by Warren Dean
THE TREASURE HUNTERS
A lost treasure more valuable than any ever found…
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RETURN OF THE TREASURE HUNTERS
An explosive secret passed on to an eldest son…
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MASSACHUSETTS
A horse, a race, a deadly challenge…
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THE FOREVER GENE
A fresh, powerful story of first contact with extra-terrestrials – an advanced alien race intent on showing the people of Earth a better way of living…
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FORTHCOMING ATTRACTION
THE DREL WARS
The further adventures of David Herald, Qara-Chinua, Katya Kasparova, Translator Vi, and their friends and enemies…
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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AFTERWORD
OF SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES
Descriptions of black holes abound with all manner of weird and wonderful terms, such as singularity, event horizon, escape velocity, Schwarzschild radius, accretion disk, radio jets, and the like. This makes the concept of a black hole seem very complex.
Once you sift through the jargon, however, it turns out that a black hole is a relatively simple thing. It is a point in space where an extremely large amount of matter has been compressed into a very small area. This is known as a singularity. Because a singularity has such a dense mass (stellar black holes are generally 10 to 24 times the mass of our sun) it has incredibly strong gravity.
Theory dictates that gravity compresses a singularity into a point of zero volume and infinite density, which is an extremely difficult concept to imagine. Unsurprisingly, it is accepted that the ordinary laws of physics don't apply in there. (Scotty was wrong when he said that "ye cannae change the laws of physics.")
The strength of the gravity increases the nearer one gets to the singularity. In order for an object to break free at any particular point, it has to generate enough speed to counter the gravity at that point. The speed required is known as escape velocity. This is why it takes a rocket and a lot of fuel to launch anything into space from the surface of the Earth.
The event horizon is the point at which the gravity is so strong that an object would have to go faster than light to be able to escape. And because nothing can go faster than light, nothing can ever escape from beyond the event horizon.
An event horizon can be thought of as an imaginary sphere surrounding the singularity. Its radius is known as the Schwarzschild radius. Not even light can escape once it has entered this sphere, which is why a black hole itself cannot be seen – there is no light or other radiation emanating from within the sphere which can be detected by our telescopes.
All that can be observed are phenomena within the black hole's accretion disc. An accretion disk is a rotating ring of matter (gas, dust, stars, and even other black holes) around the black hole which is in the process of being drawn inwards. This material heats up and emits radiation, like x-rays and gamma rays which can be seen from Earth.
The concept is illustrated by the first photograph of a black hole, which was released in May 2019. The image is of a ring of heated gas within the black hole's accretion disk. The black hole itself is not visible other than as, well, a black hole in the middle.
So, to put it as simply as possible, a black hole is, literally, a black hole.
But what about the question at the centre of Last of the Treasure Hunters; can someone survive crossing the event horizon of a black hole and live to tell the tale? The answer to that is not as definite as you might think.
Anyone being drawn into a stellar black hole would experience a delightful effect known as spaghettification. The closer you get to the centre, the harder the pull of gravity. So, if you are going in feet first, the pull on your feet is stronger than the pull on your head. As you near the event horizon, the difference becomes so great that it draws you out into a string of spaghetti and eventually tears you apart.
The answer to the question must be no, then? Not quite.
Apparently, spaghettification doesn't happen to you if you enter a supermassive black hole. A supermassive black hole is exactly what it says on the tin; a black hole which is generally millions, sometimes billions, of times bigger than a stellar black hole. Because the increase in the strength of gravity is spread out over a much larger area, the difference in the pull between the feet and the head is not enough to do any serious damage.
It is believed that there is a supermassive black hole at the centre of almost all large galaxies, each linked to the creation and evolution of the galaxy that revolves around it. There is one at the centre of our own Milky Way called Sagittarius A, which is about 4 million times the mass of our sun.
One of the amazing characteristics of a supermassive black hole is its ability to sling massive jets of particles and radiation out into, and sometimes beyond, its host galaxy. These jets are caused by material spiralling through the accretion disk, gaining fantastic speed, and generating vast amounts of energy. Some of this material reaches escape velocity before it gets to the event horizon and is hurled out into space in a jet travelling close to the speed of light. Examples of these jets can be seen in the galaxies known as M106 and Centaurus A.
So, the answer to the first part of our question is yes; it is theoretically possible to go beyond the event horizon of a supermassive black hole and live. Of course, you would need some sort of spacecraft to get you there, provide you with air, and protect you from radiation. And there would also be the small matter of being crushed into the singularity soon after you had finished congratulating yourself on the successful crossing.
