An astrophysicist reacts to DOCTOR WHO | The Doctor was wrong about black holes...

[@invincor]

The DVD commentary track for this actually makes some of the points about orbits that you do here. They did realize after they shot this that they’d got that wrong and admitted it!

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

So glad you mentioned this - I'd actually forgotten that bit! Now I want to pull it out and watch again. 😊

[@DrBecky]

Nice!

[@greensteve9307]

@@DrBecky The link to your book doesn't for for me?!

[@adammackintosh430]

There's another Dr Who story with a black hole you might want to check out. World Enough and Time and The Doctor Falls is a two parter that uses the extreme relativistic effects as a major plot device. Would be cool to see if the show has gotten more accurate over time.

[@Othelbark]

Seconded- I'd love to see that!

[@jacobharris5894]

That’s by far the coolest and most scientifically accurate use of black holes in the show.

[@AceSpadeThePikachu]

I was thinking the same thing, though my issue with that one scientifically is the fact that the reeeeeally long ship managed to stay in one piece while blasting its engines at full power to keep it just a few radii away from the event horizon. Shouldn't it have been spagettified being that close?

[@TheBrogmire]

Came here for this, yeah.

[@MichaelPhillipsatGreyOwlStudio]

That episode is a masterpiece. One of my favorites.

[@Darthsiroftardis]

See, my only problem in this case is that both David Tennant and Billie Piper are so adorable, I want to believe them

[@ducky36F]

I mean you just need to put the pair of them on screen and my brain switches off, soooo 😂

[@objective_psychology]

Suspension of disbelief ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@Clarebear3477]

My favourite pair in my favourite two episodes. I believe in Dr Who 🧚🧚🧚

[@sharg0]

But not as adorable as our own Dr Becky ;-)

[@legionarybooks13]

@@sharg0 were she on the show, The Doctor would be Dr. Becky's companion. 😄

[@theangrygamer1008]

I'd love to see Becky in Doctor Who, listening to him babble some technical explanation and then be like '*sigh* You're talking absolute rubbish, Doctor '

[@richpelto248]

I’d love to see that 🤣

[@harpodjangorose9696]

Becky is the next DOCTOR.

[@weatherseed8994]

You can add QI to that list. It'd be great listening to her rattle off facts while surrounded by comedians. Besides, they've already had Brian Cox on twice.

[@frankharr9466]

That's why Liz Shaw quit. She recognized what show she was a character on. ;)

[@OhAncientOne]

🤣🤣🤣 Awesome 👍👍👍

[@jackvos8047]

Another episode dealing with a Black Hole is season 10 episode 11. It deals with a 400 mile long Ship escaping from a black hole and time dilation on board.

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

I mentioned that episode (one of my favorites!), too - and saw at least one other comment agreeing with us!

[@jackvos8047]

@@MaryAnnNytowl The more comments for the episode the better. It raises our chances of getting to see it.

[@ailaG]

When I saw that one I was like "ha ha! The writers must've forgotten that time flows differently the closer they are!" and then they actually remembered. I'm not even a Moffat hater. I love his writing. I'm just hungry for things to nitpick I suppose.

[@karlkastor]

Funny that of all the episodes you could have picked to analyze for scientific accuracy, you chose the two-parter whose second part has the literal Satan appearing

[@WingManFang1]

I was just thinking that, it’s hilariously one of the best episodes to which is trippy.

[@TempoLOOKING]

Makes no sense. Jupiter or Saturn sure

[@zperk13]

I think The Doctor's "that's impossible" thing was less "we shouldn't be in orbit" but more so "we shouldn't be alive"

[@Hannah_The_Heretic]

I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure it was a "stationary orbit" ...like it wasn't rotating around the blackhole which is why he was so shocked. Who knows really? 😉

[@ReversedPolarity]

