plese spellcheck the next subtitle, keeping the time codes unchanged:

1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,156
Okay, strap
yourselves in listeners.

2
00:00:02,256 --> 00:00:06,020
Today, we're diving headfirst into the
cosmic enigmas that are black holes.

3
00:00:06,021 --> 00:00:10,060
And they're even stranger
counterparts, white holes.

4
00:00:10,200 --> 00:00:12,520
And you've come to the right place
for a journey like this.

5
00:00:13,020 --> 00:00:14,940
We're going beyond the usual
black hole basics.

6
00:00:15,700 --> 00:00:17,480
You know, I thought I had
a handle on black holes,

7
00:00:17,481 --> 00:00:19,698
but looking at your
notes, I realized there's a

8
00:00:19,699 --> 00:00:21,800
whole lot more weirdness
than I ever imagined.

9
00:00:22,140 --> 00:00:24,440
It's true. Black holes really
push the limits

10
00:00:24,441 --> 00:00:27,007
of what we know about
the universe. Think

11
00:00:27,008 --> 00:00:29,561
about it. They emerge
from the death of stars.

12
00:00:29,780 --> 00:00:34,660
Warp the fabric of space and time itself.
And might even hold clues to

13
00:00:34,661 --> 00:00:37,040
a deeper understanding of,
well, everything.

14
00:00:37,460 --> 00:00:39,295
See, that's what always
blows my mind. The sheer

15
00:00:39,319 --> 00:00:41,420
scale, the power, it's
almost too much to grasp.

16
00:00:42,240 --> 00:00:44,920
So maybe we should start with some basics,
just to ground ourselves.

17
00:00:45,220 --> 00:00:47,520
What exactly happens for
a black hole to even form?

18
00:00:47,920 --> 00:00:52,140
All right, picture this. A massive star,
way bigger than our sun,

19
00:00:52,420 --> 00:00:55,760
reaching the end of its life. It's like
a cosmic balancing act playing out.

20
00:00:55,761 --> 00:00:58,042
Oh, I like where this is
going. Right. You've got gravity,

21
00:00:58,580 --> 00:01:01,320
this relentless force trying to
crush the star inwards.

22
00:01:01,360 --> 00:01:03,700
But at the same time,
you have nuclear fusion happening

23
00:01:03,701 --> 00:01:05,380
in its core,
pushing outward.

24
00:01:05,900 --> 00:01:10,340
Okay, so it's a cosmic tug of war. Got it.
Exactly. For most of the star's life,

25
00:01:10,500 --> 00:01:11,540
those forces are balanced.

26
00:01:12,160 --> 00:01:15,508
But when the star runs at a fuel, the
outward pressure from fusion, it stops.

27
00:01:15,509 --> 00:01:18,480
And gravity. Gravity wins.

28
00:01:18,940 --> 00:01:21,083
Yeah. The core collapses
in on itself. It's like turning

29
00:01:21,084 --> 00:01:23,300
off the engine's mid -flight.
Gravity just takes over.

30
00:01:23,301 --> 00:01:27,540
So what happens when everything collapses?
That's where things get really wild.

31
00:01:28,400 --> 00:01:32,020
The core of this massive star,
it shrinks down to an

32
00:01:32,021 --> 00:01:34,980
incredibly small point,
smaller than an atom.

33
00:01:35,640 --> 00:01:38,540
We call this point a singularity.
And here's the kicker.

34
00:01:39,680 --> 00:01:44,200
All of the star's mass gets concentrated
into this tiny infinitesimal point.

35
00:01:44,340 --> 00:01:47,920
Hold on. All that mass squeezed
into something infinitely small.

36
00:01:48,180 --> 00:01:49,680
I think I need a moment to process this.

37
00:01:49,681 --> 00:01:52,405
It's mind-bending, isn't
it? And surrounding this

38
00:01:52,406 --> 00:01:54,381
singularity is where we
find the event horizon.

39
00:01:55,020 --> 00:01:57,340
You can think of it as a point in
no return. Because once you

40
00:01:57,341 --> 00:01:59,480
cross that boundary,
there's no escaping the gravity.

