Subj: The "Swallowing Black
Hole"
Date: 8/2/00 12:24:44 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Hi Kent :)
Here is a copy of a post I made to another bulletin board I occasionally
peruse. Someone there also posted the "swallowing black hole" stuff.
BEGIN:
Having many things better to do than write this commentary, well, I just
couldnt resist. I have been working rather hard these last few months,
and
this, I guess, I will put in the humorous entertainment category and let
it
be.
I offer a tongue in cheek apology, in advance, to anyone who is offended
by
this post.
A little background: I surf the net a bit for fun and info, and included
in
that surfing are periodic visits to Kent Steadmans site
Orbit, and to
this BB as well.
I recently noticed the Earth will be swallowed by a black hole
article on
Orbit, and then, lo and behold, the same theme shows up here. My first
thought when I read the article was that my UPS delivery might not get here
in time for the big event. Too bad, I might never even get to see my new
software and play with it a bit. Oh well.
I was gonna send an e-mail to Kent, but decided it wasnt worth the
effort,
but when the swallowed by a black hole stuff got posted here,
well, I just
couldnt resist. So here goes.
Virgil Armstrong is the fellow who is touting on his website, the
black
hole swallowing theory, based on a newspaper article I
will elaborate on
below. I dont know Virgil Armstrong. Never met the man, but I do have
a few
things to say about his black hole swallowing theory.
Piqued by the desire to see if my software might even have a chance of
getting here, I decided to examine the story a bit. Here is what I found:
Mr. Armstrong has a website, and has written some new age stuff,
including
the idea that the Earth will be swallowed up by a black hole that has been
discovered by the new Chandra X-Ray observatory. Interesting.
On his site, is a copy of the original article (scanned in) that describes
the event.
The article was published in a tabloid newspaper (The Weekly World News)
and
written by a gentleman named Mike Foster.
The article quotes an astrophysicist named Dr. Gerard Holtschein as the
source of the black hole theory info. Dr Holtschein is purported to have
been given some data not available to the public, and then is purported to
have passed it along to the reporter Mike Foster.
So far so good.
Now, I will cover the details a little later in this post, but I want to
give a flavor of what came up in my surfin for info on this topic.
First, I did an Alta Vista search on Gerard Holtschein. Found nothing. Then
I tried Google, same thing, except for the hits on the article mentioned
above.
Hmmm. This guy is a real life astrophysicist and there is no reference to
him anywhere that I can find on the net in a 10 minute search. Hmmmmm.
Whatever happened to publish or die.
So I decided to do a search for the tabloid newspaper Weekly World
News
and, lo and behold, they do have a website.
The article on the black hole swallowing was not there, but a
sampler of
other articles that were there for this days perusal gave me a hint
as to
the reliability of the black hole swallowing story.
Included in todays hot off the web press articles were:
Judge Orders Playboy to Marry Porker, or Hang. This turns out
to be in the
Sudan.
Jack the Rippers Mummy Found.
And finally, the story titled, Amazing Chicken Talks Better Than A
Parrot!
Well
. oh well.
Now for the science part.
The Black hole is real. It is in the vicinity of the star Cassiopeia A. You
can read about it on the Chandra X-Ray observatory site, and also can do
a
search to find out more about it.
Cassiopeia A is about 9100 light years from Earth, or if you prefer, 2.8
kpc
(2800 Parsecs)
In the article it was stated that Earth is moving at the rate of ONE
MILLION
miles an hour, heading for this black hole, to be swallowed up of course,
on
or about AUGUST 11, 2000.
Well, maybe someday, but not on Aug 11, 2000!
Why?
Do the math!
A light year is about 5.8785 x 10^12 miles. (OR about 5.9 trillion miles,
US
measure)
At one million miles per hour rate of speed, it would take approximately
5,878,500 hours for the Earth to travel the distance of ONE light year.
That
s the equivalent of about 671 YEARS, if my math is right.
Since Cassiopeia is about 9100 light years from Earth, it will take about
(671 x 9100 = 6106100) 6.1 million years for Earth to get to the
swallowing
black hole if we are traveling 1 million mph towards it.
So, if my math is right and my little hand held calculator hasnt gone
bonkers, I guess I will have a chance to look at my new software, and yes,
if we are really traveling at 1 million miles an hour towards the black
hole
in Cassiopeia, The Earth will get swallowed up, IN ABOUT 6 Million years
or
so, IF something else doesnt happen sooner.
Oh well, I guess I get to see the rest of the Survivor episodes
too.
END
Chiding a bit here, and you posted this stuff and didn't post the real
science about the pyramid casing stones being cast in place?
feel free to post this on your site, keep me anon as usual. :))
Golden Light Love & Joy this day!!!