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Archive 1Archive 2

History?

Are there any research papers or articles about MECO theory we could quote or link here? It seems that all coverage on this topic is from the very recent news articles about it. I understand that one of Dr. Hawking's main bets is the existence (or non-existence) of black holes. Surely there's some sort of long and grandiose correspondence documenting this? :) I dunno, just seems like this only recently popped up claiming a long history, but this page is only concerned. --Addama 14:35, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you're thinking of this. --KSmrqT 19:40, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I know what Addama means about this suddenly popping up...it's that New Scientist article which has sparked it all off. Although I've stumbled across one of Mitra's papers in my meanderings through the arXiv, last year, I think. I don't think I agree with him. But anyway, let us see how all this sudden flurry pans out...
Incidentally, has anyone noticed the name in the article history? At least, and for this he is to be commended, he declared in the article itself that he had been editing it. Byrgenwulf 20:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup strategy

At the moment, this reads like a cross between a description of a MECO, combined with the story of their discovery/theoretical development, combined with a comparison (somewhat onesided) with black holes. All mixed up, higgledy piggledy.

This needs to be changed so that the development of the concept goes in one section, a description of it in the next (without reference to black holes, preferably), and finally a section can compare the two concepts.

I am not particularly interested in doing it, but shall try to fix a few things every now and again. I have also removed the "request for expansion", for now, because the article is positively massive, and there's an IP that comes every night and deposits vast reams of content, which, while undoubtedly well-intentioned and informative, is neither formatted nor structured, and it just keeps getting more and more. Byrgenwulf 15:50, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

removed external links?

The removal of external links is a bit disappointing, as they contained news stories that talked about MECOs. And there's a comment here about an older version of the article being directly lifted from one of them (or vice versa). They are also easier to read that the mess on the article page that needs cleanup. 70.51.9.213 05:15, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Needs an introduction?

As a non-physicist reading this, I'm finding it almost impossible to get a general overview of what a MECO is. Is it possible for somebody to write an introductory paragraph, giving a non-technical summary? [and before you ask, I'm not in the least bit capable of writing one myself] Danohuiginn 23:56, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm a non-physicist too (chemist) so I added a small introduction to the opening paragraph. I hope my less than perfect grasp of physics didn't introduce any incorrections, so someone please check it. 213.22.31.12 21:45, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

How exactly do magnetic fields affect neutral particles?

The article's description of how matter is prevented from falling into a MECO is incomplete. A very strong magnetic field may affect charged particles, or neutral particles (like neutrons) that are composites of charged particles, but uncharged fundamental particles (like neutrinos) wouldn't be flung away in this manner. These are produced in copious quantity by stellar collapse that reaches the neutron star stage or farther, so their effects won't be negligible. --Christopher Thomas 19:14, 29 July 2006 (UTC)




REPLY TO ABOVE QUESTION BY DARRYL LEITER (CO-DISCOVERER OF THE MECO WITH STANLEY ROBERTSON:

THE HIGHLY REDSHIFTED MECO SURFACE IS DYNAMICALLY BALANCED OUTSIDE OF ITS SCHWARZSCHILD RADIUS BY THE INTRINSICALLY MAGNETIC, SYNCHROTRON RADIATION GENERATED, COMPTON SCATTERING FORCE WHICH ACTS ON THE PAIR DOMINATED PLASMA WITHIN THE MECO SURFACE. FOR THE CASE OF NEUTRINOS THE PHOTON->NEUTRINO SCATTERING FORCE IS WEAKER THAN THE PHOTON->ELECTRON-POSITRON FORCE BUT THIS WEAKER FORCE WOULD ALSO ACT TO EVENTUALLY REPEL THE NEUTRINOS EVEN IF THEY WERE ABLE TO PENETRATE THE MECO PHYSICAL SURFACE BALANCED OUTSIDE ITS SCHWARZSCHILD RADIUS. HENCE IT IS NOT THE INTRINSIC MECO MAGNETIC FIELD ALONE WHICH CREATES THE HIGHLY REDSHIFTED, EDDINGTON LIMITED MECO SURFACE. RATHER IT IS THE EDDINGTON LIMITED PHOTON SYNCHROTRON LUMINOSITY GENERATED BY THE MAGNETIC FIELD WHICH DOES THE JOB VIA THE PHOTON-PARTICLE INTERACTIONS WHICH COME INTO PLAY.

Shouting is not necessary. Really. Disengage your Caps Lock key please.
So, photon->neutrino interaction is "weaker" than photon->electron? Indeed it is - ~10^13 times weaker! I don't believe that photon fluxes which purportedly keep charged particles from infalling can keep neutrinos too. You'll need 10^13 times bigger flux (which would competely blow away charged particles). Something is fishy here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.103.91.47 (talk) 16:50, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Needs clarification as non-mainstream theory

This article reads a whole lot like a "crackpot" article. For example:

The existence of ECOs/MECOs is certainly not widely accepted at present. But this is not necessarily because of any theoretical inconsistency ...

That's a POV, OR approach to the topic. If it's not widely accepted, it is not appropriate for Wikipedia to speculate *why not* ... especially if the answer is the especially crackpot-y "because the old paradigm is deeply ingrained."

I would make two observations on the reference list. First of all, it's deeply circular. Dr. Mitra's papers, as far as NASA ADS knows, have been cited primarily by Dr. Mitra himself; only his Phys Rev D. article has refereed citations by anyone else, and those citations are both of the form, "It has been established that gravitational collapse is a dissipative process (several citations lumped together) ... " This can hardly be taken to be an endorsement of Mitra's work. One of Robertson's papers recieves a few non-self citations, only one of which can be called an endorsement of (or even a mention of) this model.

This article needs to be rewritten to the tune of "This is a fairly obscure model which has received some support in the literature" rather than "this is the unique and obvious perfect super-solution to gravitational collapse." The article can be substantially shortened; it shouldn't be presenting a more-compelling case for MECOs than is supported by the *refereed* and *cited* parts of the literature. Bm gub 00:26, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

It also had some other signs of crankishness, including Unnecessary Capitalization (UC) and Unecessary Abbreviation (UA), as well as the occasional "so-called" thrown in for good measure. I've removed those but I'm not a physicist by any stripe so I'm not able to address the deeper issues this article has. Bryan Derksen (talk) 22:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I must say that papers by other authors are emerging, seemingly similar to this model, even if they don't cite Mitra or Robertson. For example, see F. Fayos and R Torres, "A class of interiors for Vaidya’s radiating metric: singularity-free gravitational collapse", Class. Quantum Grav. 25 (2008), #175009. 193.136.141.26 (talk) 21:48, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Removal of previous tendentious edit=

The external link containing the so-called ``criticism by John Baez and Chris Hillman[1]


has been removed to enact the wikipedia policy that ``Tendentious Editing is not allowed [2] :


In 2001, Chris Hillman launched a rather scathing attack against non-existing and fictitious errors on Mitra's work claiming existence of Eternally Collapsing Objects in lieu of finite mass black holes as the penultimate state of continued gravitational collapse, in an internet News Group named science.physics.research, run by his close associates John Baez and Matt McIrvin. This message did not at all touch upon Mitra's work, which was on continued gravitational collapse, it also overlooked Mitra's assertion that the ultimate state of continued collapse would still be (zero mass) black holes and at places, this message bordered on personal attack on Mitra. But since Mitra never followed such internet news groups, he was initially unaware of it. Dr Sabbir Ahmed (Ph.D. MIT, 1997, Theoretical Physics) made Mitra aware of such a ``criticism and exerted him to post a response. But when Sabbir Ahmed tried to post Mitra's response, this News Group moderators (John Baez and Matt McIrvin) refused to admit the same even if they promoted Chris Hillman's attack.

Seeing the doors to be shut in sci.physics.research, later, Sabbir Rahman, forwarded Mitra's response to another group called science.physics.relativity. The following link would lead to Mitra's response

[3]

alongwith a preamble by Sabbir Rahman:

Having made Prof Abhas Mitra aware of the postings to the newsgroup sci.physic.research regarding his work on the non-existence of black holes, he has kindly prepared the following rejoinder. He has asked me to edit the English and forward it to the newsgroup on his behalf. I would request that any questions be sent to Prof Mitra directly - as I understand it he does not have access to newsgroups and has certainly never posted to one before. I have cross-posted this message to sci.physics.relativity as the contents are obviously relevant to this newsgroup as well.

The only changes made to Prof Mitra's original are fairly minor spelling and grammatical changes to clarify the meaning where this may have been unclear. Non-trivial adjustments requiring some element of personal interpretation of the originally intended meaning have been placed in square brackets, though the resulting text has been kept as faithful to the original as possible. The equations and mathematical arguments should, however, have remain unchanged.

For reference, the original posting by Chris Hillman to which this reply is addressed can be found at:

http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2001-07/msg0034336.html

There seems to be some confusion regarding Prof Mitra's academic background. So to clarify these on his behalf: Abhas Mitra is a theoretical high-energy astrophysicist by training. His PhD thesis was entitled "A New Theory of Ultra High Energy Gamma Ray Production in Cygnus X-3" from the University of Mumbai, India. He was a full member of the American Astronomical Society from 1993-95, is a member of the International Astronomical Union and has been a life member of the Astronomical Society of India since 1983. He has published many papers in journals such as Astrophysical Journal, Astronomy and Astrophysics, and Physical Review Letters. He has been an invited speaker on various topics of High Energy Astrophysics in many conferences, and has worked as a referee for the Astrophysical Journal amongst others. As far as research on the physics of the Central Engine of Gamma Ray Bursts is concerned, he happens to be the only individual having publications in refereed journals.

