, New Jersey. He was 96 years old when he died.
was an American physicist who dealt with general relativity and attempts to unify it with quantum theory. In this framework, he investigated the possibility of the existence of black holes, and coined the name "black hole" in 1967. A decade earlier, in 1957, while working on extensions of the theory of relativity, he invented the term "wormhole", which describes tunnels in space-time . Wheeler was also involved in nuclear physics, and was involved in the development of nuclear weapons as part of the Manhattan Project, and later in the development of the American hydrogen bomb. He won the Wolf Prize for Physics for the years 1996/7. (More on John Wheeler atYNET and about him bWikipedia)
"I am convinced that there is only one or two things left to discover in order to understand how the universe was created and how it works, and I only hope that this will happen in my lifetime," Wheeler told me in an interview that took place at his hotel in Tel Aviv 11 years ago, and was published in Haaretz (24/4/1997) . To some extent he was right. After all, a thing or two about the universe was discovered - in fact, the existence of dark energy was confirmed by observations of ancient supernovae, carried out with the Hubble Space Telescope.
The meaning - contrary to the common opinion that prevailed until the end of the nineties (and which he repeats several times during the interview), according to which the missing mass must be found to hold the universe so that its expansion will stop at some point, and eventually it will begin to shrink back.
From what was not published, I remember asking him what he thought about the members of the 'Gateway to Heaven' cult who killed themselves a few weeks earlier in the USA so that their souls could join the alien spaceship hiding behind the bright comet Hale Bop. His answer was in pantomime - he took his finger and twisted it around his forehead - "Crazy".
Below is the article
The holes that hold the universe
Wolff laureate John Wheeler isn't sure if the Earth will be swallowed by a black hole or simply smashed into pieces as a result of a collision between galaxies, but believes that very soon we will know exactly how the universe was formed and how it works
Blizovsky my father
"I am convinced that there is only one or two more things left to discover in order to understand how the universe was created and how it works, and I only hope that this will happen in my lifetime." The person behind this optimistic statement is none other than the well-known astrophysicist Prof. John Wheeler, 86 years old - the first to define the phenomenon of black holes. Wheeler came to Israel to receive the Wolff Foundation Prize for Physics in 97.
What do you think it is about black guys that appeals to the general public so much?
"Black holes are something different from anything we know here on Earth. I personally became interested in them as part of my search for the missing mass to hold the universe together, from expanding forever. Even if we count the mass of stars and galaxies, we only have a quarter of the mass we need to hold the universe together by gravity. If a mountain has black holes, they could be the reservoir of this material.
"My colleagues who studied the issue believe that the holes cannot contain all the mass either. But there is a theory, according to which some of the black holes were not created from matter, but from a very strong gravitational radiation that existed at the beginning of the universe. In the early days there was already matter, but the radiation was much stronger than it is today, it had much more energy. The expansion of the universe cooled the universe and dissipated the energy. These particles had a mass that caused them to collapse into black holes, it is difficult to calculate the mass accumulated in such black holes."
According to what is known today, most black holes are massive stars that have consumed their hydrogen supply and turned it into helium, then oxygen, and so on and on to iron, with each stage contracting the star. If the mass of the star is more than eight times the mass of the Sun, the pressure of the atoms still weighs on the star even in the final stages, and it continues to contract. As it shrinks, the escape velocity from it increases, until finally it exceeds the speed of light, and thus nothing comes out of it, not even light, hence its name - black hole.
As strange as it sounds, the idea of a black hole was already thought of at the end of the 18th century. In his book "Black Holes, Cubs of Universes and Other Masses" Stephen Hawking writes: "As far as I know, the first person to talk about black holes was John Mitchell, a Cambridge man. In an article in 1783, Mitchell wrote that there may be a star that has a high enough mass, and is small enough, that the escape velocity from it would be higher than the speed of light. We will not be able to see such a star because the light radiating from its surface will not reach us; The star's gravitational field will pull it back. Nevertheless, we may be able to feel the existence of such a star due to the effect of its gravitational field on the material near it."
But Mitchell only hypothesized the existence of such stars, he certainly had no idea how they were formed. In 1967, John Wheeler defined the phenomenon, and today many researchers are busy finding ways to locate black holes; Hubble Space Telescope scientists claim to have discovered several of these. Is there a black hole at the center of our galaxy? "Yes. There is a black hole there whose mass is 5-4 billion times greater than the mass of the sun. We know it exists because the mass of the materials it sucks in swirls around a very small body with a very large mass."
Will he swallow us one day?
"Many things can happen. For example, we believe that the galaxies will get closer, and then our galaxy will collide with other galaxies. What will happen first, the collision or being swallowed by a black hole? It's hard to say; In both cases, it is not something that will happen in the near future."
Can black holes serve as a kind of shortcut within the galaxy for living beings?
"I don't see any possibility of using a black hole as a kind of tunnel between one region of the galaxy and another. The Daily Telegraph offered a reward to anyone who could find evidence of the existence of such a tunnel. The award is from the publisher's own pocket, but I'm afraid he will be disappointed."
Published on 24/04/1997
Reasons for the Wolf Prize in Physics 1996/7 (from the foundation's website)
The Wolf Prize Committee in Physics for the year 1996/7/XNUMX unanimously decided to award the prize to a scientist
John A. Wheeler
Princeton University
Princeton, New Jersey, USA
For his important contributions to the physics of black holes, to quantum gravitation, and to the theories of nuclear scattering and nuclear fission.