41
00:01:59,820 --> 00:02:02,360
You got it. Not even the light.
The fastest thing in the universe can

42
00:02:02,361 --> 00:02:05,001
outrun the pull of a black hole
once it crosses that event horizon.

43
00:02:05,360 --> 00:02:08,840
Imagine a cosmic trap door once you
fall in. There's no coming back.

44
00:02:09,140 --> 00:02:12,340
So we've got collapsing stars,
singularities,

45
00:02:12,740 --> 00:02:15,620
these event horizons. It's a lot
to wrap your head around.

46
00:02:15,621 --> 00:02:18,875
But, and maybe this is a
bit of a leap, don't we have a

47
00:02:18,876 --> 00:02:21,541
super massive black hole right
in our own galactic backyard?

48
00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:25,800
We do. Lurking at the very heart
of our Milky Way galaxy,

49
00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:27,700
we have Sagittarius A.

50
00:02:28,140 --> 00:02:30,571
And get this, we
actually have an image of

51
00:02:30,572 --> 00:02:32,760
it captured by the
event horizon telescope.

52
00:02:33,020 --> 00:02:34,796
Wait, there's an actual picture
of a black hole?

53
00:02:34,820 --> 00:02:37,694
There is. Of course, you can't
directly see the black hole itself.

54
00:02:37,695 --> 00:02:39,420
It's black, after all,
no light escapes.

55
00:02:40,060 --> 00:02:44,140
But the image shows us its shadow,
this dark silhouette against a

56
00:02:44,141 --> 00:02:46,920
backdrop of glowing
gas and dust swirling around it.

57
00:02:46,940 --> 00:02:48,696
That's incredible. But it does
make you wonder,

58
00:02:48,720 --> 00:02:51,721
if we can't directly see them, how do we
even know these black holes are out there?

59
00:02:51,820 --> 00:02:53,300
It's not like they send us postcards.

60
00:02:53,380 --> 00:02:56,820
It takes some cosmic detective work.
We detect their presence

61
00:02:56,821 --> 00:02:59,440
by observing how they affect
the stuff around them.

62
00:03:00,280 --> 00:03:04,021
Take Cygnus X-1, for example. It was one
of the first black holes ever discovered.

63
00:03:04,260 --> 00:03:06,660
Oh yeah, I've heard of that
one. It's a binary system, right?

64
00:03:06,661 --> 00:03:09,275
Exactly. Cygnus X-1
is a black hole locked in

65
00:03:09,276 --> 00:03:11,801
a gravitational dance
with a companion star.

66
00:03:12,260 --> 00:03:15,140
As the black hole pulls in
material from its stellar partner,

67
00:03:15,840 --> 00:03:19,360
that material spirals inward,
kind of like water going down a drain.

68
00:03:20,260 --> 00:03:22,980
And that's where things get
really interesting and bright.

69
00:03:23,320 --> 00:03:25,620
So we've got this black
hole pulling in material,

70
00:03:25,621 --> 00:03:29,080
creating this swirling disk of
superheated matter around it.

71
00:03:29,160 --> 00:03:32,860
It's like a cosmic whirlpool. And this
is where things get really bright, right?

72
00:03:32,861 --> 00:03:36,480
Exactly. All that matter swirling around
in the accretion disk.

73
00:03:37,100 --> 00:03:40,100
It heats up to millions of degrees,
partly from friction,

74
00:03:40,600 --> 00:03:43,160
partly from the intense gravity of
the black hole itself.

75
00:03:43,280 --> 00:03:46,920
Wow, millions of degrees. That's kind of
be giving off some serious energy.

76
00:03:47,100 --> 00:03:50,987
It does. And that energy is what
tips us off to the black hole's presence.

77
00:03:51,047 --> 00:03:53,780
See, all that superheated
matter in the accretion disk,

78
00:03:54,380 --> 00:03:55,400
it emits x-rays.

79
00:03:56,340 --> 00:03:58,100
And we can detect those x
-rays here on Earth.