​@@Hannah_The_Heretic Indeed, it was a stationary orbit and those can last indefinitely. However, I believe there's a point regarding the Doctor's worries, even though he hadn't heard this information prior to his observation (then again, he probably doesn't need it - reference to episodes like "Kill the Moon" and "Rose"): Considering the planet's origin is ancient and the story happened in a FAR AWAY future timeline, many eons have passed through the planet. It's interesting how even physicists say: "Oh, he's safe in a stationary orbit because the Moon and the Earth last several lifetimes". That is true, but imo what Dr. Becky skipped in her observations is a thing called "orbit decay". You can't have a stationary prison planet standing for eons on the same orbit and that's why I believe the writer created the weird force tunnel nobody can explain (lets call it weird dark energy... stuff). In fact, orbit decay is a big part of the explanations of spatial relativity and even black holes can merge as a result of a mutual pull. It's a gradual process, but not having a shift is plain weird. Although, one can argue the Doctor was exaggerating before the need to actually exaggerate, but oh well. 😅

[@Hannah_The_Heretic]

@@ReversedPolarity look at the end of the day its sci-fi, i think we all need to accept and understand that not everything is going to be 100% accurate.

[@ReversedPolarity]

​@@Hannah_The_Heretic Indeed, you're not wrong there. After all, there's plenty of outdated scientific facts in previous episodes, but I also think Doctor Who doesn't get enough credit for what it does right in the realm of plausibility, even if it is a work of pure fiction. It's far easier to dismantle the myths than to prove them even if there are plenty of pieces that tie that world together in many different ways. In fact, Becky does a great job at trying to figure out how a gravity funnel would actually work and I thought that was an interesting thought experiment. I think that's the best part about Doctor Who - to stir some curiosity about the unknown, not to dismiss it.

[@ailaG]

*geo*stationary And I much prefer that they make up technobabble than use existing terminology wrong as the latter may confuse people who don't dig deep enough into each scientific bit in the show. It could potentially cause misinformation eg if before the discovery of the Higgs boson they'd said that it meant aliens, then the discovery could've caused people to think "aliens".

[@talosforever]

Season 10, Episode 11 shows a super-long spaceship stuck in the gravity well of a black hole where time flows differently on either end of the ship. Any chance we can see a reaction to this episode?

[@sebstaite7765]

Seconded, I was about to write this!

[@freeculture]

Ah yes i remember that, but its just a variation of the time dilation effect, which you can also see in ST:V S6E12 "Blink of an Eye" (Such a fitting name, "Blink" 🙂). Its also in Interstellar with the whole away team and the guy who remains in orbit time passing differently in perspective to each other. In that episode the "bridge" is at the top, a second there is like years at the bottom of the ship.

[@DMichienzi4]

The thing I remember about this episode is when the Doctor does an energy calculation for the "gravity funnel" and gets 666 somethings per second and I just think did Satan know what units the scientists would be using in the future?

[@michaelsommers2356]

Actually, 666 refers to Nero.

[@objective_psychology]

Execute Order 666

[@Stettafire]

I always pictured it as a kind of "the universe is very mathematical so of course any kind of cosmic being of any kind of power would intrinsically understand the Mathematics of the universe". I don't believe in God, but if a god exists then they know maths 👀

[@IndiBrony]

Flat Earthers use that same logic to prove "globists" are devil worshipers: Our axial tilt? 23.4 degrees? Coincidentally that's a 66.6 degree tilt away from the equator!

[@jursamaj]

@@Stettafire Fair, but the point is that the number depends on the units. Say 2 points on Earth are a mile apart. That means they are 5280 feet apart. Neither number is more correct than the other, they're just expressed in different units. The math is the same either way. Likewise, i still remember the speed of light as ~186,000 miles per second. Somebody learning it more recently would rather say ~300 million meters per second. But it's equally valid to say 1 lightyear per year. So if you wanted a measurement to yield a specific number, you have to know what units your target will be using.

[@567secret]

If you want a more recent depiction of a black hole in Doctor Who with a more serious take on the consequences of the physics I recommend episode S10E11 "World Enough and Time" which has some cool time dilation stuff going on (may need to watch the episode after too but I think most of the physics is in that first episode?)

[@alienvisitor7282]

The Doctor with Dr Becky as companion,that i want to see! A perfect duo.🤪

[@Sableagle]

Emma Thorne as the Doctor!