Sincerely,

Sabbir.

Now the point is that if such internet news group postings are to be admitted, soon wikipedia might, partially, turn turn into an encyclopaedia of unverifiable tendentious ``claims and ``counter claims often full of flames, personal attacks, and occasionally vulgar languages. To avoid such a calamity, I have not entered Mitra's defence in the main article; on the other hand, I have removed such links.

It may be noted that, whosoever had inserted that so-called ``criticism by John Baez and Chris Hillman must be aware of the response by Sabbir Rahman and Mitra. Had the intention behind such ``criticism been for science, the ``response by Mitra too should have been inserted. Obviously, this is not the case. Clearly, insertion of this external source was a case of ``Tendentious Editing ([4]).

Such an insertion is similar to the 2001 refusal by John Baez and Matt McIrvin to suppress the defence while promoting Hillman's attack. In fact, having seen such an attitude, one of the readers of science.physics.relativity wrote that[5]:

Vergon:

John Baez & Co. are the Newsgroup equivalent of the Taliban, i.e., religious extremist dictators restricting the rights of others, and who practice a narrow interpretation that they impose on others. Nor do they tolerate criticism.

They do not know the meaning of research, and are a ball and chain around the neck of scientific research.


- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - > Uncle Al > http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/ (see [6])

The tone of this complaint is not professional even though the grouse may be genuine. And this is the danger of allowing internet News Group postings to any forum which would like to host and disseminate knowledge in a professional and neutral manner.

In general one cannot and should not form any serious opinion based on internet group messages. Apart from lack of objectivity and peer reviewing, a few persons (or even a single person) may always post with various aliases to create an an undue positive or negative sentiments. In turn, many unsuspecting readers of wiki might be swayed by such comments to form undue positive or negative impressions ( for instance, I know that Chis Hillman also posts under the alias ``T. Essel).

For a moment, let us consider the popular internet astronomy forum- Bad Astronomy and Universe Today Fourm (www.bautforum.com). Here, one participant strongly defended MECO paradigm and compared Abhas Mitra with Subramanium Chandrasekhar: see [7]

But should we ever include such links to the wiki MECO article to bolster it. My view is strictly NO.

Therefore, in my opinion, no link to internet group messages should be allowed in any serious wiki article.

So, if the message link deleted by me would be reinserted, a floodgate might be opened for favorable and unfavorable links for not only the present article but by many other wiki articles.

Finally, for the unsuspecting genuine readers of wikipedia, let me point out that while the MECO article is based on the physics of Radiative Gravitational Collapse and Relativistic Astrophysics, the supposed critiques, John Baez and Chris Hillman have no working knowledge let alone expertise in such areas. However, they proclaim to be ``experts in almost all topics of relativity discussed in the internet. While John Baez is indeed a Mathematical Physicist in University of California, Riverside , he has absolutely no research experience ([8]) in Gravitational Collapse or Relativistic Astrophysics. On the other hand while Chris Hillman has a Ph.D. in mathematics from University of Washington, he has hardly any research experience in any area including mathematics (except for guided Ph.D. work). Neither is he presently affiliated with any academic institute (though this in itself need not mean much).

Even if it would be argued whether inserted the external link was tendentious editing or not, it was definitely a poorly sourced material which nonetheless made serious allegations.

In general, in my opinion, any wiki article which is supported by verifiable references published in journals/books should be criticized, if indeed needed, by critiques published in verifiable articles/research papers published in journals/books. Just like no new theory (i.e., unpublished or poorly sourced) is allowed in Wiki, no serious criticism, poorly sourced or unpublished, should not be admitted either. 

(Intuition01 (talk) 12:19, 12 November 2008 (UTC))

Stubbing the article

Having found that, the MECO article cannot be entirely deleted, the 46kb article was reduced to 2 kb by removing most of the crucial physics content supported by reliable references. On the other hand, poorly sourced link containing malicious overtones were restored. Even if the latter action might be debated this near-deletion of the MECO article ammounts to vandalism. Kindly desist from such actions.

A precondition for genuine scientific debate is non- suppress other's referenced contribution. Once such an repressive attitude is controlled, scientific debate is welcome. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Intuition01 (talk • contribs) 06:41, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Removing undue weight to pseudoscientific crap is not vandalism. See [9] for greater details and the consensus that the previous version of the page is not acceptable. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 07:19, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
Also Wikipedia WP:ISNOT the place to conduct scientific debate, the place is in scientific journal and other peer reviewed venues. Black holes are valid solutions of the relativity equations, and if they were not, it would certainly have been noticed by more than 2-3 guys. It's after all, something all people who to a general relativity class are asked to proove.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 07:23, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
I fully support the stubification. Details can be reintroduced slowly after discussion here. Verbal chat 09:06, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
Yes, the Article is not to be used as another medium for arguing the theory.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 22:36, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

No Allegations and Debate against Properly Sourced Article

In one of the vandalistic edits, Headbomb and Verbal wrote that, MECO theory depends on the fact that the speed of the collapsing fluid becomes speed of light at the Event Horizon. They also mentioned that Crawford & Tereno [10](gr-qc/0111073), have shown this to be untrue. They further claimed that John Baez had ``debunked’’ the MECO theory. These are wild, and untrue comments emanating from just not non-understanding of MECO but also due to pathological hatred against a new idea and its proponents:

As shown Leiter & Robertson, the mathematical basis is the exact proof:

2M/R <= 1

This means non-occurrence of trapped surfaces and EH. This proof does not at all depend on any definition of speed or velocity. On the other hand, it depends on the assertion that

``once timelike always timelike’’

and if a trapped surface or EH would form, this basic fact would be violated.

And this constraint shows that if during collapse,

R -> 0, one must have M -> 0

Thus, there could indeed be a mathematical BH with M=0.

In one of the cited papers [11], it has i been claimed that, the integration constant which determines BH mass is ZERO.

With ref. to the paper by Crawford & Tereno [12], it has got nothing to do with gravitational collapse, there is no question of it showing that speed of the collapsing fluid is less than or equal to anything (since it does not concern any fluid at all).

On the other hand, this paper reconsiders the question of speed of a free falling test particle at the EH of a preexisting BH. And it admits that

If one would find v in a manner prescribed by Landau-Lifshitz and classical GR, one would indeed find [13]

v = c (see Eq. 25 and the line below Eq. 27)

However, because of a premeditated non-scientific attitude, these authors, wrote that

``Since this is an unacceptable result….’’

And in a completely adhoc manner, they decided that the v of one free falling particle (a) has validity only if it would be measured by another freefalling particle (b)!

But in curved spacetime, the observer and the test particle must be at the same spatial location in order to define v (at a given spacetime point).

Now if both the observer (b) and the test particle (a) are in free fall in the same problem, one must have

E1 = E2, i.e. conserved specific energies must be same at a given R for both a & b.

Then their Eq. (32) would yield

V =0 everywhere including th EH.

Their prescription is thus physically meaningless—what they are demanding is that

``the speed of a running car can be measured by the driver alone and not by a milestone, or not by a cop with a speed gun’’.

Naturally, for such a non-sense prescription, v at EH (any anywhere) would not only be Smaller than c, but =0 always!

In any case, the relation 2M/R < = 1 does not depend on what Crawford & Tereno showed or failed to show. On the other hand, the genuine singular character of the EH was clearly shown by Antoci & Liebscher [14], [15]

Where they highlighted the fact that ``coordinate independent’’ Acceleration Scalar felt by any test particle at blows up at the EH. Can Crawford & Tereno obliterate this coordinate independent singular behavior of the EH by arbitrarily offering a new prescription of defining speed?

In any case, John Baez just made accusations instead of any real ``debunking’’ of MECO theory which is based on clean mathematics & physics as well as supported by many publications in peer reviewed journals.

:And since WIKIPEDIA IS NO PLACE FOR SCIENTIFIC DEBATE, Headbomb & verbal should not labeled baseless serious allegations against the pre-existing MECO article. They cannot DEBATE in the wiki pages that MECO theory is ``pseudo scientific crap’’!

And if they would indeed like to debunk the MECO theory, they must do the debate in Scientific journals and not by abusing the wiki forum.