80
00:03:58,101 --> 00:04:01,920
So it's like a cosmic spotlight,
but instead of visible light,

81
00:04:02,420 --> 00:04:04,920
it's x-rays revealing the
black hole's location.

82
00:04:05,440 --> 00:04:07,500
You could say that.
It's like trying to understand a

83
00:04:07,501 --> 00:04:10,320
hidden object by the way
it affects its surroundings.

84
00:04:11,320 --> 00:04:13,493
We can't see the black
hole directly, but we

85
00:04:13,494 --> 00:04:15,880
can see its influence
on the material around it.

86
00:04:15,920 --> 00:04:17,556
That's a really cool way
to think about it.

87
00:04:17,580 --> 00:04:21,000
So it's not just that black holes are
these isolated things out there in space.

88
00:04:21,460 --> 00:04:23,160
They're actually interacting with
their surroundings

89
00:04:23,161 --> 00:04:25,960
in these really dramatic,
energetic ways.

90
00:04:25,961 --> 00:04:29,340
Absolutely. And those interactions,
they can get really interesting.

91
00:04:29,800 --> 00:04:32,920
Sometimes they even challenge what
we thought we knew about black holes.

92
00:04:33,580 --> 00:04:36,720
For example, did you
know that black holes?

93
00:04:36,900 --> 00:04:38,440
Well, they aren't
entirely black.

94
00:04:38,780 --> 00:04:42,387
Wait, hold on. I thought nothing. Not
even light could escape a black hole.

95
00:04:42,388 --> 00:04:43,840
Isn't that kind of
their whole deal?

96
00:04:44,080 --> 00:04:46,520
That was the prevailing thought
for a long time.

97
00:04:47,120 --> 00:04:51,240
Then along came Stephen Hawking and kind
of turned our understanding on its head.

98
00:04:51,540 --> 00:04:53,360
Oh, this is going to be good. I can tell.

99
00:04:53,361 --> 00:04:57,200
Right. So Hawking,
he proposed that black holes actually

100
00:04:57,201 --> 00:05:00,537
emit a type of radiation.
It's faint, but it's there.

101
00:05:00,538 --> 00:05:02,001
We call it Hawking radiation.

102
00:05:02,300 --> 00:05:04,840
Okay, now my mind is blown.
How can anything escape from

103
00:05:04,841 --> 00:05:07,220
a place where gravity is
supposed to be inescapable?

104
00:05:07,580 --> 00:05:10,000
It all comes down to the
weird world of quantum mechanics.

105
00:05:10,900 --> 00:05:14,240
You see, at the event horizon,
right at the edge of a black hole,

106
00:05:14,560 --> 00:05:16,460
you have these things
called virtual particles.

107
00:05:17,320 --> 00:05:19,220
They're constantly popping in and
out of existence.

108
00:05:19,221 --> 00:05:21,840
For virtual particles? Are you talking
about ghost particles now?

109
00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:25,360
Kind of. They're more like
fluctuations in quantum fields.

110
00:05:26,200 --> 00:05:28,561
Pairs of particles
and antiparticles that

111
00:05:28,562 --> 00:05:31,020
usually annihilate each
other almost immediately.

112
00:05:31,580 --> 00:05:36,440
Okay, so far, so good. But how does this
lead to anything escaping from a black hole?

113
00:05:36,700 --> 00:05:38,115
All right, picture this.

114
00:05:38,116 --> 00:05:42,860
A particle -antiparticle pair pops into
existence right at the event horizon.

115
00:05:43,540 --> 00:05:45,660
Sometimes one of these particles
falls into the black

116
00:05:45,661 --> 00:05:47,840
hole while the other escapes
off into space.

117
00:05:47,841 --> 00:05:51,300
And because they were born together,
right at that critical point,

118
00:05:51,760 --> 00:05:53,640
the escaping particle can make
a run for it.

119
00:05:53,980 --> 00:05:56,700
Precisely. The escaping particle
becomes real,

120
00:05:56,701 --> 00:05:59,720
carrying away a tiny bit of the
black hole's energy with it.

121
00:06:00,160 --> 00:06:01,560
And here's where Einstein comes in.

