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General Category => Astronomy & Science => Topic started by: gbrak30 on January 04, 2016, 06:56:02 AM

Title: Size of black holes and how they're measured
Post by: gbrak30 on January 04, 2016, 06:56:02 AM

So if black holes are infinitely small, how can they have a diameter?  I prefer asking people rather than google, since this can be more of a philosophical question ;)
Well, I have never seen a diameter but mass i have seen, but still, how do you measure the size/mass of something you cannot observe directly and that is theoretically infinitely small?

Title: Re: Size of black holes and how they're measured
Post by: codefantastic on January 04, 2016, 06:58:06 AM

the black hole itself isn't infantly small, the singularity at the center is.

Title: Re: Size of black holes and how they're measured
Post by: Darvince on January 05, 2016, 02:43:51 PM

the diameter of a black hole is defined as the diameter of its event horizon as the singularity itself has no size as far as we know

Title: Re: Size of black holes and how they're measured
Post by: vh on January 05, 2016, 03:47:59 PM

to add, mass is measured by velocites of orbiting bodies, and the event horizon can be computed from mass

Title: Re: Size of black holes and how they're measured
Post by: fredetuc on March 28, 2016, 11:00:31 AM

Well lets say this u can make a black hole out of anything as long as you shrink it down to microscopic size but keep the same mass. Don't quote me on this but i'm 89% sure.