A question! (Astronomy and Physics)

[Caeli]

Graaagh... my head hurts! I don't want to answer astronomy and physics questions ;____; Especially ones with no answers.

Besides... >>; There's nowhere here that says that after you answer it, another question has to be brought up. Or maybe I just missed it.

[Paradox]

Yeah, I didn't see it either, but that's what Sherona told me, and I take her word as law most of the time. *shrugs*. Either way, it's a good idea to bring new life to the thread. You don't have to answer them anyway, I'm sure other people will come along. Thanks for the two you did though!

[Sherona]

Graaagh... my head hurts! I don't want to answer astronomy and physics questions ;____; Especially ones with no answers.

Besides... >>; There's nowhere here that says that after you answer it, another question has to be brought up. Or maybe I just missed it.

Yeah I explained to him what these threads were originally made...it started out just because Veks and I were throwing each other random questions (yes I am weird enough to say I really enjoy that type of thing..) and we started it on forums rather then in IM...it went good for a little while but then my head hurt, and I got preggers..and I just got swamped..so I didn't really post up new questions *nodnods* But there are other categories *pokes around down south for the threads* :)

[Mindhazingsquid]

The intensity of light varies inversely as the square of the distance from the light source. If the distance from a light source is doubled, what will happen to the intensity of the light?

Wouldn't that depend on the medium through which the light was traveling?

[Paradox]

Besides Deep Space, Earth's Atmosphere, and Water, what other mediums do you mean?

[Mindhazingsquid]

Glass, diamond, quartz, cubitzirconum (spelling?), there's a lot of things through which light can travel.  All of them effect the speed, err, which has nothing to do with the intensity.  Never mind.  I don't know what I was thinking.

[The Overlord]

"How can a black hole exist if we don't see anything ever cross the event horizon?" is probably a better question.

Seems to me that the question is asking how do we know if the black hole exists if we can't see beyond the event horizon, since we implies our perspective. Reminds me a little of that old phrase, if a tree falls in the woods by itself does it make any sound?

In terms of direct observation the singularity itself can never be witnessed because of the properties of the event horizon, but the very fact that the event horizon exists at all means something is inside there doing terrible things with space and time.

Mathematics settles the rest; one you have an accurate figure of the mass and width of the object, math can prove the object cannot even resist its own titanic gravity well. Past a certain threshold, it can be nothing but a black hole.