[@kellydalstok8900]

@@Sableagle or Michael Sheen

[@frankshailes3205]

I think on the "Doctor Who Confidential" shown at the time, 2006, they did point out their black hole wasn't realistic but the "rule of cool" meant viewers expect to see a certain "look" for them. Blame the viewing public or Disney film.

[@karlkastor]

So basically filmmakers think their audience is stupid

[@kellydalstok8900]

@@karlkastor to be fair, the majority is

[@catpoke9557]

@@kellydalstok8900 If that would be the majority it wouldn't really be stupid anymore, would it? You kind of have to be below average to be stupid

[@ProPhile]

I love your videos… but you definitely gave this WAAAAAY more thought than the writers for this episode did! 😂🤪 I was really hoping you would weigh in on the “science” of the TARDIS.

[@ProPhile]

Also, since you mentioned wormholes… you should do a review of an episode of “Sliders”

[@kindlin]

I think the Tardis is just a given in the cannon of the show, that's just what allows the show. Their is probably an episode somewhere that explores it tho, and reacting to that could be fun.

[@MrAshtute]

It's doctor who you just make up new science when the old science won't do 😂

[@Chord_]

Fun video! It's always interesting and informative seeing an expert react to something that for most of us would probably pass a squint test, or at least not think twice about. If you're not too tired of Doctor Who, then I'd suggest also checking out an episode from Peter Capaldi's run, "World Enough and Time." It's another episode that prominently features a black hole and black hole physics.

[@johnopalko5223]

If that's the episode I think it was, they did a creditable job of incorporating gravitational gradients and time dilation into the plot. However, time was moving many, many, many orders of magnitude slower at one end of the ship than the other. I would have thought that, if the gradient was that steep, the ship would have been pulled apart by tidal forces. It was, in all, much better than the complete dog's breakfast they made of simple orbital mechanics a few episodes earlier.

[@jackvos8047]

@@johnopalko5223 I'm sceptical about the amount of dilation occuring over 400 miles that is depicted in the episode.

[@JessWLStuart]

If anyone is "tired of Doctor Who", my heart goes out to them!

[@scottdoesntmatter4409]

@@JessWLStuart Then you don't know what's been happening since Chibnall took over.

[@rog2224]

@@johnopalko5223 Didn't their attempt to accelerate out make it worse?

[@MagicOfDark]

I'd love to hear your opinions on the episode, "World Enough and Time", Series 10, 2nd to last episode. Deals with extreme time dilation due to a very long ship perpendicular to a black hole.

[@NachtmahrNebenan]

Your new video popped up just at the moment I finished an episode of Doctor Who (S01E08)! 😅

[@jerelull9629]

Synchronicity or "great minds"...

[@NachtmahrNebenan]

@@jerelull9629 Father's Day S01E08

[@dangussin7524]

As the Doctor has said "it's wibbaly wobbly timey whimey stuff" Also, remember River Song's rule number 1, The Doctor lies.

[@EnglishMike]

Stargate SG-1 has a black hole episode: _A Matter of Time_ -- the fifteenth episode of the second season. And it comes with bonus black hole on wormhole action!

[@shadowlord7]

Dr. Becky did an awesome review of that last year--highly recommended. Check it ou!

[@samwell6915]

I've never had that explained so well. Black holes and worm holes are two different things. I always saw people mixing these things and not explaining that they are two different things. Thanks for the video!

[@shawnholbrook7278]

I love the reaction, educational, and science news bits that you do, thanks! I also totally enjoyed this one, as I am a Dr Who fan, ever since Tom Baker. Brilliant.

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

👋🏼 Hello, fellow Whovian. I've been there since Pertwee, myself! 👋🏼

[@azdgariarada]

I think you'd enjoy more episodes of Stargate SG-1. There's one where Carter blows up a star, the season 4 finale I think, that is quite good.

[@Sankey84Gaming]

You blow up one start and thats all anyone remembers you for

[@zperk13]

Thousands of years into the future, I can believe they've made good radiation shielding

[@paulsmith2516]

This seems like a fun enough video to admit that every single time Dr B says "Supermassive Black Hole" my brain INSTANTLY starts playing the bass riff from the Muse song 🤣

[@NomenLuni1975]

Thanks for the shout-out Becky. Yes, it was me that made the recommendation. That was just as entertaining as I had hoped, and you discussed pretty-much everything I was expecting you to. I'm also a horror fan and that was a brilliantly unnerving episode, especially when Toby got possessed and all the symbols appeared on his skin. Did you notice that a lot of the background sound effects were taken straight from Doom, the game?