And if they must edit the article, they must do it step by step by explain each step as per wiki policies. Pending that, the article must be reverted to its prevandalized form. (Jukebux (talk) 07:03, 16 November 2008 (UTC))

Funny how all the "defenders" of the MECO are all newly created accounts whose only edits are those related to MECOs...
Anyway, there's consensus that MECOs/ECOs are nothing more than junk science, not only on Wikipedia ([16]), but also in the scientific literature (see any books on GR, such as Exploring Black Holes: Introduction to General Relativity by Edwin Taylor and John Wheeler). And before you ask, no, preprints do not trump books and published articles (WP:SOURCE). So again, see WP:ISNOT and WP:FRINGE. You might also want to review WP:SPA. Finally editing is not vandalism (see WP:NPA). Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 08:35, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
While Crawford & Tereno's paper is not directed specifically towards Mitra's proof, it is a discussion on a major misconception that Mitra uses. That should be clear from the way it is cited in the article. Thus the paper is relevant to the article. The fact that they use the Schwarzschild geometry in the paper rather than a geometry with collapsing matter present does not make the paper any less relevant; the basic principles they explain, and that Mitra gets wrong, apply in either case, and, besides, the Schwarzschild geometry does apply to the region just outside the collapsing star by Birkhoff's theorem.
I'm also aware that Mitra also tries to prove his result purely mathematically, without invoking his interpretation of the collapsing matter's velocity, but he makes several errors in basic calculus while doing so. If we are to explain where Mitra went wrong to the lay reader, it is much better to explain Mitra's physical misconceptions than his mathematical ones.
Regarding your comments on Crawford & Tereno's explanation that the velocity must be measured by another infalling observer, this is a fundamental part of general relativity. I second the recommendation of Exploring Black Holes; it may be worth adding to the reference list in the article as well. In that book, you will find an explanation of the kinds of frames of reference that are valid inside a black hole, and an explanation that the velocity with respect to such a frame is not automatically zero, because one can fall into a black hole at more than one speed. Jim E. Black (talk) 18:48, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Footnote description

I've changed the wording of one footnote from "debunking of MECO theory by John Baez" to "detailed rejection of MECO theory by Chris Hillman with introduction by John Baez." My reasoning: in that Usenet post, Baez limits himself to a couple of paragraphs and then "yields the floor" to an older post from Hillman, which discusses and rejects MECO at length. Also, "debunking" can be seen as a violation of NPOV.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 21:15, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

It does look better/sound better/is more accurate better this way. Thanks.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 01:47, 17 November 2008 (UTC)


Where is the pseudoscience in MECO?

Though I am an astrophysicist and could appreciate the physics of the previous the MECO article, I am in no position to critically adjudge the

nuances of General Relativity. However since, I could not see really any scientific critique, I feel, its GR was also alright (see later). I voted that the article should be a ``keep and I thought I would do some editing to improve it. But by no means, I endorsed the kind of severe stubbing inflicted to it. As I can see from the page of Headbomb, he is a M.Sc. student with mostly condensed matter interest. Is he qualified enough to make such a stubbing?

His stubbing was approved by Verbal who is seen to be a Ph.D. and a mathematical physicist (somewhat like Dr John Baez). Is a coincidence that Verbal found the severe stubbing by Headbomb to be perfectly in order? Or were there concerted moves? I am obviously disappointed to see that the physics discussion of the previous MECO article got removed completely. There was certainly no concensus that MECO was ``pseudoscience crap etc. etc. contrary to the claims by

some boarders. Meanwhile, to see whether such a view is backed by facts, I did an in-depth survey of the MECO related papers/articles/preprints by using google, yahoo, NASA ADS, Amazon and other internet sites. I tried to see whether scientific publications apart, the MECO idea was discussed in formal scientific/academic circles. Although I do not claim to make any comprehensive survey, I feel, the following results are fairly representative: (Part of this of course will be repetitive):

1. As mentioned in the previous MECO article, one of the MECO papers

Observations Supporting the Existence of an Intrinsic Magnetic Moment Inside the Central Compact Object Within the Quasar Q0957+561, Rudolph E. Schild,

Darryl J. Leiter, Stanley L. Robertson (25 May 2005)

was the subject of a press release by Harvard: [17](New Picture of Quasar Emerges)


2. Another MECO related paper

"Sources of Stellar Energy, Einstein - Eddington Time Scale of Gravitational Contraction and Eternally Collapsing Objects", A. Mitra, New Astronomy, Vol.

12(2), pp.146-160 (2006)

was chosen as one of the ``Highlight Publications of Max-Planck Society of Germany in 2006:

[18] (Max-Planck Forschungsberichte (laufend), Aus den Highlights 48/2006)

3. The same paper was designated as one of the ``hottest, i.e., most-downloaded papers from the web-ste of ``New Astronomy for almost a year:

[19] (Oct -Dec, 2006) to

[20] (July -Sept, 2007)


4. Another MECO related paper

"Non-occurrence of trapped surfaces and Black Holes in spherical gravitational collapse: An abridged version" (astro-ph/9910408) has been downloaded 87 times from only the UK node of arXiv (which has around 20 nodes in all).

As far as scientific criticism is concerned, I could locate only two preprints:

1. "Velocity at the Schwarzschild horizon revisited"

[21] (I. Tereno)


2. "Another view on the velocity at the Schwarzschild horizon"

[22] (I. Tereno)

The corresponding refutations are

1. "Comment on ``Velocity at the Schwarzschild Horizon Revisited by I. Tereno"

[23] (A. Mitra)


2. "Final Comments on ``Another view on the velocity at the Schwarzschild horizon by Tereno" [24] (A. Mitra)


And below is a list of MECO related papers/preprints presented/discussed in various scientific conferences/scientific institutes:

1. "Young collapsed supernova remnants: Similarities and differences in neutron stars, black holes, and more exotic objects"

[25] (James S Garber)

Publication: Young Supernova Remnants: Eleventh Astrophysics Conference. AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 565. College Park, Maryland, 16-18 Oct, 2000.

Edited by Stephen S. Holt, and Una Hwang. American Institute of Physics, 2001, p.321-324


2. "Is General Theory of Relativity Actually Free of Singularities"

[26] (A. Mitra)

Abstracts of the 19th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics and Cosmology, held in Paris, France, Dec. 14-18, 1998. Eds.: J. Paul, T. Montmerle, and E. Aubourg (CEA Saclay)


3. "On the Nature of the Compact Objects in the Core of Galaxies and AGNs"

[27] (A. Mitra)

Abstracts of the 19th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics and Cosmology, held in Paris, France, Dec. 14-18, 1998. Eds.: J. Paul, T. Montmerle, and E. Aubourg (CEA Saclay)


4. "On the question of trapped surfaces and black holes"

[28] (A. Mitra)

Invited Talk given in a Workshop on Black Holes, Calcutta, Organized by Centre for Space Physics.


5. " On the nature of the compact condensations at the centre of galaxies"

[29] (A.K. Mitra)

Invited Talk Delivered in international symposium ``Gamma-ray Astrophysics through Multi-wavelength Experiments: GAME-2001, Mt. Abu, India, March 8-10, 2001


6. "DO BLACK HOLE CANDIDATES EXHIBIT MAGNETIC MOMENTS INSTEAD OF EVENT HORIZONS?

Darryl J. Leiter (FSTC, Charlottesville, VA 22901), Stanley L. Robertson (Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Weatherford, OK 73096)"

[30] (D. Leiter)

Session B8 - APS Meeting, Planetary, Solar, Galactic Astrophysics, ORAL session, Saturday morning, May 01, 2004


7. "ON THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSAL RADIO-XRAY LUMINOSITY CORRELATION IN BLACK HOLE CANDIDATES" Stanley L. Robertson (Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Weatherford, OK 73096), Darryl J. Leiter (FSTC, Charlottesville, VA 22901)

[31] (S.L. Robertson)

Session B8 - APS Meeting, Planetary, Solar, Galactic Astrophysics, ORAL session, Saturday morning, May 01, 2004


8. Why the observed black hole candidates do not show spin pulsation

[32] (A. Mitra)

Paper presented in COSPAR colloquium on Spectra and Timing of Compact X-ray Binaries (2005)


9. "On the non-occurrence of Type I X-ray bursts from the black hole candidates"

Paper presented in COSPAR colloquium on Spectra and Timing of Compact X-ray Binaries (2005)

A. Mitra, astro-ph/0510162


10. "On the Probable Nature of the "Dark Particle Accelerators" Discovered by HESS"

[33] (A. Mitra)

Proceedings of the 29th International Cosmic Ray Conference. August 3-10, 2005, Pune, India. Edited by B. Sripathi Acharya, Sunil Gupta, P. Jagadeesan, Atul Jain, S. Karthikeyan, Samuel Morris, and Suresh Tonwar. Mumbai: Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, 2005. Volume 4, p.187


11. "Magnetospheric Eternally Collapsing Objects (MECOs): Likely New Class of Source of Cosmic Particle Acceleration"


[34] (A. Mitra)

Proceedings of the 29th International Cosmic Ray Conference. August 3-10, 2005, Pune, India. Edited by B. Sripathi Acharya, Sunil Gupta, P. Jagadeesan, Atul Jain, S. Karthikeyan, Samuel Morris, and Suresh Tonwar. Mumbai: Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, 2005. Volume 3, p.125


12. "How Black are Black Hole Candidates?" Darryl Leiter (FSTC, Charlottesville, VA), Stanley Robertson (Department of Physics, Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Weatherford, OK)


[35] (How Black Are Black Hole Candidates?)

Session B9 - APS Meeting, Elementary Particles and Astrophysics., ORAL session, Saturday morning, April 05, 2006, Washington A, Loews Philadelphia Hotel


13. "OBSERVATIONS SUPPORTING THE EXISTENCE OF AN INTRINSIC MAGNETIC MOMENT INSIDE THE CENTRAL COMPACT OBJECT WITHIN THE QUASAR Q0957+561"

[36] ( D. Leiter)

National Radio Astronomy (Virgina), TUNA Lunch Talk, Sept 05, 2006


14. "Black Holes or Eternally Collapsing Object?" [37]

Abhas Mitra (Theoretical Astrophysics, BARC, India) and N. K. Glendenning (LANL)

[38] (A. Mitra)

The Eleventh Marcel Grossmann Meeting: On Recent Developments in Theoretical & Experimental General Relativity, Gravitation & Relativistic Field, Proc of the Mg11 Meeting on General Relativity, (Berlin July 2006)

15. "Physical Implications for the Uniqueness of the Value of the Integration in the Vacuum Schwarzschild Solution"

[39]


Abhas Mitra, Theoretical Astrophysics, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai - 40085, India

[40] (A. Mitra) [41]

The Eleventh Marcel Grossmann Meeting: On Recent Developments in Theoretical & Experimental General Relativity, Gravitation & Relativistic Field, Proc. of the Mg11 Meeting on General Relativity, (Berlin July 2006)


16. "Masses of radiation pressure supported stars in extreme relativistic realm" Abhas Mitra, Theoretical Astrophysics, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai - 40085, India

[42] (A. Mitra)

"Black Holes from Stars to Galaxies -- Across the Range of Masses. Edited by V. Karas and G. Matt. Proceedings of IAU Symposium #238, held 21-25 August, 2006

in Prague, Czech Republic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007., pp.409-410"


17. "A Unified Answer To the Question "WHY ARE SOME QUASARS RADIO LOUD?"