A way of resisting the latter inconvenience would be to orbit the singularity in the same way that any celestial object can be orbited. If you got your angles right, you could orbit indefinitely. You would need an inexhaustible supply of food and water to live on, of course – unless you just happen to be a self-sustaining machine.
What about getting back out alive? That isn't possible unless you have enough power to go faster than light, says science, and nothing in the universe can go faster than light. Nothing we presently know about anyway.
But the thing about black holes is this; because we can't see what is actually inside one, our knowledge of the subject is mostly theory. No-one can say for certain what would happen if we went in there. Science itself acknowledges that the physical laws we take for granted in normal space don't apply. So, literally anything is possible.
If you do manage to come back out, however, you will find that things have changed more than you expected them to. This is because of Einstein's law of general relativity, which states that gravity is cau
sed by the bending of space-time by massive objects like planets, stars, and black holes. The bigger the mass of the object, the stronger the gravity and the more it bends space-time.
The effect of this is that, as you journey into the supermassive black hole, your passage through time slows down – relative to the passage of time in normal space. To put it another way, from the perspective of someone remaining behind in normal space, you slow down. From your perspective, everyone else speeds up. If you returned before reaching the event horizon, you would find that more time has gone by outside than it did for you. In essence, you would have time-travelled into the future.
What happens to this time dilation when you get to the event horizon? Accepted theory is that time stops when you get there. To the outside observer, you will appear to freeze in time and disappear.
And after that? After you have gone through the event horizon?
Again, the answer is that no-one knows.
A theory that appeals to me is that, relative to time in normal space, you start going backwards into the past. There is a degree of logical symmetry to this idea – if time slows as gravity increases, and stops at the event horizon, it makes sense that it would run backwards as gravity strengthens even further.
All these unanswered questions and unproved theories.
Fertile ground indeed for the science fiction writer…
WARREN DEAN
(with apologies for any oversimplification)
2019
Sources:
https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/
https://www.cosmotography.com/images/supermassive_blackholes_drive_galaxy_evolution_2.html
http://hubblesite.org/explore_astronomy/black_holes/
https://www.britannica.com/topic/event-horizon-black-hole
http://www.hawking.org.uk/into-a-black-hole.html
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/2019/4/19/how-scientists-captured-the-first-image-of-a-black-hole/
THE FOREVER GENE
WARREN DEAN
-------------------------------
Lucania Publishing House
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Edited by Jennifer Blaine
Cover By Robert Lee Beers
http://asmbeers.wixsite.com/robertleebeers
Copyright © 2014; All Rights Reserved.
Warren Dean asserts all rights to be identified as the author of this work; no part of it may be copied or distributed in any way without the prior written permission of the author. The events, names, and characters depicted in this story are fictional and any resemblance to an event, person, or alien living or dead is purely coincidental and unintended.
For Jenny
EXCERPTS
Heidi waved cheerfully to him from behind the reception desk. "Morning Dr Herald, have you heard about the Faerie Folk? The reporters say they're from outer space, but surely that's nonsense. Why would they land in Mongolia of all places? And where is their space ship?"
"The Faerie Folk? People don't waste any time coming up with clever nicknames do they?"
She smiled, and winked at him before answering an incoming call. Heidi was the ultimate receptionist; articulate, efficient, pleasant, and just a little off the wall. No-one else at the Factory could wink at him like that and make him feel like a favourite nephew. Her chronological age was the same as his, although he looked ten years younger. She had only recently taken advantage of the Factory's substantial staff discount on the price of the Forever Gene.
He asked her once why she had waited so long before having the treatment; she had been with the Factory since its inception and qualified for the discount after five years of service. She could have pegged her genetic age at forty-four, but waited until she was fifty to do so. She laughed and said that she thought she would look more distinguished with a little grey in her hair. Then her smile faded and, in a rare moment of introspection, she told him that she had never thought much about life and death, and simply intended to grow old gracefully. But after her first grandchild was born, the desire to re-live her motherhood was irresistible. She realised that she had the opportunity stay young enough to help him grow up, and to be there for any brothers and sisters he might have. She could even be there to see them have children of their own.
David, of course, was someone who had thought deeply about life and death. Not just that he wanted to live and didn't want to die, which was about as far as most people got. He had thought about it seriously.