[@joem7889]

Would you consider reviewing the movie Melancholia (2011) with Kristen Dunst? In which a rogue planet crashes into the Earth. How real are the effect portrayed in the movie as the rogue planet gets closer and closer to Earth? Thank you.

[@mrman5517]

15:02 "black holes are not holes!" but they are a 'whole' lot of mass :D

[@awatercolourist]

😄 good one!

[@PhilRable]

What I love about these sessions is, it’s a science lesson you have when you’re not having a science lesson! So, while I think I’m listening to Dr Becky take the mick out of this story, I’m learning some physics theory. Hang on, that’s not fair😃

[@AleksandrPodyachev]

I remember that in the 2nd episode of the reboot, they go see the earth consumed by the sun the far future

[@julianaylor4351]

Love the Dr Who style hand jive. 😁❤️ In the science fiction series Andromeda, the ship of that name, is in orbit around a blackhole, at the beginning of the series, and when it escapes the only surviving member of the crew, the captain, finds he is now three hundred years in the future. David Tennant is back as the fourteenth Doctor.

[@jackson857]

Doctor Who is a great show. Doesn't matter if it's inaccurate because it's fun. I'd like to see you react to how they deal with a Time Paradox.

[@sophiophile]

Hi Dr Becky, Edit: Now I think I get it, it's all just the accretion disk, but because of gravitational lensing, we are also seeing accretion disk from behind the black hole. Is that right? In the 1:45 black hole simulation clip you showed, it looked like there was some flowing 'movement' perpendicular to the accretion disk at the surface of the black hole and passing through the BH poles. Is that accurate? Or just an artifact of the simulation. If it's real, is that the photon sphere/event horizon and why is it circling in a manner passing through the poles and perpendicular to the disk.

[@jpdemer5]

What you're seeing is the disk behind the black hole . . . the light from the disk having been bent toward you by the gravity of the black hole.

[@sophiophile]

@@jpdemer5 Thanks, yeah I eventually figured that out (in the edit). It should have been obvious right away! I'm still curious whether there is some specific direction of orbit for the photon sphere (or any of the other horizons) as a result of the rotation of a black hole. Like I read something about material touching the poles more closely for the ergosphere, but I can't really picture the orbit.

[@ecospider5]

That is my understanding, so yes. What they have skipped is the orbits are fast enough the particles moving toward you should be blue shifted.

[@barrymak421]

​@@sophiophileRemember a black hole is a 3 dimensional collapse of space time. There are no "poles". It doesn't matter the angle that you look at it, what you would see would always be the same. Like Becky said in the video, moving from thinking in 2d space to 3d space can play tricks on your mind.

[@sophiophile]

@@barrymak421 not sure why my reply got deleted, but when I said poles, I was referring to the axis of rotation for a black hole with non-zero angular momentum. When a black hole collapses, all of it's angular momentum is conserved, and that creates a distortion/drag on spacetime equatorially (in relation to the axis of rotation) called frame-dragging This means that the motion of particles and light nearby to a black hole is not isotropic in all 3 directions. Look up the shape and definition of a black holes 'ergosphere', and you will see that the gravitational influence is not uniform, and people do refer to 'poles' for rotating black holes, as the direction that relativistic jets emerge from rotating black holes. In fact, a rotating black hole with sufficient angular momentum (which is many of them) is actually sometimes referred to as a 'ringularity' as a result.

[@kateorman]

Anyone remember those downbeat science bumper stickers -- "gravity gets me down", "friction is a drag", and of course "black holes suck"?

[@watertommyz]

Doctor Who is a fantasy series with sci fi as a backdrop. The characters and story are what it focuses on.

[@caulkins69]

That's one of the issues I have with nuWho. Classic Who resided at the (extremely) soft end of science fiction. With nuWho they pushed it completely over the line into fantasy and make only the barest pretense of it being science fiction.