[43] ( D. Leiter)

National Radio Astronomy (Virgina), TUNA Lunch Talk, March 04, 2008


18. "On the Existence of an Observable Intrinsic Magnetic Moment Inside the Central Compact Object Within The Quasar Q0957+561"

Schild, R. E.; Leiter, D. J.; Robertson, S. L.

[44] (R. Schild)

"Frontiers of Astrophysics: A Celebration of NRAO's 50th Anniversary ASP Conference Series, Vol. 395, Proceedings of the conference held 18-21 June, 2007, at

the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. Edited by Alan H. Bridle, James J. Condon, and Garteh C. Hunt., p.379"


19. "Cosmological properties of eternally collapsing objects (ECOs)"

[ppc08.astro.spbu.ru/materials/thesis/44.doc] (A. Mitra)

"Problems of Practical Cosmology, Proceedings of the International Conference held at Russian Geographical Society, 23-27 June, 2008 in St. Petersburg,

Edited by Yurij V. Baryshev, Igor N. Taganov, Pekka Teerikorpi, Volume 1. TIN, St.-Petersburg, 2008, Vol.1,2, ISBN 978-5-902632 Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: checksum, p.304-313"


20. "Why are some quasars radio loud?"

[45] (R. Schild)

"Problems of Practical Cosmology, Proceedings of the International Conference held at Russian Geographical Society, 23-27 June, 2008 in St. Petersburg,

Edited by Yurij V. Baryshev, Igor N. Taganov, Pekka Teerikorpi, Volume 1. TIN, St.-Petersburg, 2008, Vol.1,2, ISBN 78-5-902632, p.314-31"


If the organizers of all such conferences thought MECO was a proper scientific topic, how can one/two editors who are M.Sc. students or anonymous claim that there is a ``concensus that MECO is pseudo scientific crap? (This list is prepared on internet resources I could see, the actual number of talks/lectures on MECO must be much higher).

A search on Amazon and other sites showed that MECO has been discussed in several books and reviews of Astrophysics


Amazon [46]

1. "DISCOVERY OF COSMIC FRACTALS"

World Scientific, by Yurij Baryshev (St Petersburg University, Russia) & Pekka Teerikorpi (University of Turku, Finland) With a foreword by Benoit Mandelbrot [47]

2. "Focus on Black Hole Research, edited by Paul V. Kreitler. ISBN 1-59454-460-3. Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc., New York, NY USA, 2006, p.1"

[48]

3.New Developments in Black Hole Research, edited by Paul V. Kreitler. ISBN 1-59454-641-X; Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 2005031836. Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc., New York, NY USA, 2006, p.1 ([49])


4. "Astrophysics in 2006" [50] Space Sc. Review, Volume 132, Number 1 / September, 2007, by Virginia Trimble1, Markus J. Aschwanden and Carl J. Hansen

[51]


5. "State of the Universe 2008, New Images, Discoveries, and Events["http://www.springer.com/astronomy/popular+astronomy/book/978-0-387-71674-9] Series: Springer Praxis Books, Subseries: Popular Astronomy by Ratcliffe, Martin, Jointly published with Praxis Publishing, UK


During this search, I also found that there is a poem in the name of MECO Benjamin Paloff in Jacket Magazine, USA, 2007


[52] (The Poem is a Magnetospheric Eternally Collapsing Object)

and also a music album [53]

Though the above two findings do not speak any thing about the scientific value of ECO/MECO, they however tell that the MECO theory has ignited the imagination of many and has a general impact.

Similarly, there are numerous discussions on MECO on various internet discussion fora and most of them appear to be genuine well-intentioned discussions even when criticism is made. A particular chain for detail discussion is the following:

[54](Do Hairless Black Holes Exist?)


One of the MECO papers was listed in Fatava's Best of the Arxiv:

[55]



This internet search also showed that, MECO has found its way into some dictionaries/thesarauses:


1. THE CANONICAL ASTRONOMY ABBREV/ACRO LIST [56]

2. The Free Dictionary[57]

3. Acronym Finder [58]

4. University of Sofia[59]

5. Urban Dictionary [60]

In fact, Urban Dictionary appears to give probably most succinct physical picture of MECO:

A ball of hot and compact magnetized plasma held in equilibrium against its self-gravity by radiation pressure rather than gas pressure. A MECO is so

extremely compact that its own radiation quanta move in almost closed orbits due to self-gravity. Therefore, though the MECO is extremely hot and luminous to a local observer it appears as almost ``Black to astronomers.

In the deletion talk page, one editor commented that MECO theory was based on errors like 2+2 =5! I think this comment resonates with the comment ``pseudoscientific crap.

But as I understood, MECO theory is no NEW theory at all. On the other hand, it is based on (i) Classical General Relativity and (ii) standard Relativistic Astrophysics. In particular, it is based on the standard physical effects:

a. in strong gravity, light/radiation orbits get bent, and for z>2, the quanta can almost move in closed circular orbits (photon sphere).

b. The resultant trapped radiation luminosity can attain a critical value called Eddington luminosity where the outward radiation force balances the inward gravitational pull.

c. Whenever an astrophysical plasma contracts, due to practically infinite conductivity, the frozen in magnetic field increases as the inverse square of radius.

Thus, I find the idea of MECO neither to be non-mainstream nor fringe one. There is no new hypothesis in it. If we recall, some of the gravity theories which might be considered ``fringe or ``non-mainstream are

1. "Modified Newtonian Dynamics" (MOND) ; there is new hypothesis and adhocism

2. "Scalar-ensor Theory", "Bimetric Theory2. http://www.bautforum.com/1287280-post30.html [61]", "Relativistic Theory of Gravity" and several other Alternative Gravity Theories [[62]]

3. Similarly, a concept like "gravstar" might be considered as a fringe theory because it assumes that collapsing matter with positive pressure somehow gets transformed into a matter with negative pressure.

In contrast, MECO considers trapping of radiation in strong gravitation as predicted by standard general relativity. There is no adhocism or new hypothesis.


Thus there is certainly no concensus either in Wiki or outside wiki that MECO is a pseudo-scientific crap. And when I will have time, I may try to bring back something close to the original MECO article. Even before that, I would good sense would prevail and Headbomb, the M.Sc. student, would undo his own stubbing. And he should leave it to the broad scientific community and time to evaluate the MECO idea. (Dingle2008 (talk) 12:57, 18 November 2008 (UTC))

First of all, I want to point out that you have nothing to gain from obvious sockpuppetry. Stop it. Second, the non-acceptance of this notion by the scientific community is obvious: Most scientists know that black hole formation is a predicted consequence of general relativity, while Mitra says it is not. Furthermore, several people, including both myself and the people mentioned in the article, who know general relativity have read his work and concluded that it is based on mistakes. There is nothing to substantiate that this view is held more widely than its four main proponents (Mitra, Leiter, Robertson, Schild). Third, the consensus from the deletion debate was that the article needed a drastic rewrite. The previous article was too long, badly written, and promotional in nature.
Nevertheless, if you feel you can improve the article, you should feel free to do so. What you should not do is delete the criticism (or bury it in excessive text). Furthermore, please try to be brief. I know this can be a struggle, but you have to do it. Not only will this avoid giving undue weight to this minority viewpoint, it will also improve the quality of your writing. If, as in the previous version, you add lots of details that are irrelevant to the casual reader, you will just make the article less comprehensible.Jim E. Black (talk) 19:50, 18 November 2008 (UTC)


Fringe physics, pseudophysics, and maverick physics

Part 1

One of the good sides to Wikipedia is that you start noticing things in the paper you wouldn't have previously.

Case in point, an article in today's Metropolitan section of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, headlined Aus Einstein wird Zweistein by Hans Riebsamen. The journalist attended a talk given by Walter Greiner, a theoretical physicist who co-founded the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies.

Greiner gave a talk recently at the FIAS that was attended by Riebsamen. In summarizing the article below, I am relying on the journalist's reporting. I was not present at the talk and even if I had been, I might not be able to add or correct anything, for the simple reason that I have no academic qualifications whatsoever as a scientist or mathematician.

With that caveat, however, I thought that I still might attempt to sum up the newspaper article. Later I will try to explain why I think it may be relevant to discussion of the Article Magnetospheric eternally collapsing object.

Greiner was introduced by his former student Horst Stöcker, the scientific director at Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung. Stöcker, incidentally, has published extensively on black holes and holds some interesting ideas. I believe he has proposed that mini-black holes should be gainfully employed as the ultimate trash compactors (no joke).

