Gothos: Jillian's Guide to Black Holes

Jillian's Guide to Black Holes

An informal introduction to black holes, those wacky astronomical oddities of extremity!
Loosely affiliated with the slightly less well-known Jillian's Guide to Gravitational Waves.

How to create a black hole, using stars, matter from a split-second after the big bang, and other household items.

Three classifications of black holes, a breakdown of their parts, and descriptions of what happens at varying distances from a black hole.

Why black holes are most often seen with accretion disks, Hawking radiation, and how one can steal energy from a rotating black hole.

The oddness of the singularity, explanation of tidal forces, the phenomena of blue shifting, and a brief description of white holes.

Finding black holes by listening for x-rays, examining binaries, accrection disk redshift, quasars, and a table of a few suspected black holes.

Works citied and bibliography for this site.

Other interesting and informative websites

Organization, Caveats, and Editor's Notes

I wrote this web site because I have always liked learning about black holes. However, it was always a challenge finding reading material that did not go over my head. I created this web site as a resource that I wish I had had access to when I wanted to learn about black holes. The information covered here is just the tip of the iceberg, an introduction to the wacky and wonderful world of relativity and astronomy. I would stress that this is difficult material. The best way to understand black holes and relativity better is to bone up on your math skills and take a course in relativity. The math is a tool you need to really understand this material. Give yourself time to learn --- do not expect to pick this up in a week.

I organized the information in what I consider coherent packets. The fact that I can link between pages makes this much easier than writing a standard report. However, that interconnectedness makes it tricky for me to be sure that all links are proper, and all information makes sense. To that end I must say that I kept all the quirks about the singularity itself to the Inside section. I mention the three types of black holes in increasing complexity of material. Each one builds on the previous ones in the sense that basic material is mentioned first in depth and then at minimum. Why? I assumed that you're either reading through each type and therefore are introduced to the basic material or you've skipped around because you already know a fair bit about black holes.

The gravity bit (or A Caveat About Writing Styles):
I can be less accurate in what I write when I want to get a point across. I'll set the record straight. Gravity doesn't actively, willingly "do" anything. Gravity is an effect, just like something emitting EM waves in the visible spectrum is the effect we call light. Matter happens to generate gravity. The phrase 'force of gravity' describes the effect the gravity of one thing has on something else. The phrase 'acceleration due to gravity' describes the change in motion brought about by the unbalanced ('unbalanced' meaning that no other forces are exerted in the opposite direction of the force of gravity in questions) effect of the force of gravity of one thing on something else. As explained by the spacetime model, gravity is' just' the bending of that spacetime; it's warpage, and light and planets tend to follow the path of that warpage. Three-dimensional humans look around and say 'force of gravity' and relativity says 'effect of warped spacetime.'

Look, the things I say about light cones aren't entirely correct. I was vague about what one sees as one falls into a black hole: I did not mention whether the viewer was accelerating or not. That whole bit about the universe condensing to a dot or to a circle depends on which observer you are. Acceleration makes a very big difference in relativity.

I have made all possible efforts to give credit where credit's due. Some of these pictures are mine and only the product of my imagination and Photoshop, but not all these pictures are mine. In each case I've made a link near the picture and explained where I found it. If, however, you find a picture that should have a reference cuz it's not mine, tell me and I'll be happy to change it. I am a fan of maintaining copyright on the web. That's not the only reason you could email me. People like to leave a note saying they've stopped by or questions they might have. Don't be shy. Comments, complaints, compliments, and corrections are all welcome in my inbox. It might take me a while to respond, but I will do my best.

If you want to learn more about black holes, read up the references I used for this site. Those are some great books. Also, check out George Greenstein's "Frozen Star: of Pulsars, Black Holes, and the Fate of Stars" (ISBN 0-88191-011-2). Mr. Greenstein's book is older, being published in 1983, however his writing style is pleasant and his descriptions are still accurate. Another excellent book is Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy
by Kip S. Thorne (ISBN 0393312763), including a history of the physics of the past century.

This was my final project for PHY 312 at Syracuse University. Amazingly, the (now defunct) GO Network selected it for a Science Award. I was impressed. Enjoy the show!

ALL IMAGES CONTAINED ON THIS WEBSITE ARE THE EXPRESSED PROPERTY OF THE ARTIST, JILLIAN BORNAK, AND SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN OR USED WITHOUT HER PERMISSION.
OFFENDERS WILL BE TOAD.