Bonus Black Hole Note! The Enterprise Was Never In Any Danger!

At the end of Star Trek, the Enterprise is caught in the gravitational well of the black hole, seemingly inescapably so, and escapes only by ejecting what's basically a huge bomb into the black hole and riding the blast wave out (undamaged). SPOILERS.

"aaaaaaah..."

"CHOOOOOO!!!"

If warp speed is faster than lightspeed (which it is), the Enterprise should be able to escape the black hole without all the histrionics, like firing the warp core (which apparently isn’t strictly needed for the ship to go into warp) into the black hole FOR INSTANCE.

Here’s how. The Schwartzchild radius defines the area within which you would need to exceed the speed of light to escape, and so constitutes the effective boundary of a black hole (since we can’t see anything inside because light cannot escape). The Enterprise isn't within the Schwartzchild radius. We know this because nothing can escape once it's inside the event horizon (same thing, but sounds cooler) of a black hole, yet even when his ship has almost been swallowed, Nero is able to send transmissions to the Enterprise. Thus, the event horizon is the actual black border that we see on screen, and anything forward of that can still escape, and the Enterprise never crosses that line.* Therefore, the escape velocity that the Enterprise needs to attain should be less than the speed of light. Therefore, since warp speed exceeds lightspeed, the Enterprise should be fine,** and no huge goddamn bomb is necessary!****

Hooray! Now Kirk can go contract more alien STDs!

*Supplementary reasons: We (the camera) can see the Enterprise, so it hasn't passed the event horizon because the light reflected off of it can bounce back to us. Also, the accretion disk of the black hole helps define its boundary, which the Enterprise doesn't cross. What was it formed out of? I have no idea, since there was no matter around at the time other than Nero’s dead ship (which went straight in) and the Enterprise itself. Regardless, it’s there, and that provides a crude way of telling at least where the Schwartzchild radius isn’t. The disk will be outside the radius, and the Enterprise is outside the disk.

**Not to mention, since warp speed exceeds lightspeed, the Enterprise could theoretically be within the Schwartzchild radius and still be able to use its normal warp engines to escape. It's a question of how far they would be able to go into the black hole.***

***The movie ignores the "spaghettification" thing--the thing where the pull of gravity on the part of the ship closest to the black hole will be stronger than the pull of gravity on the farthest-away part, so the Enterprise will start to stretch out like a strand of spaghetti as it gets closer to the black hole--so I see no reason why I shouldn't ignore it as well. Phooey on you, spaghettification.

****One more thing: They hurled the huge bomb into the black hole, into the event horizon itself! Nothing can fucking escape the event horizon unless it has a magical warp-drive, and no matter what radiation the explosion generated, its maximum speed would still be the speed of light! Thus, it couldn't escape! Thus, that entire explosion in space is a crock of shit!*****

*****Done now, but there's another one coming. Hold onto your helmets. Also, celebratory penguins again!

Red Matter: Trying to Explain Black Holes in Star Trek

Preface: I KNOW that Star Trek (2009) played merry hell with all sorts of physics. I'm not trying to explain how contrary they run to regular, ordinary physics; that's just too damn easy. What I'm going to try to do is explore their black hole physics, and see what the implications are when you bring them into line with the parts of black hole physics that they didn't explicitly rewrite. It's... oh, forget it. Just read on. Or don't. Whatever makes you happy.

The plot device J.J. Abrams came up with in the film is called "red matter", which is apparently different than any other matter that reflects red light.

This isn't a wayward red blood cell, it's black hole fuel!

The basic idea seems to be that when the red matter is released into something, it creates a black hole. But there are conditions under which it won't; you can keep it suspended in a tank, even poke it with a needle and take some of it out, and it's stable. It only turns into a black hole if you provoke it, much like your adorable cat, who will only turn into a hissing, spitting ball of painful death if you step on his tail. Otherwise, he will be calm, serene, and float peacefully in midair (as many cats do).

The trigger for red matter seems to be making it interact with a massive body, such as a ship or a planet. You can't just set a trigger on it and tell it to become a black hole, it has to actually hit the massive object. Moreover, I think it is best used at the spot in the object where matter is most compressed by its own gravity. Namely, the center. This is why Nero used his giant drill to bore down to the center of Vulcan, as opposed to just hurling the red matter at the planet's surface.

Here's where it gets interesting, though. The black hole that's produced has no correlation to the amount of red matter that's used. For example, observe this photo of the planet Vulcan collapsing into the black hole at its core.

Here it is again, a second later. You can see the last remnants of the planet at the center, and then the patch of darkness in the center of the frame that defines the Schwartzchild radius (effectively, the boundary of a black hole).

So the black hole that's produced, by a tiny drop of red matter, is approximately planet-sized. Compare that to the black hole produced when the entire huge case of red matter impacts Nero's ship:

The black hole formed in the middle of Nero's ship; that's why it's on both sides.