It begins with an astronomical photograph of Sagittarius A made by astronomer Reinhard Genzel. The picture, labeled B68, shows a narrow-angle selection of night sky, with the usual gemstone-like assortment of stars and other celestial objects partially "blacked out" by what looks like an irregularly shaped lump of coal. According to Stöcker, this is a black hole with a mass of three to four million times greater than that of our Sun and a diameter of some 14 million kilometers. According to scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, the black hole has been observed sucking in hot gases.

UPDATE: Trust those journalists to muddy the waters: I found the picture of B68 that appeared in the paper here. Unfortunately its mass as described at the ESO website is much smaller and the size is likewise totally different -- sigh.

Greiner, however, does not believe that the "nothingness" at the heart of our galaxy is a black hole. And not just this one – he flat out denies that there is such a thing as a black hole. Rather, he says that what is being observed is extremely condensed matter – but not condensed so much that it collapses into a black hole.

If Greiner is right, then conventional cosmology would be overturned. Among other changes, there would be no "big bang". Instead, the universe expands and contracts again and again. (The article does not mention if this concept is identical to what is known as the ekpyrotic universe.)

Greiner has been researching this together with another former student, Peter O. Hess of the National University of Mexico. At a recent conference at the GSI in Darmstadt where Greiner received the Lise Meitner Award of the European Physical Society, he presented their findings (yet to be published) to fellow physicists.

UPDATE 2: Found the abstract at arXiv:

Pseudo-Complex Field Theory
Authors: Peter O. Hess, Walter Greiner
(Submitted on 9 May 2007)
Abstract: A new formulation of field theory is presented, based on a pseudo-complex description. An extended group structure is introduced, implying a minimal scalar length, rendering the theory regularized a la Pauli-Villars. Cross sections are calculated for the scattering of an electron at an external Coulomb field and the Compton scattering. Deviations due to a smallest scalar length are determined. The theory also permits a modification of the minimal coupling scheme, resulting in a generalized dispersion relation. A shift of the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin-limit (GZK) of the cosmic ray spectrum is the consequence.
Comments: 21 pages, 1 figure
Subjects: High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
Cite as: arXiv:0705.1233v1 [hep-th]

Their work claims to be an elaboration of the General Theory of Relativity, based on a new spatial concept postulated by them called "pseudo-complex matrix space". According to this, the existence of black holes is prevented by something called anti-gravity. This prevents matter from being condensed so much that it collapses into a black hole: at a specific stage of condensation, the force of gravity is reversed and turns into anti-gravity. The advantage of the theory would be that we would no longer have to worry about singularities and variables that go to infinity.

In Other Good News, both Stöcker and Greiner agree that the LHC experiment will not create mini-black holes. Greiner because he does not believe in black holes in the first place, and Stöcker calls the mini holes that the LHC may produce white holes, which vanish in less than the time that a photon takes to traverse a proton. According to Stöcker, the accident that's delayed the start of the LHC experiment was not a minor mishap but a fairly major disruption, caused when supra-conducting helium leaked from a welded seam and expanded rapidly inside the tunnel: even steel doors as far away as two kilometers were thrown off their hinges.

Trivia on Greiner: he left school at age 15 for an apprenticeship as a machinist and embarked on a scientific career at a relatively advanced age. He believes in a creator God and says, "The good Lord did not create the world only to exclude Himself from part of it." His friends joke that the new "world formula" will be G+H=Eplus (Greiner and Hess equal Einstein plus).

Part 2

Now, I am probably not mistaken if I venture a guess that the odds of Greiner and Hess proving the non-existence of black holes are long. However, this brings me to my question that applies equally to Dr. Mitra's MECO: how to write an Article about a theory that appears unlikely to revolutionize physics but that in no way can be lumped in together with the crazy outpourings from people who have "proven the Second Law of Thermodynamics wrong" or "invented a perpetuum mobile" or "squared the circle". The latter three can be rejected out of hand.

In looking through the categories of Wikipedia, I found the treatment of these theories of varying reliability to be inconsistent. For example, while there is a description within [[Category:Pseudophysics]], no description is given for [[Category:Fringe physics]]. And there appears to be no separate Category for theories that are not in the mainstream but might -- just might -- turn out to be right -- call them "maverick physics" or "minority-view physics" or something else.

It was my belief that "Pseudophysics" covers the type of "theory" that gets featured on Crank Dot Net or at Skeptic's Dictionary. Stuff that the average educated person can spot as false unaided or with some help from experts. Generally produced by people with anywhere from a fifth-grade education to retired engineers who finally have the time to prove once and for all that "Einstein was wrong".

Furthermore I thought that "fringe physics" referred to theories produced by physicists that by consensus of experts in the field are flawed, such as MECO. (As an aside, I do believe that we owe Dr. Mitra a minimum of respect: he is after all a Ph.D. in physics. Question to Jim E. Black: Can you describe for us the "errors in basic calculus" that Mitra makes? I tried to read through Chris Hillman's refutation of MECO but found it replete with references to specialist theory -- nothing therein reminded me of my high school calculus.)

Depending on the critical reception that Greiner's and Hess' "Pseudo-Complex Field Theory" receives (as yet it has been cited by one other paper), it would either go into [[Category:Fringe physics]] or… Well it surely does not belong with the cranks and fools, and it is unlikely that it will become the mainstream. However, shouldn't there be another category above "fringe" but below "mainstream"?

Getting back to "Fringe" and "pseudo" categories, there appears to be no monitoring and enforcement what gets assigned to either of these categories. There is a perpetuum mobile in [[Category:Fringe physics]] along with marginally respected theories, and there are Ph.D.s like Jack Sarfatti, with some well-respected publications to their credit, in [[Category:Pseudophysics]] along with the nutballs practicing some form of a cargo cult. I believe that [[Category:Fringe physics]] should not be a sub-category of [[Category:Pseudophysics]] but an equally ranked alternative for borderline "respectable" physical theories. I would also like to see another Category added, working title "Maverick physics".

Finally just a short reply to the inevitable question what I am even doing here commenting on physics. I believe that as long as I don't pretend to know more than I do, I can contribute even though I am just a lay person without credentials. People are free to dismiss my comments on that basis or take on board whatever part of them they may find interesting.

As to John Baez and Chris Hillman, one additional comment. Some people seem to believe that because John Baez invented the famous Crackpot index, he must be a dogmatic enforcer of orthodoxy. My impression, however, as an occasional reader of This Week's Finds in Mathematical Physics, is quite the opposite. He strikes me as an extremely "catholic" (small c) person with a voracious interest in what people in related and not-so-related areas are doing. Some famous physicists -- the "debates" at Edge.org are examples -- show themselves to be petty, small-minded and vindictive people. Baez is the opposite, broad-minded and curious to a fault.

So when he endorses Hillman's Usenet post on MECO, I take that as confirmation from someone with much more than the average expert's credibility as an analyst and popularizer of cutting-edge research.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 16:08, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

What Hillman has written is for the most part a list of things Mitra says which are known to be wrong. It doesn't look like he spent much time bothering to find out how Mitra came to those erroneous conclusions. I think the best explanation of where Mitra went wrong is the conceptual explanation currently in the article; Mitra is trying to measure the velocity of infalling matter relative to an invalid reference frame. But I'll try to explain Mitra's mathematical errors (or conceptual errors in applying the math; sometimes it's hard to tell). It's a bit difficult because Mitra uses a lot of bad, nonstandard notation, so it's hard to tell what he means at any given point. You have to look at a lot of equations in combination to see that he's doing things inconsistently. You may have to read his papers yourself, but as long as you can learn just enough general relativity to know what a metric is, that shouldn't be a problem; the errors I'm talking about are in the elementary steps.
For the sake of concreteness, let's consider [63]. At Equation 3.1, Mitra writes down the metric (hopefully the only specialist term I'll have to introduce here) for the collapsing star. The metric tells you, among other things, how much time will pass for an object if you know its trajectory. If, during a certain amount of time, the object's r coordinate changes by an infintesimal amount dr, its θ coordinate changes by dθ, its φ coordinate changes by dφ, and its t coordinate changes by dt, you can put all these infintesimals into the formula to find out how much proper time ds passes for the object. A feature of the mathematics used in general relativity is that you can use any four numbers you want as coordinates (up to reasonable restrictions), as long as giving someone those four numbers pins down the place and time of an event. Mitra defines the r coordinate to be a comoving coordinate; that is, different shells of collapsing matter have different r coordinates, but each shell keeps a constant r as it falls in.
So if you were following a piece of the collapsing star, and you wanted to calculate the proper time ds that passes for the piece of star during some infintesimal time interval, you would plug in dr = 0. Only for an object falling faster or slower than the bulk of the star would you plug in a nonzero dr. But Mitra doesn't seem to understand this. On page 8 he spends a paragraph defining / redefining dr in a strange way such that it is nonzero. This would just be bad notation as long as he didn't plug the new dr into Equation 3.1 to find ds for the collapsing material of the star. But that's exactly what has to do to simultaneously get both Equation 5.3 (which would be correct if ) and Equation 4.3 (which requires V be proportional to his funny nonzero dr/dt). By combining these two inconsistent results, he reaches the conclusion that a black hole cannot form.
All this is mixed up with some highly confused -- and sometimes plain wrong -- talk about partial, total, and convective derivatives. (See the discussion following Eq. 3.4 & 3.5, and also following 4.1.) This is speculation, but it looks like someone explained to Mitra that you can't divide the two partial derivatives and to get the total derivative dr/dt along the trajectory of the collapsing stellar matter. But he doesn't seem to understand why you can't do it, so instead of fixing his conceptual error, he just rewrote the two partial derivatives in a different form and called them "total derivatives," and carried on in the same manner to get the erroneous result I just described. Jim E. Black (talk) 11:33, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. I will study your post carefully and eventually comment. The part about general relativity scares me, I read and understood (I think) popular treatments of special relativity but always considered that I should not even try to understand GR. But if it's only one little aspect of it… Please don't take it as a mark of inattention if my reply takes a while. (What can I say, I am slow…) Cheers, --Goodmorningworld (talk) 12:38, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

COI tag - Darryl Leiter

There was a COI tag added with the comment: "Darryl Leiter has edited here" by user:Verbal. I assume this means user:Dleiter. 76.66.197.30 (talk) 03:01, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

The version just before Leitner got involved is quite long and rambling though... (oldid=216771945) ... since it was substantially contributed by user:Abhasmitra...