When he was six his mother dressed him in his best clothes and took him to the New Calvary Cemetery for his grandmother's funeral. He stood quietly next to his brother James throughout the ceremony, staring at the wooden coffin and wondering if Gran was really in there. When the coffin began to slide gently into the grave, and his mother began to cry, he decided that she must be.
"How long does she have to stay in there?" he asked James in a stage whisper. James was thirteen and would know.
"Forever, dummy," was the cynical reply.
Later, after everyone had finished offering his mother their condolences, they went back to the station. No-one spoke on the train home, but at least his mother's tears had dried by the time they got back to their apartment.
"Boys," she said briskly, "is there anything you would like to know?"
James said nothing.
David said, "Is Dad also going to be dead forever?" At first he didn't understand why his question started her tears flowing again, but the desolate expression on her face had stayed with him, and later he thought that dying must be really awful to cause such unhappiness. With the iron resolve of a six-year-old, he decided that when he grew up he would make sure that people would not have to die anymore.
Unlike most juvenile fantasies, David made his a reality. It did not happen in the way he visualised as a child and it came too late to save his mother, who died of heart failure a few years before the Forever Gene was fully developed.
When it first became available for sale to everyone – or at least to everyone who could afford it – the storm of controversy was certainly predictable. The introduction of genetic technology which could extend human life indefinitely raised a seemingly endless series of legal, ethical and religious questions. The politicians, lawyers and Personet reporters were not slow to worry at the subject like a pack of dogs with a whole carcass of bones. But not even the four-year long rigmarole of having the technology approved by the authorities prepared David for the weeks and months of interviews, chat shows, and press conferences, not to mention being called everything from Peter Pan to the Anti-Christ.
Despite all of his careful preparation, however, the very first question asked at his first press conference took him completely by surprise. He had anticipated having to deal with whether the Forever Gene would make having children redundant, or would lead to catastrophic overpopulation, or would be offensive to people's religious beliefs. Politicians voted into office by less affluent constituencies expressed horror at the thought of the rich living longer than the poor. They felt compelled to campaign vigorously against the exorbitant cost of the treatment. Some of them even went as far as having the treatment themselves in order to extend their tireless efforts to make it available to their less fortunate constituents.
The earnest young Personet reporter who asked the first question wanted to know: "How old would a person with the Forever Gene be? Would an 'immortal' have to give his or her chronological age or genetic age when, for example, applying for health insurance or retirement benefits?"
David managed to avoid cringing at the casual coining of the term 'immortal', but was unable to avoid being nonplussed by the question. He certainly hadn't thought about it. "Er, I don't know," he stammered frankly. It was an inauspicious start for the fledgling rock star of the genetic world.
----------
With a refreshing lack of ceremony, Ganzorig stepped onto the podium and looked directly into the camera. He paused for effect.
"Greetings to y
ou, wherever you may be watching around the world," he began. "Today, my country has received some unexpected visitors and it is my pleasure to introduce them to you. But before I do that, I will share with you what I know thus far. The strangers have informed me that they are from an extra-terrestrial civilisation which is far more advanced than ours. That this is true is perhaps evident from the fact that they were able to enter the solar system and land on Earth without being detected."
Qara had a mental image of defence ministers around the world wincing at the very thought.
The president had anticipated this concern and sought to reassure his audience immediately. "The strangers' conduct so far has been nothing but cordial and co-operative. They have given me no reason to fear that their intentions are not peaceful. After all, it is they who willingly presented themselves at one of our hospitals and they who volunteered to undergo tests. In doing so they literally placed themselves in our hands, trusting us not to mistreat them, and enabling us to confirm that they are indeed not human.
"We have also been able to ensure that they are carrying no harmful diseases or bacteria. They have consented to the test results being made available to anyone who wishes to study them. They have informed me that there are more of them within the Bogdkhan National Park. As some of you may already know, I have ordered military units to seal off the park, but I must emphasise that this is not in response to any threat offered by the strangers. The steps I have taken are more for their protection than ours."
This was new information. Until then Qara had assumed that the four strangers at the hospital were alone. Her imagination, which her father had always described as 'very active', began filling her head with ominous possibilities. What if the strangers were not friendly after all? What if there were hundreds of them hidden in the park? The Bogdkhan was massive. What if there were thousands? Could they have been arriving in secret for years? Did they have weapons more sophisticated than those on Earth? Had they chosen to land in Mongolia because, despite its large size, it was sparsely populated and would be a relatively easy place to gain a foothold on the planet? Was it their plan to invade neighbouring China, thereby gaining control of the world's largest economy?