Sure, it looks big, but that ship is at best comparable to a big asteroid. Certainly not moon-sized, or planet-sized. The black hole produced from all that red matter was only about the size of the ship!

This leads me to believe that the amount of red matter is irrelevant. What matters is the thing the red matter is used on, and how much mass it has.

Now, this presents a bit of a problem. The black hole produced is not directly correlated to the amount of mass the object has.

Let's assume Vulcan, shown collapsing above, is about the size of Earth (for convenience's sake). If Earth collapsed into a black hole, the black hole produced would be smaller than a grape. A stellar-mass black hole--a black hole with the approximate mass of our sun--comes from the collapse of a star with 25+ solar masses. Yet the red matter made Vulcan collapse into a planet-mass black hole! Thus, red matter must work, not by collapsing the mass already present to its natural Schwartzchild radius (all masses have it; it's theoretical in nature, kinda), but by acting as a multiplier for the mass that's already there. It multiplies the mass of the object it's used on until the radius of the black hole that'll be produced is equal to the radius of the original object.

We can even work out what the multiplier is, within reason. Here's how I did it:

The Schwartzchild radius of an object (what it would be, with its mass, if it were to become a black hole) is about three kilometers multiplied by its mass. Now, the radius of the Vulcan black hole (if Vulcan is Earth-sized) is about 6384 kilometers, since that's the radius of Earth. Divided by 3, that means that you would have to have 2128 solar masses to create a black hole that size!

Earth's mass, obviously, isn't anything even close to a stellar mass. According to Wikipedia, it's about 332,950 times less than the sun. So if we multiply 332950 by 2128, we get 708,517,600. That's the multiplier of the "red matter", if my theory is correct. When the red matter hits a massive object (planet, ship, whatever), it multiplies the mass by 708,517,600 times, causing it to collapse into a  black hole that has a Schwartzchild radius precisely equal to the original object's actual radius.

This is how red matter works. Thank you and good night.

Here's some celebratory penguins!

(Obviously I've had to make some assumptions; Vulcan is supposed to have a stronger surface gravity than Earth, for example, so it's reasonable to assume that it's heavier. However, fuck it, I didn't exactly have precise numbers to work with. And whether the red matter number is the exact multiplier or not, the important thing is I've got a good idea of how the mechanism works and what the multiplier is within experimental error. That's a decent starting point.)

Sci-Fi Drinking Game(s) [IN PROGRESS]

Widely Applicable Rules (Mostly for TV Shows):

Drink every time an alien, or a human, delivers a stirring polemic on the potential of the human race.
 

Drink every time somebody distressedly points out the flaws that could lead humanity to destruction.
 

Take a big drink every time an alien species is created with a distinctively un-human trait for purposes of providing a contrast with humans (ex: an emotionless species, a hive mind, etc.) Take a shot of vodka if one of the characters ham-handedly points out the difference within the show. Finish the bottle if this leads to a stirring polemic.

Every time someone utters the phrase “We’ve never seen anything like it” or says that something is “off the charts” or “off the scale”. (If it's a major character instead of a throwaway character, drink twice.)

Whenever someone says, during a firefight, “[Hull integrity/shields/deflector screens] down [XX] percent!  The [shields, ship, station, hull, etc.] can’t take another hit like that or we’re done for!”

[Mostly for '90s sci-fi:] Drink every time we meet an alien species that is humanoid, has a face and hands, and basically is human except for a little makeup or horns or something. (Warning: Blackouts possible when playing this rule with Babylon 5 or Star Trek.)

I am not fucking around with this warning, man. (Screenshot: Babylon 5.)

Drink whenever an alien species magically has the lips, teeth and tongue to speak virtually flawless English. (Start a Waterfall if the aliens in question have an accent that's meant to convey the difference between Them and Us.)

Drink every time someone provides an alien-y explanation for some person, event or structure from Earth's history. Examples: ancient Egypt/the Pyramids (I'm looking at you, Stargate), the Tunguska meteorite, Jack the Ripper, etc.

Take a drink whenever basic physics are violated. You can play this the "forgiving" way, i.e. drinking whenever there's gravity in space, whenever laser weapons travel slower than light, misuse of black holes, when spaceships ignore kinetic energy and so forth... or, you can play the "unforgiving" version. In "unforgiving", drink for wormholes, FTL travel, transporter beams, time travel, artificial gravity, food replicators, tractor beams, telepathy and "Eject the warp core and shoot it into the black hole so that we may escape certain death!" sort of deals. (DO NOT play this game with the new Star Trek movie. YOU MAY DIE.)

(In fact, looking back at this list, almost all of these apply to the J.J. Abrams version of Star Trek. I wouldn't go there, but if you do, I'm not responsible for what happens.)

Optional rule: knock yourself out with a fifth of vodka whenever robots enslave, subjugate or wipe out humanity. 

Like I said in the title, the game is still in progress, so suggestions for new rules are welcome! (So are beta testers who are brave enough to try this with me. Show of hands!)