[@theoncomingstorm7903]

@@caulkins69 Classic Doctor Who had an ancient race of literal Vampires that fought a war with the Time Lords. It was not any less fantasy than New Who.

[@bluewhalestudioblenderanim1132]

one of the aspects that is Again not shown here . . . is just how bright an acretion disc would look trough an opening like that . . . somekind of very strong light absorbtion would be required to be able to see anything at all

[@MrJdcirbo]

There's an old saying in the Whovian community: Never try to apply logic to Doctor Who. I think this can be interpreted as "The BBC needs a good science consultant." Maybe you could put in for the job? I LOVE Doctor Who, and I would love it even more if they got all the science right. At least the human bits... I think you'd fit the part nicely! 😊

[@professorsogol5824]

8:20 "Loosing their hair and stuff". Just like Louis Slotin in 1946. Nine days from exposure to death.

[@CharlesSchaum]

Disney popularized the concept of black hole as wormhole in the ending of its 1979 movie, The Black Hole. The novelization by Alan Dean Foster committed much less to that concept, sticking closer to the idea that the black hole is a gate to an afterlife of higher consciousness for the good guys, and a sort of hell for the bad guys. But they also got the idea that the Cygnus could be in a stable orbit, discounting being irradiated.

[@bcheeseey]

Was going to also recommend you the Doctor Who episode World Enough And Time (Season 10 episode 11), which also deals with black hole physics in an interesting way, but it looks like half the comments are already suggesting it to you, haha.

[@petebyrdie4799]

I'd love to see Dr Becky react to the Red Dwarf episode 'White Hole'.

[@mattk.5258]

4:49 You're over thinking it, the writers only know the popular buzz words and don't understand what they mean.

[@zeugl1271]

Series 10 Episode 11, World Enough and Time (2017). Another Doctor Who episode dealing with a black hole and time effects around it. By the way - there is a star somewhere in the core of the TARDIS. In Episode 10 of Series 7 Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS they see an "exploding star, in the act of becoming a black hole. Timelord engineering - you rip the star from its orbit, suspend it in a permanent state of decay". What can I say... =)

[@williamscoggin1509]

I know I'm going off topic but my favorite episode is still the one with Vincent van Gogh. 👍🏻👀🇺🇲❤️

[@VolkerHett]

This and Blink!

[@ghostoferlock]

Very good episode also. Between fiction and adventure, somehow episodes of it are very emotional. 'Listen' is a good episode also.

[@Yesica1993]

Oh, I love that one too!

[@andyny29]

Brilliant episode!

[@ghostoferlock]

@@andyny29 becky or who. ?

[@pdelong42]

I know it's not exactly on-topic, but the music for that episode was wonderful. I would've liked more in that style.

[@Merennulli]

I think the idea of the black hole connecting somewhere is derived from the extended Penrose diagram.

[@brandonlink6568]

It always bothered me how Dr. Who liked to play fast and loose with science, I was spoiled by Stargate actually caring about integrating real world science with their universe's scifi

[@andrewmurray1550]

yeah, Amanda Tapping as Carter while reeling off all that astrophysics science stuff that gave O'Neill headaches, was very convincing.

[@vanimapermai]

With David Tennent coming back for 3 60th anniversary specials you should definitely watch some more doctor who.

[@LemonArsonist]

This episode was maybe the first time I'd ever seen black holes in fiction as a kid. I might have ended up going into physics anyway but the Eccleston/Tennant run of Doctor Who definitely gave me a hefty nudge in that direction.

[@Age_of_Apocalypse]

Thanks for the video! 👍👍👏 I'm a big fan of Dr. Who - well, before Jodie Whittaker - and - coincidence - I have just rewatched this episode yesterday; David Tennant, we miss you! 🙏🙏

[@almostfm]

The problem wasn't Whittaker-they gave her some really naff scripts to work with.

[@mikehipperson]

He's coming back but without Billie Piper unfortunately.

[@seerofallthatisobvious1316]

I have to agree, before the woke religion vandalized the show, it was some of the best sci-fi around.

[@Age_of_Apocalypse]

@@seerofallthatisobvious1316 Totally agree! It was fantastic.