The version before Mitra got involved is oldid=66444720... and contains no information about the ECO concept by Mitra that Schild developed his MECO concept on top of...

76.66.197.30 (talk) 03:13, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


There's always reverting to the version before Leitner went on his latest editing additions here, after the article had been cleaned by various editors post-Leitner's first set of weiners.... oldid=253967956 ... 76.66.197.30 (talk) 03:16, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Recent edits

The article seems to have undergone edits by an unregistered user who may have a stake in the hypothesis. It raises all the red flags: an attempt to discredit the opponent, and possibly selective quotations. It needs attention from an expert. - Mike Rosoft (talk) 14:44, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Honestly, this page should probably have been deleted. The topic is pretty WP:FRINGE, with most of the citations to Mitra's work being either self-citations or other fringy things. Sadly, consensus was (weakly) against that. That said, I agree with your assessment of recent edits, and have reverted them myself. As others said in that AFD request, I seriously doubt that anyone with enough expertise to properly edit this will appear. - Parejkoj (talk) 16:56, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

This article looks like it has gone through a lot of changes on both sides of the argument of whether it is fringe or not and it appears to me IMHO that it should be more neutral in its content if there is to be anything on the subject at all, because although I am no scientist it does not seem to represent to authors view of the MESO's at all. I am no scientist, but I am amazed by how many people that claim to be don't fully read alternative explanations before dismissing them out of hand. There are many fringe ideas out there, but this seems more like a alternative explanation rather than fringe. It seems to me that nearly all the editing is emotionally motivated rather than using reason to represent ideas. If a post is purported to be about a subject then at least try to represent the subject matter with a modicum of respect rather than pretending to be neutral when you won't even consider different interpretations of standard cosmology. (Believe it or not, I have no stake in this other than an intrest in alternative explanations that fit with GR) If you take out his equations, then don't add your own opinions contradicting his explanations and purporting it to represent his ideas.Please be neutral at least.Armchairphysicist (talk) 11:41, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

New data to consider

In my opinion; it would have been ironic if this page was deleted, just before important new work served to validate the ideas expressed herein. On the experimental front; a study of 76 radio-loud galaxies recently published in Nature letters Dynamically important magnetic fields near accreting supermassive black holes shows a level of magnetic force which, when extrapolated toward the event horizon, equals the gravitational attraction and magnetically levitates the accretion disk above the event horizon. On the theoretical front; top experts are now swinging around to the view that event horizons do not form, or are not as simple as they were imagined to be. A paper earlier this year by Stephen Hawking Information Preservation and Weather Forecasting for Black Holes suggests that there is no actual event horizon, but only apparent horizons - and this contradicts the view that there is a boundary one can cross over to get to the inside. This seems to have opened up the floodgates for researchers who would otherwise be reluctant to support such a view and recent papers by Carlo Rovelli, Jorge Pullin, and Laura Mersini-Houghton all assert basically the same thing for different reasons.

So it appears that; many of the assertions made by Mitra, Robinson, Schild, and Leiter are coming to be accepted by the mainstream. It may well be that the label MECOs will never replace the term Black Holes, and folks in the Astrophysics and Astronomy community certainly seem content to call them that. However; between the mounting experimental evidence for a strong magnetic field around Black Hole Candidates (assumed to be supermassive black holes as drivers of an Active Galactic Nucleus), may show conclusively that they are not Black Holes after all. One of the researchers, "Tchekhovskoy says the new results mean theorists must re-evaluate their understanding of black-hole behavior. “The magnetic fields are strong enough to dramatically alter how gas falls into black holes and how gas produces outflows that we do observe, much stronger than what has usually been assumed,” he says. “We need to go back and look at our models once again.”" But it is clear the model which labels these astronomical objects as MECOs makes predictions closely in accord with what is observed. JonathanD (talk) 04:24, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

That should be Robertson, not Robinson, above. JonathanD (talk) 04:48, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

I may have the expertise to help restore the neutrality of this entry, and to make it more rigorous and comprehensive - without having it sound like a sales pitch versus a heckler (which is about what we have now). I have attended more than a few lectures by experts on black holes (at international Physics conferences) and have corresponded with a few more. I have also had some personal interaction with Abhas Mitra, brief interaction with Daryl Leiter (before his demise), and contact with some of the other figures mentioned above. So while I do not have a stake in promoting the views of Robertson, Schild, and Mitra, I have at least taken the time to figure out what they are saying, and to actively research how this fits in with Relativity theory and with the mainstream views on Black Holes.

I will put in some time editing this page, when I get an opportunity. JonathanD (talk) 04:48, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

I have made some cosmetic changes to paragraph one of the article, and added Wikilink to the Eddington limit. I shall add a paragraph summarizing new experimental data and changes at the theoretical frontier, once it looks right offline. JonathanD (talk) 05:03, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Several edits were made, to this point, incorporating most of the content I referenced above. I shall continue inserting in-line references, and making general corrections where there are grammatical or factual errors. I have been going over some of the detractor comments, including a point by point review of comments made by Chris Hillman - in the newsgroup thread - cross-referencing to the texts he cites in support of the consensus or conventional view.

Some of Hillman's reasoning is sound (or rather his objections have merit), but it is apparent he never read some papers by Mitra for detail before looking for textbook examples refuting his views. Possibly; he read the abstract or introduction, then gave up. A.M. is asking the reader to set aside the textbook assumptions and consider something else. I think some of Mitra's core reasoning is sound and that Hillman misses the point, but I haven't worked through every objection yet either. So I will keep the objections in, for now, but figure out where I can trim what's outdated away. JonathanD (talk) 06:25, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Quantum gravity/Dimensional reduction; what can be said?

There is a lot which rests on questions about quantum gravity, such that there can be no final understanding of Black Holes, nor a determination of whether they are MECOs, Gravatars, Quark Stars, Planck Stars, or something else instead - without having some grasp of how Quantum Mechanics and Gravity come together. Steven Carlip suggested that there is a common element to several proposed QG formulations, which he calls Spontaneous Dimensional Reduction such that reality is 2-dimensional at the smallest scales. There is a lot to be said for this view. But it comes into play in a big way for the black hole event horizon question, which after all is where the whole dimensional reduction idea first came to be noted in Gerard 't Hooft's famous paper Dimensional Reduction in Quantum Gravity.

For the record; I've heard 't Hooft speak twice on black holes and quantum gravity, and had some personal discussions with him on related topics. I have also attended a lecture by Jorge Pullin, whom I cite in the article, and had some scholarly contact with him. But as Carlip points out; the 2-d behavior near the Planck scale is a feature not only of Loops, but also with Quantum Einstein gravity, Horava-Lifshitz gravity, Causal Dynamical Triangulations, and even in String Theory. Anyhow; Hawking and Ellis in "Large Scale Structure of the Universe" state that GR works well for a wide range from the size of the universe down to particle scale, which I seem to remember is around 10^-19 cm. Below that scale something curious happens; Relativity becomes undefined!!! Think about it; to have relativity you need objects with independent centers moving relative to each other. So where things are partially merged or overlapping, like in a Quark Gluon Plasma, or a BEC perhaps, there is a departure from relativistic predictability.

So the question of compactification on a dimensional boundary is germane to this discussion. Yhere is a problem, though. A full answer of the "what happens at a black hole event horizon?" question requires a working theory of quantum gravity. JonathanD (talk) 08:07, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Is this article Original research?

This entire thing sounds like Original Research. Do you have third party sources that make these connections? - Parejkoj (talk) 20:01, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for asking, or I beg your pardon! The words are my own creation, but not only my opinion. Writers for the popular press tend to be more emphatic, making sweeping generalizations like "Black Holes do not exist...", but that can't be trusted. I go back to sources first, actually reading the papers cited, and then cross reference that with standard references - because I have an extensive collection of Physics and Math textbooks and papers. On the issue of MECOs; I remain on the fence, while tending now to believe in their possibility, after trying to debunk the idea and failing. In trying to evaluate a subject like this, however, the main difficulty is in sorting out what is a change in terminology and where models actually differ.

I have put in a fair amount of study time looking into GR and Black Holes, and learning some Tensor Calculus (too little I'll admit). But I also ask tough questions of top experts and I've gotten some fairly detailed answers. The questions I asked Gerard 't Hooft about Lorentz invariance in theories of Quantum Gravity - between sessions at FFP10 - were actually given 4 or 5 slides in his talk at FFP11. And the answers to a question asked of Aurelien Barrau at FFP11 about what sort of evidence there might be for Loop Quantum Gravity, now that Astrophysical evidence has ruled out certain Lorentz invariance violations, pertain to the spectrum of Black Hole evaporation. But it's pretty amazing what you can learn at top-level conferences.

