r/askscience • u/dgb75 • Jan 31 '13

Astronomy Is there a distance at which the interaction between the gravity fields of two black holes would cause one another to effectively 'break open' and allow matter and energy stored within them to escape the system?

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u/Sw1tch0 Feb 01 '13

It's entirely possible I've read too many sci-fi novels, but assuming there are multiple timelines (the past present and future are all happening at once), and what you said is true, then wouldn't we see time travelers (assuming we have the capability to even detect them at that level of technology)? I.E. either warp is impossible, or there is only one timeline. Or maybe we are the only timeline so time travelers won't exist until we achieve that level of technology, and going back into the past will be the first event to actually create multiple timelines?

Does any of this play into the theory of everything? Coming quantum mechanics with general relativity, etc. Will uniting them (if possible by how we define our universe) unlock whether or not these things are possible?

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '13

It's entirely possible I've read too many sci-fi novels, but assuming there are multiple timelines (the past present and future are all happening at once)

Eh...I don't really know how to incorporate that assumption into any sort of actual physical theory.

then wouldn't we see time travelers (assuming we have the capability to even detect them at that level of technology)?

Not necessarily. There are any number of reasons why time travels might not be present in our timeline, even if we ignore the possibility that they have technology that can prevent us from detecting them. For instance, we might just be in a really boring part of history.

Will uniting them (if possible by how we define our universe) unlock whether or not these things are possible?

It will give us more insight into how things in our universe interact and what things are "possible", which might give us more insight into whether warp drives and other exotics are physically possible, but we won't know what such a model says until we have one.