[@soaringeagle5418]

@@almostfm The problem was Chibnall AND Whittaker.

[@StormsparkPegasus]

The way I interpreted his line, was "we're too close to orbit the black hole, it should be impossible for this planet to orbit here". Meaning, inside ISCO. It does look like they are REALLY close. Which should be impossible, except it was being held there with super advanced alien technology. The Doctor is known to exaggerate and have trouble properly explaining things, so it fits his character.

[@rog2224]

I think that the science of World Enough and Time was better. Missy's explanation of General Relativity wins.

[@RufusJacson]

I tended to watch Dr Who for the philosophy rather than the physics...the 2nd part of this, 'The Satan Pit', has a great line about humans not being driven by the evolutionary desire to "...leap and reach the next branch..." but the "...desire to fall!..."

[@decam5329]

I hope some sci-fi writer refers to a fictional Smethurst Scale someday. 'That's impossible! It's reading over 5000 Smethursts!'

[@shaun2938]

I understand that black holes and worm holes are different. My question is could you have a worm hole with one of its ends inside a black hole?

[@MultiSteveB]

10:44 [sung] "Lets... dooo... the Brain Warp... again!!!"

[@iainpalmer2000]

So are you glad that David Tennant is coming back as Dr Who?

[@permiek]

Badly needed Dr Who credit: Scientific Advisor - Dr Becky

[@awatercolourist]

Yeah, but then Dr Who won’t be Dr Who. It’d probably change to Dr Whom 😂😂😂

[@ElvesofZion]

The Doctor has exhibited the ability to do things like feel the rotation of the earth, or know what year it us by the smell of specific pollen in the air, so I always assumed with this episode that They aren't just taking the crews assertion at face value, but feeling the gravity of the planet their own, measuring the distance to the black hole, seeing the real-time accretion and spaghettification, etc. And all that together is what makes Them say "this is impossible"

[@joen0411]

Is there an uncut version of the gravity funnel rant? It looked like that was a lot longer but editing Becky cut it short. If there is, we’re going to need that uploaded immediately.

[@thedoctor755]

Don't like the TARDIS engine noise????????? WHOT????? That sound gives everyone who needs it, hope. Another great video :) This one is right up your alley. Another decent Who episode with a black hole as the main impetus for the story, is "World Enough and Time", in Peter Capaldi's series 10.

[@fuzzyaziraphale4228]

I think of one film that Dr Becky would probably loath for the way it portrays black holes is the 1979 Disney film called The Black Hole.

[@jimburns3636]

The Venn Diagram of enjoying science fiction (especially the campy king) and overthinking campy science fiction contains two non-intersecting domains.

[@Awshiie]

Great video as always!

[@MrBlackdragon1230]

Would love to see more Dr.Who reactions. Cant think of any specific ones off hand though.

[@shaggyego]

11:50 Dr becky and Dr Who both have the same body language when listening to scf-fi word salad lol

[@Jasruler]

Watching dr who you’re already on board for a time traveling phone box I mean… yunno.

[@BytebroUK]

Around the Earth, it would be 'geostationary', of course. Around Mars it would be 'areostationary' I think. Around Jupiter, it would be "Jovian-stationary", perhaps?

[@sapelesteve]

As always, a fun video Dr. Becky! I see your book in the background & I can also see my copy on my bookshelf across the room which is still waiting for your autograph. 🤔🤔

[@davidniemi4051]

A self gravitation example closer to earth are the rubble pile asteroids like the one hit by the DART impactor last year.

[@unicornep1818]

Speaking of 'Dark Star' that would be a fun 'An astrophysicist reacts' great film. Pip pip

[@SilentWitness89]

Speaking of Doctor, who and David Tennant could you do an episode explaining the doctor'sme take on time? Specifically wibbly wobbly timely whyme stuff?

[@gobiwaq]

Can you do a video on Dyson spheres? There's a star Trek episode!

[@Sally4th_]

What I'm hearing is that Dr Becky needs to be taken on as Astrophysics Consultant for Dr Who.