As it turns out; Barrau is one of the collaborators with Rovelli whom I plan to cite in the article, once I finish putting in on-line references. However; though I will readily admit having contact with a number of people already cited in the article, I have attempted to be encyclopedically journalistic - examining the evidence pro and con myself - without being swayed overmuch by any one person's opinion. I should perhaps state for the record, though, that there was a driving force to examine some of the issues around this matter - the correspondence of (Feynman's student) Steven Kenneth Kauffmann, who was insistent we work through the Math of a gravitational collapse from first principles yet again.

So, over several months (starting about a year ago) time I was CC'd (as issues and answers were discussed) while Steven communicated with a number of researchers whose work pertains including Robertson, Schild, Mitra, as well as George Chapline, Christian Corda and Tarun Biswas - attempting to spark a collaboration that did not materialize. Then about the time that effort had fizzled; this page appeared on the FQXi Forum.

Black Holes Do Not Exist, claims Mersini-Houghton

As you can see, if you visit; I have made several comments there, and there were comments and replies to questions by Abhas Mitra made there as well. It was from that dialog that I learned of recent work by George F.R. Ellis that likewise avoids a final collapse - suggesting that there is a bifurcated apparent horizon instead, where the inner shell is purely time-like and the outer shell is space-like. But again; it is not the standard Black Hole picture with a simple Event Horizon and a central singularity, and while it shares some characteristics of a Kerr-Newman black hole - there are subtle differences there as well. I don't know if that applies here (to the subject of MECOs) or not, but that work may be cited in the next paragraph - because it is a semi-Classical not a Quantum effect that blurs the horizon.

All the Best,

JonathanD (talk) 23:21, 20 November 2014 (UTC) JonathanD (talk) 23:22, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

I wanted to also mention. I found a very interesting paper by Evgenii Gaburov and colleagues, that pertains to MECOs or the detailed theory thereof.

Magnetically-levitating disks around supermassive black holes

While neither Zamaninasab et al. nor Eatough et al. cite Gaburov et al., it would appear that Gaburov and colleagues introduce some of the important concepts to the Astrophysics mainstream. That probably deserves a citation as well.

Cheers, JonathanD (talk) 23:34, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

After reviewing the Wikipedia page Wikipedia:No original research I can state unequivocally; my writing is not OR, but I also took pains to use my own wording, rather than to co-opt someone else's words on the topic. I have studiously avoided any plagiarism, while consistently making claims that are readily attributable in scientific journals, in respected periodicals of the physical sciences, or other similar sources. My words match claims made in the popular press, or in news releases, but I do not borrow their descriptions.

I have avoided using any blog or newsgroup references, in support of MECOs, though the detractors of this subject have not been so proper. Some of the popular press accounts of the work by Zamaninasab et al. make it sound like we must retire the notion that black holes exist at all, and they describe something very much like MECOs - though admittedly they do not use that term. My view is that if the Physics they are describing is identical, in terms of phenomenology, then it is ignorance to claim the term MECO never existed, or was meaningless. JonathanD (talk) 01:28, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

A comment to Parejkoj: I note that your area of expertise makes you well qualified to comment on this topic, but you seem unfairly predisposed against the notion that some or all Black Holes should be called MECOs instead. I do not dispute the theoretical possibility of Schwarzschild Black Holes, either as the universe's final singularity or in an isolated portion of space. However; if you believe the new work by G.F.R. Ellis and colleagues, it would have to be a space without a Cosmic Background Radiation - because otherwise the EH bifurcates to form a double shell, in a manner roughly similar to Kerr-Newman BHs. But they are not the same animal as a textbook Black Hole! In his and colleagues' new model, there is an empty shell with no central singularity whatsoever.

Perhaps you have been going to the wrong conferences, or things are enough different for scholars outside the US - that we are seeing two sides of the coin. My studies, research efforts, and conference attendance have always been to follow what's going on at the frontiers of the field, rather than yesterday's news. But I have a colleague at the Dark Side of the Universe conference right now, and Andy will certainly call on his return to tell me about yet more recent developments in Cosmology; only he's hoping all Emirates Air flights out of Capetown will not be grounded before he catches his flight out.

Your stance on this topic is clear. You commented above "Honestly, this page should probably have been deleted. The topic is pretty WP:FRINGE, with most of the citations to Mitra's work being either self-citations or other fringy things." But my reply a little further down was "In my opinion; it would have been ironic if this page was deleted, just before important new work served to validate the ideas expressed herein." I stand by that view. And I see clearly that the ideas of MECO proponents are having an impact - despite any flaws that may exist in the formulation - and even while people continue to call these things black holes. JonathanD (talk) 02:15, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Have detractors of MECOs used Original Research and Synthesis here?

An issue was raised that I might be engaging in Original Research and Synthesis, and I think instead that prior editors to this article have used Wikipedia as a platform to argue that the MECOs concept is wrong-headed, in excess of what doubt appears in any critique of this work in peer-reviewed journals. A careful reading of Crawford and Tereno reveals that the "wrong and widespread view" they accuse Mitra of is to believe at face value the statements made in textbooks by Zel'dovich and Novikov, Frolov and Novikov, and Shapiro and Teukolsky - "that the particle velocity v approaches the light velocity as the test particle approaches the surface of the black hole." So the main critique of Crawford and Tereno is that Mitra believed what was said in well-known textbooks. The way the paragraph is worded, however, makes it appear that Abhas Mitra is the culprit - and not the misleading statements made in the textbooks, which are known by some experts to be flawed.

The statement by Gilmore, in response to a Science writer in an interview, is absolutely proper to include as evidence that some scientists are skeptical of the views of MECO proponents. On the other hand; I tend to feel like the inclusion of the comments by Chris Hillman, which were referenced by John Baez in a newsgroup discussion, are likely someone's Original Research and/or Synthesis - engineered to make it appear that the work of Mitra, and by association Robertson, Leiter, and Schild, is widely acknowledged to be flawed. Perhaps the user comment above that the inclusion of that link was tendentious is reasonable; it is at least inflammatory, and quite possibly slanderous. I know that there is evidence to find, which supports the view that Mitra's work has flaws, but its inclusion is suspect, when it is likely that this construction is a fabrication to support the views of detractors, rather than stating a common belief of people in the Physics community (which is implied).

All of the critiques in the comments of Hillman send the message that everybody knows that black holes exist, that event horizons do form in every event of gravitational collapse, and that all black holes contain a central singularity. However; many of the experts are now saying that black holes do not exist (in the way we have been taught to think of them) because the objects we observe do not form an actual event horizon, and do not contain a central singularity. Oh, and there is one more thing too; what we do observe in nature has a strong magnetic field. So I guess the story goes that Black Holes were a useful fiction, or a mathematically exact limiting case to which physical systems are asymptotically drawn, but MECOs are real. In any case; they are a closer match to what is observed, than the conventional model. Whether the theory is popular or not, it is certainly fabrication to state it has been rejected without reasonably admissible evidence. JonathanD (talk) 01:53, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Quantum or Microscale NLED effects?

In the Nature News article by Zeeya Merali, about Stephen Hawking's paper on Black Holes and Weather forecasting, she comments that Stephen Hawking.. "one of the creators of modern black-hole theory, does away with the notion of an event horizon, the invisible boundary thought to shroud every black hole, beyond which nothing, not even light, can escape. In its stead, Hawking’s radical proposal is a much more benign “apparent horizon”, which only temporarily holds matter and energy prisoner before eventually releasing them, albeit in a more garbled form. “There is no escape from a black hole in classical theory,” Hawking told Nature. Quantum theory, however, “enables energy and information to escape from a black hole”. A full explanation of the process, the physicist admits, would require a theory that successfully merges gravity with the other fundamental forces of nature. But that is a goal that has eluded physicists for nearly a century. “The correct treatment,” Hawking says, “remains a mystery.”"

The thing is; MECO proponents assert that one does not need Quantum effects to halt the collapse, because adding non-linear terms to Classical theory gets one to the same result. The easiest way to explain this is by substituting the word Microscale for Quantum in the statements made by Hawking to the Nature reporter. Hawking states that one would need a working theory of Quantum Gravity to know exactly what goes on in the region of a black hole horizon, or where one would form. However; it would also work if one had in hand a larger theory from which Quantum Mechanics is emergent, or in which it is subsumed. Some top researchers like Gerard 't Hooft suggest it is better to look for a deeper theory, a Classical theory that engenders Quantum Mechanics, than to try to marry QM and Relativity together. However; folks like C. Corda and H. Mosquera-Cuesta, have used the MECOs model as a jumping off point - and are now working in the area of combining non-linear electrodynamics with Relativity, to evolve more precise models of black hole behavior. Notably; Mosquera-Cuesta is now working with well-known researcher Jonas P. Pereira.

So given that following this thread shows the MECO concept actually leads somewhere, or has influenced other research cited in the peer-reviewed journals; I still hope to add a paragraph about event horizon non-formation by Classical means. JonathanD (talk) 02:34, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

The matter-free regime; what can be said?

Here I raise the question of what happens when all of the matter is squeezed away or converted to energy (existing only as radiation), near where an event horizon would form (assuming for the moment that is possible). What are the properties of energy, in the matter-free regime? There is clearly a rationale for a push-back, or back-reaction due to the effusive nature of energy and its resistance to compression. The Eddington limit provides a clear mechanism by which inward and outward forces can be equalized to resist further infall, but a question arises of whether there is a point where we observe what could be called the liquefaction of energy - such that it behaves like an incompressible fluid past that point. There also is a rationale for an absolute limit to the compressibility of energy (ref. S.K. Kauffmann, C. Schiller), which controverts the notion that energy is uniformly like a photon gas, regardless of how it is squeezed or stretched. This, of course, introduces non-Maxwellian terms and/or non-linear Electrodynamics (abbrev. NLED).

