Quote:
Originally Posted by CraigS
I read this, and the rationale for this concept, somewhere recently -a Susskind book, I think.
Interesting to note that at sometime in the early days, it probably started off small so, at that time, it must've also had a big effect on everything around it. Perhaps plain old Newtonian momentum has continued the dynamics into the present day and that's what we're seeing.
The question here would seem to be: How big an impact has this original state made, in comparison with other subsequent effects (eg: gravitational attraction between objects trailing & leading in the arms, collisions with other galaxies, etc). Yet another scale question, I think.
Interesting.
Cheers
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A small hole has a very high spacetime gradient, hence the tidal forces present are extremely large...the smaller the hole the greater the tidal forces, so despite it being far less massive than the whopper in the centre of a galaxy, a stellar mass hole has an event horizon which is very close to the centre of the hole (the centre of mass) and because of this the gravitational field, the spacetime curvature and the tidal forces are extreme in comparison.
It'd be like if you packed all of Jupiter's mass into a body the size of the Moon. Even though the subsequent body would still be much less massive than the Sun and much smaller physically, the gravitational field of that smaller object would be much more intense than the Sun's and the gravitational acceleration at its surface would be considerably higher.