[@EliasMheart]

Wait, if negative mass pushes where positive mass pulls, that should mean that larger negative masses should not be see-able via light... Right? Since the path of light would be bent around it, like one way one could make an invisibility cloak. (It exists for soundwaves). ... Fascinating. I'm sure, people have thought about this already, but... Still^^ Could be in space, and you wouldn't ever know. I think...

[@iborgiwc7899]

You cant seriously mean that an omniscient timelord, whos timemachine is powered by a "black hole" at the moment of collapse can possibly be wrong?

[@freeculture]

Well the original episode (and intent) of Doctor Who was to teach both science and history. The first companions were science and math teachers.

[@objective_psychology]

The idea of black holes being “portals to another dimension/universe” isn't just confusion with wormholes; it comes from mathematical models that extend the geodesics of a black hole (e.g. in a Penrose diagram) through the singularity and “out the other side”, because of a mathematical purist philosophy that they “shouldn't” just end there. There are some good reasons to think spacetime shouldn't just suddenly end at a point like it supposedly does at the singularity-for example continuous translational symmetry as required by Noether's theorem-but this is probably better interpreted as reason to doubt the existence of a true singularity, rather than predict an extra universe on the “other side” of every black hole. Not to mention, truly pointlike singularities can't exist anyway as all real black holes have at least _some_ spin (most of them quite a lot). But yeah, unfortunately I've seen this idea perpetuated by serious physicists, from educational TV programs to even science books for kids.

[@JasonRayShute]

That's where interstellar went wrong. It was referred to as a black hole when it would of been a wormhole. Gravity funnel 😅 they might as well of called it an electromagnetic trackor beam with the polarity reversed. As for the observation window the radiation shielding must be in the translucent surface and not in the hatch itself lol.

[@DavidBeddard]

I remember cringing at this episode when it was broadcast for how ludicrous its misrepresentation of black holes was, and I was just a nerdy 15-year-old back then! My cringe almost breaks my face now, after having gained a Theoretical Physics degree and 17 years of additional life experience.

[@celeronceleron5595]

In Star Trek Next Generation a Romulan ship utilized a black hole for power. I believe when matter is compressed it resists compression. Matter resists compression with an increase in its' internal pressure as its' temperature also rises. I believe that just as when matter expands and it cools off, matter cools off as it inflates. Stet? What? Yeah, that 'might' have been made up. Thanks for the vid.

[@useazebra]

FWIW the accretion disk doesn't just glow because it's hot (blackbody radiation). The hot plasma is being accelerated perpendicular to the direction of motion through an intense magnetic field, so it gives off gyromagnetic radiation as well. IIR that shedding energy also helps cool the plasma and contributes a little to orbital decay. This episode always annoyed me.

[@WooperSlim]

I'm guessing that what they meant by "impossible to orbit" and "geostationary" is that they were just hovering over the black hole at the same distance and direction. So it's like they thought "orbit" meant "in free fall, but not falling in" which is true except for the whole sideways motion thing.

[@phillipsiviter2024]

The Blaine Scale is something to do with The particle size or fineness of a cement in cm2/g or m2/kg. Could I recommend Another Life for your treatment?

[@almostfm]

I've got to admit, I love Who. In fact, I've seen every existing episode going back to 1963. Having said that, we're talking about an alien with two hearts who can change their looks, their age, their gender and their personality when their old body gets too damaged, and they travel around in a ship that's bigger on the inside and can move backward and forward in time as easily as you or I walk through a room. I've got my "suspension of disbelief" knob turned up to "maximum" before the theme music even starts 🙂 You know what does bug me in space movies? Spaceships that _bank_ when they turn. Banking helps airplanes turn. It does nothing in space. Yet, they all do it.

[@yahccs1]

Yes I think a lot of sci-fi fantasy has spaceships acting like planes -it should be orbital dynamics not aerodynamics. We should see thruster exhaust when they change orientation or direction. Also they often have sound effects like planes in the air. Maybe Star Wars started that off - or was it something before that? Many also have explosions that make clouds (material turning back on itself) -in space the material should spread out in all directions without slowing down as it would where there is atmopsheric pressure to make it look like a cloud. That 'bugs me'!

