Black Holes Predate Galaxies Scientists Say, Solving Age-Old Riddle

"Age-old" riddle? Not likely. In 1899 Scheiner proposed that Andromeda, rather than being just some diffuse patch of light in the northern sky, might actually consist of stars!

And it wasn't until 1967 that John Wheeler coined the term black hole. Prior to that Newton and a colleague speculated about "invisible stars" possibly existing whose escape velocity exceeded the speed of light, but it was just that: speculation.

A riddle? Yes!

"Age old?" Not even.

I am gratified that some one agrees with my post in

The Big Bounce Instead of the Big Bang? I think black holes are very underrated ,

The creation of the universe from a single [singularity?] point in one big bang does not impress me at all.

I am open to any suggestions?

Wouldn't it be cute if they came to the conclusion that there was no Big Bang at all!?

That the universe "came to a boil" in many places that we now call Black Holes!

What a way to ruin dinner!

L.J.

I don't understand the point of discussion (Garth & Laughing jaguar). Big Bang theory is a mathematical model that suggest how could be the universe in the beginning based on the phisical laws (Relativity and mechanical quantics)and how evolve since that to our present days without a notorious contradictions. That means as a model, has not reality and just explain how the man perceive that reality. Ther's no other model that can predict with certain acceptance level of accuracy. Due that we had developed technology and we enyoy it, Some conseccuences of that theory are black holes and even Big bounce events.

" As far as the laws of mathematics refer to the reality, they are no certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality" ALBERT EINSTEIN "Geometry and experience" January 27, 1921.

So are you arguing against Man's creation of models to explain/describe the world around him? What do you propose as a substitute?

Man's creation is not a theory is just an act o faith. You can not test an ethical axiom under laboratory conditions as well as sciences axiom. Finally the truth remains through the time so you are a religiuos man or not.

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgot their use" GALILEO GALILEI

Man is the sole agent in my question; an agent who himself creates models which help describe and possibly explain the world around him.

Mine was not a religious question and has nothing whatsoever to do with religion, ethics, morals, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy nor Honest Lawyers. Read my post again.

Since we have been around on similar issuse before, I reply. My suspicion is that there are multiple universes demarked by different constants for the speed of light. My suspicion is that this creates black holes. I am not sure exactly how this happens, but have some suspicions.

Conclusions like the one drawn in this article drive me crazy. There is either more information that leads them to believe that black holes come first or they are they have waaaay to much confidence in a "it's this or that" scenario. At first glance I'd point out that the universe was denser 13 billion years ago(its expanded a ton since then). If you have more mass per square inch of space, is it really unreasonable to expect a larger blackhole mass to galaxy mass ratio, since the closer you pack mass together, the better it is for the blackhole (due to constant gravitational "stirring" to disrupt stable orbits resulting in the hurtling of stars into the blackhole).

The problem is, they may have other reasons which this article has chosen to ignore in favor of the simple one the writer understood. If anyone has a link to some original scientific literature on this, I'd appreciate it.

Eurporium and Jorrie have been working on this in other threads. Don't go crazy. It may be a this or that thing, but then again, so what?

You Wrote "so what?"

The problem is it gives the illusion of providing information when in fact nothing really was said at all. Read the article again. It could be summarized in a sentence or two. Where is the value? I'm interested in this subject, I can live with a journalist being lazy in their writing, but they don't provide the source literature. It's like seeing a preview to a movie that sounds interesting except it's only being seen in select theaters, and the preview doesn't tell you where they are.

"... but they don't provide the source literature."

This is a trend I've seen for the last few years and it seems to be widespread. Many of these science/technology blurbs are just so much coffee-table fluff. They say little (often getting it flat wrong) and post no sources, no links, no nothing. SciAm is one of the worst offenders. They've opted for more pictures and less and less substance and are gradually dumbing-down their rag to the point of uselessness. They're not the only rag who's doing this. A lot of them seem to be jumping on the Science-Made-Stupid bandwagon.

I totally agree. I'm not looking for these updates to be perfectly accurate or comprehensive, but a modicum of effort would be nice.

As said Jorrie and Eurporium have posted and participated in some informed discussions along these lines. I suggest you consult with them directly. I had a similar reaction recently to a posit saying that Urban Life was Bad for Your Brain. - After going around on related subjects, like String theory, or whether or not you can put a hologram on a photon, best I get to is that Black Holes are evidence of other universes, and the only difference between one universe and another I can imagine is that different universes have a different constant for the speed of light, and that somehow their interaction happens, and causes things like Black Holes. Overall I have to admit that my answer here is not very good, and I stand by my recommendation that you look to Europorium and Jorrie for more enlightened detailed or educated critique.

So if Black Holes are little (galatically speaking) nuggets of matter nestled in the fabric of space/time and that said fabric keeps on expanding, and pulling, is it possible that a Black Hole can eventually "pop" out? I understand that Hawking said they can evaporate, but what about popping like a zit? They may pull on space/time, but space/time pulls on them, too. I can see that event horizon stretching, stre...tching, stre... POW - no more black hole. And the resulting space/time tsunami - whoa, nelly. Now, would the ejecta be part of our dimensions or maybe some other ones, too?

Interesting Update from the Scientific American Article on this same subject:

Update (January 8): Tod Lauer of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory says he worries that the study may have fallen into a statistical trap. Even if the average galaxy is 1,000 times the mass of its hole, there is still a spread around this average -- some galaxies are smaller or bigger. Yet smaller galaxies are inherently more common than bigger ones, so a black hole of given mass is more likely to be found in a smallish galaxy and hence appear oversized. For this reason, the galaxy-hole pairings seen by Carilli's team might not be representative of the ancient universe, in which case the question of which came first remains unanswered.

Thanks for the link.

Do you think SciAm has been reading our posts? Maybe they've seen the light (so to speak) and are back on the straight and narrow (a geodesic, actually)? Or could it be that this sudden burst of quality is just an anomaly?

In any case I found the conclusions drawn in the OP's article rather suspicious. Supermassive black holes don't just 'happen.' They need a rich source of infalling matter in order to grow and galaxies provide that.

You Wrote:"Supermassive black holes don't just 'happen.' They need a rich source of infalling matter in order to grow and galaxies provide that."

I agree. They may be trying to make some argument that there was some earlier stage of cosmic evolution where these black holes were created and then acted as seeds for the galaxies, but I'm having a hard time seeing that.