122
00:06:02,120 --> 00:06:06,160
Energy and mass are equivalent,
remember? EM-S-EOS mole.

123
00:06:06,440 --> 00:06:07,440
Oh, right, of course.

124
00:06:07,640 --> 00:06:09,640
So when the particle escapes with
a bit of energy,

125
00:06:10,140 --> 00:06:13,720
the black hole actually loses a tiny,
tiny bit of mass.

126
00:06:13,721 --> 00:06:17,660
Whoa. So even though nothing can escape
from inside the event horizon,

127
00:06:17,661 --> 00:06:20,867
this quantum quirkiness
happening at the edge

128
00:06:20,868 --> 00:06:22,860
allows them to leak
a little bit of energy.

129
00:06:23,040 --> 00:06:26,000
You got it. And over ridiculously
long periods of time,

130
00:06:26,260 --> 00:06:28,140
way longer than the current
age of the universe,

131
00:06:28,700 --> 00:06:32,660
this hawking radiation could actually
cause a black hole to completely evaporate.

132
00:06:32,780 --> 00:06:35,220
Black holes aren't eternal,
they could just fade away.

133
00:06:35,740 --> 00:06:37,016
That's kind of beautiful in a way.

134
00:06:37,040 --> 00:06:39,097
It is, isn't it? But
it also leads to a

135
00:06:39,197 --> 00:06:40,780
pretty big puzzle, the
information paradox.

136
00:06:40,781 --> 00:06:42,700
Uh-oh. What's that?

137
00:06:43,080 --> 00:06:45,292
Well, if black holes can
evaporate, what happens

138
00:06:45,293 --> 00:06:47,480
at all the information
that fell into them?

139
00:06:47,840 --> 00:06:50,040
Everything that gets sucked in,
stars, planets,

140
00:06:50,480 --> 00:06:52,300
even light, it all carries information.

141
00:06:52,640 --> 00:06:54,436
That's a good point.
So what happens to it all?

142
00:06:54,460 --> 00:06:57,160
That's the paradox.
According to quantum mechanics,

143
00:06:57,520 --> 00:06:59,420
information can't be truly destroyed.

144
00:07:00,360 --> 00:07:04,140
It might get scrambled up,
but it's always conserved in some form.

145
00:07:04,780 --> 00:07:06,718
So if a black hole
evaporates completely, does

146
00:07:06,719 --> 00:07:09,340
that mean all that
information is just gone?

147
00:07:09,341 --> 00:07:12,200
That doesn't seem right. It's one of
the biggest mysteries in physics.

148
00:07:13,040 --> 00:07:15,320
The information paradox highlights
a potential

149
00:07:15,321 --> 00:07:19,220
conflict between general relativity,
which governs black holes,

150
00:07:19,640 --> 00:07:21,700
and quantum mechanics,
which governs information.

151
00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:25,960
It's like needing a cosmic rule book to
tell us which one wins out in this scenario.

152
00:07:26,380 --> 00:07:29,260
Exactly. There are lots of
proposed solutions out there.

153
00:07:29,780 --> 00:07:33,620
Some involve the information being encoded
in the hawking radiation itself.

154
00:07:34,340 --> 00:07:36,167
Others suggest it might
be stored within the

155
00:07:36,168 --> 00:07:38,260
black hole in some way
we don't yet understand.

156
00:07:38,660 --> 00:07:40,720
So the jury's still out on this one.

157
00:07:40,860 --> 00:07:43,520
It is a head scratcher.
It's a problem that continues

158
00:07:43,521 --> 00:07:46,680
to fascinate physicists and frustrate
them in equal measure.

159
00:07:47,320 --> 00:07:49,540
But hey, maybe you'll be the
one to crack the code.

160
00:07:49,660 --> 00:07:53,000
Ha! Don't hold your breath.
But speaking of things that

161
00:07:53,001 --> 00:07:55,500
might not exist,
can we talk about white holes now?

162
00:07:56,180 --> 00:07:58,060
We've been dancing around
the mall episode.

163
00:07:58,340 --> 00:08:01,900
Of course. Buckle up. Because if you
thought black holes were strange,

164
00:08:02,300 --> 00:08:03,900
white holes are about to get even weirder.