[@LemonArsonist]

When I rewatched this episode I liked to imagine that the reason the orbit is so weird is that it's actually "stationary" above the axis of rotation of the black hole. Since we see the accretion disk as a plane, it looks like the planet is "hovering" perpendicular to that plane. And it's the negative "gravity funnel" keeping it in place instead of centripetal forces. Which is wild but hey it's called the Impossible Planet for a reason then. (and the negative gravity can be explained by uber-technologically advanced ancient aliens) The whole "geostationary orbit" thing, and other strange wordings, I pretend are the TARDIS translation circuit trying to explain it to Rose, even though she probably doesn't know much about black holes, and definitely doesn't know the weird future-human technical words.

[@buidseach]

What if you could block the effects of the Higgs Boson particle, and give an object zero mass by surrounding it by an electro magnetic field ?

[@maskedmallard537]

Didn't the Enterprise fly through a Black Star and get catapulted to the past, where they had to invent the slingshot around the sun manoever of time travel in an episode of TOS? Does that mean they accidentally warp traveled through a black hole?

[@AceSpadeThePikachu]

If you think Part 1 of this episode was weird...part 2 will drive you loopy.

[@TheRealInscrutable]

I saw that episode... The "gravity funnel" pints out from the planet, away from the black hole, not inwards toward it. Just as fake, but for other reasons.

[@angelcassista9240]

"World Enough and Time" is the eleventh and penultimate episode of the tenth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The black hole science is more fun in that episode.

[@kevinbarnard3502]

And, all those geo-sunchornous satellites are in sort of an orbital belt around the planet. A belt called the Clarke Belt since it was written about by another sci-fi great Arthur C Clarke--while he was in the RAF [I think] in WWII, well before working rockets and satellites were a thing.

[@thebobbrom7176]

14:53 Actually that's a reference to The Three Doctors In that story a black hole is a gateway to an Antimatter Universe I mean it's still bad science but it's consistent bad science

[@osmosisjones4912]

It was a hole teem who worked on the picture of black hole yet only one scientist got the media attention.. Is the thing with men taking credit for women's scientific contribution

[@FlightDoc]

I’m sure we can all agree that Dr B is incredibly smart and adorable. But how geeky are you not to have already seen most of these sci-fis ??

[@OrenTirosh]

What’s the weirdest and most extreme location you could imagine for a habitable earthlike planet to stably exist for a couple of billion years?

[@foxyboiiyt3332]

Dr Becky has to react to Red Dwarf. She is English so will get all the humour and the science fiction she can debunk at will!

[@AlexWoodThete]

Don’t worry, David Tennant at least will be back in November. I would advise you watch one of Peter Capaldis last episodes from 2017, World Enough and Time, which tackles Time dilation on a truest massive ship. The maths is still a bit out, but the concept seems valid (if the ship is made of strong enough material). Plus spookiest Cybermen ever withe Missy, what more could you want (another two parter I’m afraid, at the end of the 10th series). Oh and in the 2nd episode of the one you’ve just watch, the gravity funnel, and other gravitational. Effects are all explained away as power from the early universe - Doctor Who speak for magic… Oh and if you want to cringe see them weave a shell around a neutron star in the Classic Series ‘The creature from the Pit’, and The Master overpower a black hole, kept in status under the Timelord Capitol in ‘The Deadky Assassin’, both Tom Baker adventures (the scarf doctor). Oh, and just a word or warning, I like Stargate too, but DON’T watch it, especially the two episodes suggested on here,, as they make even less sense than this doctor who episode Hgavity and time dilation through a wormhole from a black hole; using rope to defy it; and a wormhole going through a sun as if the wormhole goes the long way through space, rather than ‘punching through’ the fabric)

[@DownTwisted]

You should really check out Farscape. Great show and plenty of wormholes.

[@David_J_B]

My assumption about this episode, is that The Doctor knows the orbital velocity of the planet is incorrect for it's orbit, hence it should fall in. He's just more concerned about why this planet exists than explaining orbital mechanics to everyone 🙂

[@alanguile8945]

The final ending of his story takes it way past scientific inconsistencies and into the realms of gods and demons. I would love to hear Dr Beckys comments on it!