Chapter 4: The Black Hole Era
Due 1 Apr 2004, 8 AM

Welcome to the preflight questions page for Chapter 4. Please enter your identification information, and then answer the questions. Your grade is only based on participation; not getting the right answer.


Please input the following:


What does it mean that "black holes have no hair"?

Where are supermassive black holes and why are they there?

Why can't anything get out of a black hole?

Because the sides are too steep
Because there's no gravity in space
Because nothing can move faster than light
Because black holes suck more than anything else in the universe


Some other questions you might find useful:
  • What is a black hole?
  • How do we know they exist?
  • What is an event horizon?
  • Why might there not be any black holes of, say, 1000 solar masses?
  • How might primordial black holes have been created?
  • How is the creation process for stellar and supermassive black holes different?
  • What is the equivalence principle? Why does it demand relative time flow?
  • Why are tidal forces smaller near the surface of a supermassive black hole?
  • How many black holes will be around in cosmological decade 40?
  • How does gravitational radiation cause black hole mergers?
  • What is Hawking Radiation?
  • What is a singularity?
  • Why do black holes put out bigger particles as they evaporate?
  • Under what circumstances will the black hole era last forever?
  • Do we expect those circumstances to be met?

(Optional) What puzzled you about the reading? What would you like to have explained in more depth? What questions would you ask to see if the reader had grasped the most important concepts in the chapter?

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