165
00:08:03,901 --> 00:08:07,460
Okay, white holes. They're kind of like
the mysterious cousins of black holes,

166
00:08:07,461 --> 00:08:10,240
shrouded in a whole other
level of weirdness, right?

167
00:08:10,700 --> 00:08:14,085
Think of it this way.
What if we hit the rewind

168
00:08:14,086 --> 00:08:16,600
button on everything we
know about black holes?

169
00:08:17,680 --> 00:08:20,540
That's essentially the concept behind
a white hole.

170
00:08:21,360 --> 00:08:23,584
A region in space time
where matter and energy

171
00:08:23,585 --> 00:08:25,581
are constantly being
interjected outward.

172
00:08:26,940 --> 00:08:29,020
And nothing. Absolutely nothing can enter.

173
00:08:29,021 --> 00:08:31,519
It's like a black hole
flipped inside out. Instead of

174
00:08:31,619 --> 00:08:33,780
pulling everything in, it's
pushing everything away.

175
00:08:34,140 --> 00:08:36,350
That's a great way to
put it. You see, a black

176
00:08:36,351 --> 00:08:38,520
hole's event horizon
is a point of no return.

177
00:08:39,300 --> 00:08:42,660
But a white hole, if they exist,
would have an event horizon that

178
00:08:42,661 --> 00:08:44,700
acts like a barrier,
a point of no entry.

179
00:08:45,020 --> 00:08:47,060
That's a pretty wild concept.
But here's a thought,

180
00:08:47,280 --> 00:08:50,880
and maybe it's just me, but if
they're like the opposite of black holes,

181
00:08:51,600 --> 00:08:53,840
and we've got evidence of black
holes all over the place,

182
00:08:53,980 --> 00:08:55,920
shouldn't we have stumbled upon a
white hole by now?

183
00:08:55,921 --> 00:08:58,400
That's the catch with white
holes. They're purely theoretical.

184
00:08:59,220 --> 00:09:02,200
We're working with concepts and equations,
not concrete observations.

185
00:09:02,900 --> 00:09:06,400
We haven't actually observed anything that
definitively points to their existence.

186
00:09:06,800 --> 00:09:10,200
So they're more of a what if
a mathematical possibility rather than

187
00:09:10,201 --> 00:09:13,220
something where certain exists out there
in the vast universe?

188
00:09:13,440 --> 00:09:15,900
Exactly. There are also some
pretty big hurdles,

189
00:09:15,940 --> 00:09:18,640
even conceptually,
when it comes to white holes.

190
00:09:18,641 --> 00:09:24,040
Like their very existence seems to clash
with a fundamental law of physics,

191
00:09:25,140 --> 00:09:26,460
the second law of thermodynamics.

192
00:09:26,820 --> 00:09:29,040
Oh, right, thermodynamics.
Remind me about that again.

193
00:09:29,220 --> 00:09:30,793
Well, the second law
basically states that

194
00:09:30,794 --> 00:09:33,480
entropy always increases
in a closed system.

195
00:09:34,060 --> 00:09:38,520
Entropy is like a measure of disorder.
Things tend to get messier over time.

196
00:09:38,680 --> 00:09:41,600
Right, like a cup of coffee
getting cold or neat

197
00:09:41,601 --> 00:09:43,760
stack of papers scattering all
over my desk.

198
00:09:44,320 --> 00:09:47,540
Precisely. Entropy always increases.
A white hole,

199
00:09:47,680 --> 00:09:52,260
though, would be like that messy
room spontaneously cleaning itself up.

200
00:09:52,700 --> 00:09:55,407
Everything neatly ejected
and organized. It kind

201
00:09:55,408 --> 00:09:57,460
of goes against the
natural order of things.

202
00:09:57,860 --> 00:09:59,920
So white holes,
they seem to go against

203
00:09:59,921 --> 00:10:03,920
the natural flow of, well, everything.
That's a pretty big strike against them.