I shall be adding a paragraph to the section on observational and theoretical developments, and some links to papers relating to NLED effects on black hole dynamics. As it turns out; there is a common thread with the topic of MECOs, in terms of a common pool of ideas and a cross-over of researchers with the NLED Black Hole group. I have in mind citing a paper by Christian Corda and Herman Mosquera-Cuesta, to illustrate this connection, so that Wikipedia readers can see there has indeed been a filtering of the ideas shaping the MECO concept into the mainstream of Black Hole research, even if the terminology and lineage of that work is not being preserved. I would guess that some researchers who were influenced by the work of Abhas Mitra, or that of Leiter, Robertson, and Schild, lack the courage to speak up on their behalf - but still draw inspiration from their ideas, and seek other ways to validate those concepts. It is far easier, it seems, to validate the halt of collapse using Quantum Mechanical fluctuations as the rationale, than it is to show that the same dynamics can be achieved by modifying Classical Electrodynamics by including non-linear terms - which experiments show are required. JonathanD (talk) 17:16, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

This still needs to be addressed. It is of crucial importance to the understanding of what MECOs are, that the reader is asked to consider what happens when all of the matter near the horizon (or where one would forms) has been converted into energy, or exists purely as radiation - without a material component. If MECOs exist; it is because the behavior of pure energy in the matter-free regime contains unexpected behaviors. This is to be expected, given the asymptotic freedom observed within a Quark Gluon Plasma. This phenomenon is why NLED comes into play, in the microscale, and it illustrates why the concentration of energy is non-linear at the upper extremum. JonathanD (talk) 02:57, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Is the dispute with this article a generational issue?

It occurs to me that some of the controversy surrounding the MECOs vs Black Holes question could be a generational issue. When I was first introduced to the concept in College, it was with the view that Black Holes are a theoretical possibility - unproven, but with some evidence they may exist. Now; it is simply assumed that Black Holes do exist, and it has become incumbent upon anyone who claims otherwise to support that view with both theory and evidence. The prevailing view has flipped, so that students are now taught that Black Holes do exist, and that other alternative views are only a theoretical possibility. However; I wonder how large a percentage of younger researchers were simply told to memorize the characteristics of Black Holes, without the need for any proof. That is; today's students are expected to assume Black Holes do exist, and to require proof of the possibility that what we observe is something else.

What I was taught is that it is unscientific to accept anybody else's opinion solely because they are an authority, and that any scientist worth his salt must be prepared to work through both calculations and the work of prior experts, before assuming that some ideas are proved. So it is my opinion that MECOs are getting a bad rap because younger researchers assume without conclusive proof that Black Holes exist, and have laid down the gauntlet for any challengers to that view. At the end of FFP11 in Paris, Physics professor Jaime Keller came up to me and asked "Why at an event like this, with Nobel laureates and other top scholars presenting, were there so many stupid questions?" I replied to him with an example from RPI Chem professor John Carter, that his students don't even want to understand the working principles, when he tries to explain things, but instead ask him to go on to citing the next equation to memorize. This implies the students have been taught to regard knowledge as a collection of facts, where the reality is that working principles of nature produce the facts we observe.

So let me be perfectly clear. I think good Science requires that researchers refrain from beliefs that arise solely from the celebrity of the source, that they regard knowledge more heuristically rather than as a collection of facts, and that they think things through for themselves. My guess is that most older researchers do this automatically, while many younger researchers are a product of Education founded largely on memorization, which by nature treats all knowledge as facts. I prefer to believe that for it to be called Science, we must be focused on the relations between observables, rather than imagining we know the facts about what is going on behind the scenes - especially when those facts are not in evidence.

Regards, JonathanD (talk) 16:51, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Nice strawman, dude.TR 23:12, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
No strawmen here Tim. I am a real person, trying to make sense of this, and hoping to restore fairness. I see you saw fit to delete the entire middle section, stating that "None if this has an credible relation to MECOs" and "no RS that links this with MECOs" I beg to differ. I honestly can't imagine what you were thinking to arrive at that point of reasoning. The explanation sounds rather far fetched, given what the content said. It seems you are unreasonably predisposed against the MECO model, rather than acting impartially. I took up that issue on your talk page, and I'll recap somewhat here. JonathanD (talk) 05:32, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

What else to include?

I wanted to mention that there are at least a few offshoots of the MECOs theory, among current researchers, even though the originators are now elderly gentlemen nearing retirement. I'd like to bring to your attention Removing black-hole singularities with nonlinear electrodynamics by Christian Corda and Herman Mosquera-Cuesta. This paper extends the ideas of MECO researchers through NLED, but it makes explicit reference to the earlier work of Mitra, Robertson, Leiter, and Schild (see page 6). And the work has continued past that point. Notably, Mosquera-Cuesta hosted a symposium on NLED Physics in Rhodes, Greece as part of the ICNAAM conference, earlier this year. According to my friend Andy Beckwith, who attended and presented there, it was quite a lively event. That hardly makes it sound like the subject is dead.

Even if folks like Tim could argue that Hawking's paper, for example, is not about MECOs - one could hardly argue that the paper by Corda and Mosquera-Cuesta is not a product of that work. JonathanD (talk) 06:19, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

And unlike the original synthesis I removed earlier that could be mentioned in the article.TR 09:28, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

What IS germane to include?

Since Tim saw fit to excise the whole section, I'd like to explain why it should be included, before I revert the deletion or add more content. In 2006, Rudolph Schild claimed to have found evidence of a magnetic field in an active galactic nucleus, and stated that this was evidence for the existence of MECOs, possibly signifying that they were not black holes. 6 years later Eatough et al. found evidence for strong magnetic fields at the center of the Milky Way, and Zamaninasab et al. found that 76 examples of a dynamically important field. I found several popular accounts stating that they observed that the field was strong enough to levitate accretion discs above the event horizon. It's true they use the term Black Hole, and that neither paper mentions MECOs, but it is rather narrow to assert that this means current day evidence that magnetic fields DO exist in galactic nuclei - just as Schild and colleagues claimed - is not admissible in this context. It is clear that current work verifies that strong magnetic fields do exist, exactly in accord with the predictions of MECO proponents.

Is someone stating that this is erroneous, or that the observed magnetism is not in agreement with those claims?

So what else do MECO proponents claim? They say that event horizons and central singularities do not exist. Why is it erroneous to state that now people like Hawking, Rovelli, Pullin, Mersini-Houghton, and even G.F.R. Ellis are coming to agree with those claims as well. It seems like some folks want to sweep under the carpet what appears to be legitimate evidence and pretend it does not have relevance to MECOs - so that this model may be discredited. While it is easier to rule out the admissibility of evidence than it is to question or disprove it, it was obviously used here as a weapon by Tim. This is NOT impartial, not merely an application of the Wiki guidelines, and not nice to the people who put their lives and reputations on the line to support this work in their academic lives.

So now a lot of theorists are saying there are no event horizons or singularities, and widespread observational evidence shows magnetic fields. Should we really keep calling them Black Holes in that case, and should we go on saying that the MECO model is fatally flawed - if the current evidence and latest theories validate what MECO proponents were claiming? JonathanD (talk) 06:08, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

A mouse is an animal, but not all animals are mice.
The fact that other people are making arguments that horizons may not exists, does not reduce the fact that the reasoning behind (M)ECOs is fundamentally flawed and based on total lack of understanding of GR. It is a fallacy, to claim that valid arguments made why quantum (or other modifications of GR) should avoid horizon and singularities support MECOs.TR 09:24, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
It is equally faulty to assert there is a fundamental flaw without a critique published in reputable journals, or coming out of Science journalism on related topics. I would also reverse the sense of your statement above to; it is a fallacy to DENY that valid arguments made why quantum effects or modifications of GR avoid singularities are validation for the claims of MECO proponents. If the claims jibe, the shoe fits, regardless of the basis. JonathanD (talk) 23:29, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
Pastafarianism claims that the universe expands the Flying Spaghetti Monster wills it so, as he needs more room to fly. Is the Big Bang theory a validation of the claims of Pastafarianism? Of course not. However, that is the logic that you are using here.TR 10:20, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

I took the liberty to write Zeeya Merali, whose article for Nature was cited in the section that Tim deleted, and I asked her to comment on the veracity, relevance, and adherence to journalistic standards of the content I added. I took a PDF snapshot of the article as it appeared last night, before Tim's excision. She has consented to comment, in a few days, and I'll post those comments here when they come. JonathanD (talk) 06:19, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Evidence of what?

Evidence of unexpectedly strong magnetic fields associated with black hole candidates has recently been added. Is this relevant? It has long been assumed that the origin of any such field would lie in the accretion disc of infalling matter, while both this and the more recent MECO model allow fields of widely varying strengths. I know of no sensible link between the observed high field strengths and the presence of MECOs, in that the presence of the one is no indicator of the other. But I am not an expert in this, so I could be missing something. Is this material indeed relevant to the article topic? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:52, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

That pretty much sums it up. Without a source making the connection between those observations and MECOs, making that connection in this article is WP:SYNTH.TR 10:34, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
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