Come Back Spock. We need You

I have pretended to know something about anything just to fit in.

I have swotted up on other things just to participate in a conversation and not to appear thick or ignorant. Other memories or snippets of facts and information have been dredged up from my subconscious to amaze myself and surprise and delight others.

I must have been a bit of a geek when younger in order to absorb what at the time were just useless statistics, bits of interest, mid blowingly boring titbits, hearsay, rumour and gobbledygook. Correction. I must have been one huge geek in order to have a brain full of what has made its way through a complex neurological and biological network to reach my mouth and spout forth.

It only takes a word to trigger the release of data.

Yesterday it was the overheard phrase of "A Black Hole in space consumes everything within its pull of gravity and welcomes it with a Cosmic Burp".

I admit to having been fascinated by the subject of Black Holes in space when I was a young kid.

It may, coincidentally, have been a subject entered into by characters on my favourite television programmes on science fiction and fantasy. It may even have been Mr Spock himself, from Star Trek. This thought has some poignancy with the passing of Leonard Nimoy the actor responsible for the portrayal of a rather dour, unemotional native of the Planet Vulcan and yet a personality that is infinitely memorable.

In my Star Trek Annual of 1971, when I was just 8 years old, there was a factual piece on what series of events would take place to herald the end of Earth and our Solar System. It scared me witless because it stated that our Sun, in the throes of death would explode and bring about the violent end of everything that I knew, loved and relied upon.

I was so upset by this inevitable occurrence that I failed to turn the page to see the explanation that there was really no need to worry as this would not take place for many millions or even billions of years.

Black Holes have been matters of discussion since the late 18th Century which is quite remarkable in that it has not been until the modern era with radio telescopes and X Ray Astronomy that there has been a chance to validate the speculation and conjecture of the preceeding two centuries.

A Yorkshire Rector, John Mitchell, in 1783 was responsible for starting the debate with a piece of written work that he submitted to the Royal Society. His theory was that the largest of stars exerted such a massive gravitational pull that any light emitted would simply be dragged back to its source. If that was the case then light would not grace the Planet Earth.

Mitchell excited many in the scientific community and the Academie in Paris was feted by one of its members, Laplace, who presented that the largest of the stars acting in this manner may in fact be invisible.

The term Black Hole may seem self explanatory but it originates from the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta. This was a prison cell intended to accommodate three persons but the story goes that it was once filled with 46 prisoners of whom 24 perished.

Thinking and musing remained prominent on the subject in the intervening years from the 18th Century.

Chandra, an Indian Scientist published his theory on the death of stars in the 1930's.

He worked out that when a star runs out of fuel it becomes a dense corpse termed a White Dwarf. Gradually it begins to shrink to infinite gravity. There were of course critics and non-believers amongst the Astronomical Community and their influence and throwing around of their weight did set back the theory of Black Holes.

This was to such an extent that Black Hole became the equivalent of a dirty word.

Obtaining funding for research proved difficult in such an environment and it was often necessary to persuade Agencies and the Military to allow use of their facilities and equipment. The US Air Force were using high altitude aircraft with X Ray detectors in their search for tell tale signs of nuclear testing by other nations and during one seconded flight the Astronomer Paul Money, recorded strong X Ray signals coming from points far beyond our known solar system.

It was not until the 1970's that The Cambridge Observatory satellite detected Sigmus XI, a Black Hole. Mitchell and his French contemporaries were indeed well ahead of their time.

A Black Hole is difficult to see anyway, likened to trying to spot a jet black cat in a coal cellar in the pitch black. Astronomers have realised this and have introduced the idea of the equivalent of a white cat to befriend the black cat. This is based on the theory that a Black Hole seizes matter creating a maelstrom effect and naturally the closely allied white feline would show some related reaction.

Many more Black Holes were evident with the improvements in sensitive equipment but what actually happens inside the ravenous monsters is still unknown.

It is predicted that gases at the centre attain infinite density destroying matter and time.

It would be a grisly fate but tempered by the widely held belief that a Black Hole may provide a gateway to another Universe.

It would not however be a pleasant experience for a human being dragged into a Black Hole. If entering head first then the gravitational forces would be higher causing the curiously named phenomena of spaghettification. That is quite an image.

I am sure that Mr Spock would have something to say about that.