204
00:10:04,100 --> 00:10:06,980
It definitely raises eyebrows.
For a white hole to exist,

205
00:10:07,220 --> 00:10:09,440
we might have to rethink
some pretty fundamental physics.

206
00:10:09,441 --> 00:10:12,120
But, and this is where
it gets really interesting,

207
00:10:12,480 --> 00:10:15,520
some physicists believe that white holes
could be connected to black

208
00:10:15,521 --> 00:10:19,540
holes through these theoretical tunnels in
space-time called wormholes.

209
00:10:19,820 --> 00:10:23,420
Whoa, okay, now we're talking wormhole
shortcuts through the universe. I'm all ears.

210
00:10:23,840 --> 00:10:27,240
It's highly speculative,
I'll admit. But imagine a black hole

211
00:10:27,241 --> 00:10:30,060
and a white hole connected
at their singularities,

212
00:10:30,360 --> 00:10:31,740
forming this cosmic tunnel.

213
00:10:32,400 --> 00:10:35,472
Matter falling into the
black hole could theoretically

214
00:10:35,473 --> 00:10:39,040
journey through this wormhole
and pop out the other side

215
00:10:39,041 --> 00:10:41,500
from the white hole,
maybe even ending up in a different part

216
00:10:41,501 --> 00:10:43,520
of the universe or
another universe entirely.

217
00:10:43,960 --> 00:10:46,680
So it's like a cosmic subway system.
Black holes are the entrances,

218
00:10:47,140 --> 00:10:49,160
white holes are the exits. I love it.

219
00:10:49,780 --> 00:10:52,940
You've got quite the imagination.
That's a very simplified analogy.

220
00:10:53,420 --> 00:10:54,620
But you've got the right idea.

221
00:10:54,980 --> 00:10:58,180
Of course, this is all very theoretical,
almost bordering on science fiction.

222
00:10:58,640 --> 00:11:01,140
We haven't even
found concrete evidence of wormholes yet,

223
00:11:01,500 --> 00:11:02,860
let alone their connection to white holes.

224
00:11:02,861 --> 00:11:05,500
I guess it's all part of
the grand cosmic mystery.

225
00:11:06,220 --> 00:11:08,960
Even if they do turn out to be
just a product of our imagination,

226
00:11:09,480 --> 00:11:13,241
the fact that we can even conceive of white
holes is pretty amazing, don't you think?

227
00:11:13,500 --> 00:11:15,179
Makes you wonder
what other mind-voggling

228
00:11:15,180 --> 00:11:17,760
possibilities are out there
waiting to be discovered.

229
00:11:18,360 --> 00:11:21,694
I completely agree. And that's
the beauty of science, isn't it?

230
00:11:21,695 --> 00:11:24,080
Whether or not white
holes actually exist,

231
00:11:24,960 --> 00:11:28,160
grappling with these concepts pushes the
boundaries of our understanding.

232
00:11:28,161 --> 00:11:31,280
It sparks new questions,
leads to new insights.

233
00:11:31,780 --> 00:11:33,020
It's all part of the adventure.

234
00:11:33,200 --> 00:11:35,820
That's a great way to put it.
The universe is full of mysteries,

235
00:11:35,821 --> 00:11:38,140
and we're just beginning to
scratch the surface.

236
00:11:38,640 --> 00:11:41,080
While on that note,
I think we've done some serious exploring

237
00:11:41,081 --> 00:11:43,440
in the realm of black holes
and white holes today.

238
00:11:43,920 --> 00:11:47,000
We've covered a lot of ground.
The formation of black holes,

239
00:11:47,540 --> 00:11:50,520
the theoretical world of white holes,
and even touched on the

240
00:11:50,521 --> 00:11:53,660
search for a theory
of everything. It's a lot to digest.

241
00:11:53,661 --> 00:11:56,320
It certainly is. And for our listeners,
remember,

242
00:11:56,840 --> 00:12:00,400
the universe is full of wonder,
and there's always more to discover.

243
00:12:00,780 --> 00:12:03,340
So keep those questions coming,
and who knows what incredible

244
00:12:03,341 --> 00:12:06,600
things you might uncover
until next time on The Deep Dive.