With his analysis of the fate of cold and massive objects, Professor John Wheeler stimulated the emergence of a new field: the physics of black holes ('black hole' is an expression he coined). He was the first to notice that a black hole acts as an information eraser, he formulated an influential principle of the uniqueness of black holes, known to many in the form of the quote (also by him) 'Black holes have no hair', and laid (together with T. Reji) the foundations of a theory The stability of black holes. As a response to the challenge of a final gravitational collapse, he formulated the basis of canonical quantum gravitation theory, including geometrodynamics (dynamics of the geometry of space), superspace (superspace, the space of all geometries), and (together with B. de Wit) the Wheeler- The celebrated De Witt. Even before the discovery of the pulsars, Wheeler noticed that the supernova remnant in Cancer might derive its energy from a rotating, magnetized neutron star.
During the flowering of nuclear physics, he invented the scattering matrix (S matrix) which is used today in many branches of physics, and gave birth (together with N. Bohr) to the theory of nuclear fission. His ideas about the role of the quantum principle in physics are among the far-reaching today. During his long career he trained several generations of physicists and was a source of inspiration for them.
18 תגובות
To the cool commenter:
I think it's a great idea (although it may embarrass a little those who try to respond to this message and it changes for them without them knowing).
It might be worthwhile, therefore, to improve the idea a little and simply say that in the list of comments, if there is a sequence of comments by the same user, only one line will be displayed together with a number indicating the number of consecutive comments (this number is necessary so that those who want to see if something has been renewed since the last time they looked, can recognize this fact even when an additional response of the last commenter was added).
To Michael
No problem, just to raise a smile in these troubled days.
So have a good night everyone
Sabdarmish Yehuda
The RSS only gives the list of the latest articles (I actually do use it) and not the latest comments.
In my opinion, the best solution is for the last message in the article to be editable for the author (according to the email)
Yehuda:
I hope it is clear to you that I did not mean to close the list of comments. I just wrote what I thought at a certain moment and then I thought about other things (actually I also looked at the book to refresh my memory). I hope you don't expect that when I think of a certain comment I will refrain from writing it just because the previous comment was mine.
By the way, to get information about all the comments you can use RSS (although I don't use it either, and I would prefer a longer list).
Michael - there are other commenters who want their name to appear in the list of commenters!
Give others a chance too!
Sabdarmish Yehuda
To my father Blizovsky
Give a longer list of recent responses, say a dozen. It is not possible for a commenter to chain us five comments in a row and finish the whole list.
To Michael - I didn't mean you because you only made four comments in a row.
Although a more efficient person could have reduced them to three responses
Sabdarmish Yehuda
post Scriptum. Maybe for two.
What is true is that Wheeler, at the beginning of his career, believed that black holes could not be formed and that there must be some undiscovered physical law that would cause them to convert all their mass into radiation before they could collapse.
It was only later on that he became convinced that blacks do exist and even fantasized about ways to observe their singularities.
in=>in them
Note:
I took the above quote from Kip Thorne's book Black Holes & Time Warps, page 197 where the chapter begins on Wheeler's research on black holes and the other ways massive stars end their lives.
borrowed:
I found no evidence that Wheeler intended to mock the phenomenon (which he himself paid much attention to).
on the contrary. Here is a quote from the first things he said about the research on the subject:
"Of all the implications of general relativity for the structure and evolution of the Universe, this question of the fate of great masses of matter is one of the most challenging."
Do you have any evidence for your claim?
The grieving man discovered that the universe is expanding.
Since then, scientists have debated whether omega is less than one or equal to one or more than one: in other words, is the expansion slowing down until in the future everything shrinks back (that is, the gravity between the parts of the universe is stronger than the force that the big bang threw everything 'out'), or is the expansion accelerating (Yaani , the matter in the universe is not that much), or the expansion will get stuck in some stable state.
The Hubble telescope discovered that the expansion is accelerated due to a force that has been given the name dark force (as opposed to dark matter).
Just a note: when Wheeler called black holes by this name, he meant to mock the phenomenon and the physicists who, in his eyes, give black holes more attention than they deserve. And like many other times, the mocking nickname was accepted as the serious and official nickname.
Bye.
To my father Bachizovsky
In addition, please also reduce the size of the black hole in the center of the galaxy.
Smaller hole - smaller mistake.
Good Day
Sabdarmish Yehuda
I did mean the Hubble Space Telescope, I thought that was obvious.
And if you don't believe, ask Yehuda
Laria Seter - in the name of Hubble, it refers to the space telescope and not to the person with the same name.
In addition there are inaccuracies such as the black hole at the center of our galaxy has a mass of three or four million suns and not two billion suns, as stated in the article.
But, most importantly, where does all the confidence in the reality of black holes, dark mass and dark energy come from? Note that in the beginning the black holes were treated as bodies that would eventually cause the big collapse, whereas today, when you know that the universe is accelerating, how should you treat this article about dark mass and dark energy?.
It all follows only because of adherence to Newton's gravitation formula at galactic and subgalactic distances.
There is no dark mass
There is no dark energy
And black holes do not mean singular points of infinite density.
But, to his credit, it can be said that he won awards for his words and that must be something!.
Have a good evening
Sabdarmish Yathoda.
Arya and my father:
Could it be that the reference was to the Hubble Space Telescope and not to Man (who, as Arya said, only discovered the expansion and not its acceleration)?
Actually maybe you meant the Hubble Space Telescope?
Abi Abi - don't write so fast.
I haven't read the article yet, but only a comment about the ejection of a pen in the opening. The accelerated expansion in the late nineties is not the mourning. Alas, it is in the twenties of the last century that the universe in general expands.