Are Black Holes Actually Fuzzballs?

Black holes are a paradox. They are paradoxical because they simultaneously must exist but can’t, and so they break physics as we know it. Many physicists will tell you that the best way to fix broken physics is with string. String theory, in fact. And in the black holes of string theory - fuzzballs - are perhaps even weirder than the regular type.

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[InfinitiesLoop]

The best thing about PBS Space Time is that I feel like I’m being taken along the journey of discovery that even the cutting edge physicists are on. It’s not just a channel to learn about already accepted physics. It’s exploration. Thought-provoking. Thank you.

[PseudoPseudoDionysius]

(As a humanities scholar with a brain too tiny to fully grasp the nuances of this sort of thing) there’s something actually great about the way this show never patronises its audience by simplifying the ideas to the point of distortion. It refuses to pretend really complicated scientific topics are simple without handwaving the facts away, and still produce something compelling enough to *want to* grasp.

These videos always remind me how if you’ve learned something interesting but you’re still kind of confused, that’s actually a good thing, because it means you haven’t been duped into thinking you understand something which you really don’t. There’s a certain humility that intellectual challenge breeds that’s really valuable.

[Traventine]

The answer "there is no inside of a black hole" makes so much more sense to me than "there is an inside of a black hole but it's causally disconnected from our universe and space acts like time and time acts like space and there's an impossible dot at the center that breaks physics"

[LucasHenderson]

I worry everyone's ignoring the most important take-away: Black holes may actually be Flying Spaghetti Monsters.

[aguywithanopinion]

I've been waiting for a video like this for ages. How could a black hole possibly have an interior considering nothing can ever get there from our perspective? This video clarifies so many issues with black holes. I'm now officially a string theory fan.

[Jawnderlust]

The level of quality in all the PBS Space Time videos is astoundingly consistently astounding. Kudos to the entire team and the contributing community.

[michaelniederer]

5-stars: "You know what actually doesn't exist? Paradoxes."

[stapler]

That feeling when your quantum objects decide to take "fuzzy logic" to a most literal degree.

[Vastin]

So, one of the really fascinating things about a black hole with no interior is that it transforms from one of the simplest objects in the universe (as described by classical GR), to one of the most complex objects in the universe.
If you have a sphere with no interior, with all its 'information' encoded on the event horizon, that means that not only are two points next to each other on that 'surface' adjacent to each other - but presumably EVERY point on the entire surface is effectively adjacent to every other point? Choose any two points on the surface, and they will be adjacent to each other, because there is no interior volume to keep them apart from each other. The two sides of the black hole that we perceive to be kilometres or even light hours apart are in fact directly adjacent to each other.
This means that every particle (or bit, or stringy waveform or whatever), can in principle be interacting with every other one, all at once, in the most massive objects in the universe. What's the theoretical computational output of something like that? It would help explain the maximal entropy...

[ms-dswv]

This was one of the better string theory episodes, I think that the discussion of whether string theory is right or not is kind of beside the point. The real value in theoretic models like string theory is that it offers alternative views and solutions that can be important stepping stones for inspiring future theoretic models that can be tested. We have seen this before with theories like the one electron universe.

Really hoping for more episodes on thermodynamics and especially how statistical thermodynamics is useful.

Also how about an episode on the challenges with designing commercial fusion reactors for power production. Like comparing the differences between how fusion happens in the core of stars and in reactors, how parameters like pressure litteraly differs atronomically in scale.

[APaleDot]

You're telling me a man named Cumrun developed a theory where what we thought were holes are actually hairy balls.
You can't make this stuff up.

[neonparisian]

This channel inspired me to major in physics. Thank you so much for exposing me to so many exciting and wonderful ideas. I’m in my sophomore year of college right now and I hope to go to graduate school, it’s all thanks to pbs space time and my high school physics teacher. 🙏

[LookToWindward]

I’m becoming much less of a string theory skeptic after watching these videos. There still might not be any direct observational evidence, but the theoretical “coincidences” are piling up fast.

[Tubluer]

It seems to me that anyone with a well-developed intuition for physics would immediately sense the likely correctness of the fuzzball model. How could a model the incorporates multi-dimensional cats, hairballs and black holes possibly be wrong?

[WildStar]

Woah! I made that! 7:17 😁 Imagine my surprise to see something so strangely familiar while watching one of my favorite YouTube channels! 🤔 Awesome! 🤭 Thanks and keep putting up such excellent content! 😄

[neopalm]

"Its interior isn't empty, its interior doesn't exist."

[AThagoras]

"You know what doesn't exist? Actual paradoxes." Yes.

[StormShadow]

Ok, having seen the furballs might cats produce I can agree with these theories. The gravitational attraction they exhibit towards carpet fibres is enormous and makes it almost impossible to remove them.

[michaelkaliski]

Answers to any problem can be obtained by applying string theory. The problem then becomes one of picking the correct answer from an infinite number of possibilities.

[MSheepdog]

Do I remember you mentioning once that the total information held in a black hole was based on its surface area not its volume? If so that matches pretty well with the whole 'fuzzballs have no inside' thing.