Is a Black Hole affecting the timeline?

[greyFlint]

Hey, first post, but I generally have had many discussions about the Cosmere before, and this is one of the more complicated possibilities that I have been working on. 

This is about the timeline of the books  the difference in time between the first and second Mistborn era and an explanation for how Worldhoppers appear in different worlds that are hundereds of years apart. 

Before Mistborn era one, we have no real concise time slot for which each novel is separated by (with the exceition of the knowledge that it is probably thousands of years between white sands and Stormlight), either because they are consisting of only one or two books, or bc it isnt that important to the story. However, starting with the final empire a timeline is given, in that between the ascension of Sazed and the beginning of the Wax and Wayne era, about 1000 years have passed. In this period, the current Stormlight Archive and Warbreaker series fit. 

Knowing this, we can say that Hoid definitely lives longer than a normal human, but those humans that are now a part of the 17th shard, I find it hard to fathom that they are also near immortal as well that they can live for 1000s of years. Therefore it is possible that the time experienced by each system is different, which can be explained by the existence of a black hole near in the dwarf galaxy that each planetary system is in. 

The Theory of Relativity states that objects containing more mass cause greater distortions in spacetime, which causes the time experienced near the object to move slower that time farther away from the object. By having the Scadrial system be further out from the black hole, many thousands of years can pass for them, while only 40 or other small number of years would have passed. Not only that, but if we place our point of reference (earth POV) from a position that is less affected by the gravity of a supermassive object, then the canonized time that will probably be thousands of years long will be correct from an unwarped spacetime point of view. 

This reasoning can explain why Hoid so conveniently appears in every story appearing near the heart of the action. If he had been so close to action in the Scadrial system in the 1000 years between era one and two, a book or short story would have been made at least detailing his involvement. However, it appears that he had little involvement in any of the significant events that happened up until the Wax and Wayne novels, so maybe it was a thousand years for the Scadrial system but it was somewhere along the lines of 100 years instead.

This theory is still very incomplete, so tell me if I missed something, thanks!

[Shqueeves]

First off, post any and all future theories in one of the theories threads. They are better qualified to discuss this theory. Other than the fact that, iirc, only 300 years are between Sazed's ascension and Wax and Wayne and that SA takes place after both of them (again, someone should fact - check me here) it is a reasonable theory. 

Also, welcome to the Shard! Have a complementary upvote and a warning to stay away from any and all food items offered (especially the cookies)

[+Extesian]

Nice first post! Welcome to the Shard J

I like the thinking around space-time reasons for long-lived worldhoppers. I think, though, the reasons are more realmatics than physics. Please be aware there will be spoilers here. The introduction threads are supposed to be spoiler-free, so this thread would be better in Cosmere Theories. So for now, until a mod moved this (hopefully one can, @Mestiv maybe?), spoilers follow.

 

We have this WoB

 

Question

So you mentioned earlier that a lot of the characters who are in multiple books are functionally immortal. But some of them when we saw them in actual just books, before they started jumping between worlds, they were not functionally immortal at that time. So can we then take that to mean that they somehow became functionally immortal?

Brandon Sanderson

You can take to mean that…

Question

Correctly?

Brandon Sanderson

You can correctly. Now here’s the distinction. Some of them are not. Some of them are using tricks of...um….uh...no....relativistic time travel to move forward in the future. Some of them are not aging and others are just aging really slowly. And those are three separate things among characters you have actually seen. I will give you hints as you read the books.

 

So there are people in the Cosmere who are, effectively, ageless. Elantrians and Returned (or 5^th Heightening Nalthians) are two examples. They don’t age at all. There are then people who use magic to keep their bodies at the same age, while their soul ages (it’s basically a hack). The Lord Ruler is an example. Brandon does talk about relativistic time travel, but I think again that’s more using things like a cadmium bubble to slow time within the bubble – a person fuelling a super-power cadmium bubble could theoretically chill out there for a year or two while the Cosmere around them ‘ages’ hundreds of years. There could also be relativistic time travel through speed, basically getting on a near-light speed ship or doing similar things with speed-based magics.

So while I like your idea, and physics ties into a lot of the Cosmere’s time- and speed-based magics, I’m not sure that’s the answer here.

One other thing. I’m no physicist, but my understanding of black holes is that, to get close enough to one to seriously change time relativistically, requires getting so close that it would tear apart matter physically. I believe black holes don’t usually have outrageous amounts of mass compared to the Sun, for example, it’s about how densely it’s packed, so you need to be quite close to one to be affected relativistically. But one of the many physicists on this site can correct me if I’m wrong about that.

[Mestiv]

Topic moved from introduction to Cosmere theories. 

Welcome to the Shard @greyFlint

If I recall correctly Wax is a grand-grandson of Breeze, so there wasn't 1000 years between those two eras. 

What's more, I believe that you'd have to relatively close to the black hole to be visibly affected by time distortions. I think it would be quite visible in the books that Scadrial is close to a super massive black hole. 

I like your thinking though!!

[Pattern]

Getting near to a supermassive black hole (SMBH) via the Cognitive Realm (and getting away from it in time, too) could be one of those relativistic time travel tricks. The problem of most "simple" relativistic thought experiments is that they don't take into account the necessary accelerations and the time distortions caused by them (SRT vs. GRT).

Travelling to the event horizon of a non-rotating black hole would take an infinite time from a frame of reference far away from the gravitational well. Of course our world hopper would not want to get this close, since he would be ripped apart by tidal forces long before he reached the event horizon of the black hole - and he wouldn't be able to get out again except transformed to Hawking radiation, not really a sentient being.

Nonetheless, flying into a gravitational well to a certain point and out again would be a possibility to "skip" time in the outside world. Problem is, you need a spaceship, which we haven't seen in the cosmere except in Sixth of the Dusk, which is far in the future of any other cosmere story.

Good that we are not restricted to physics only. Hoid is able to travel the Cognitive Realm, as are (nearly by definition) the other worldhoppers. They could travel through the CR to a planet / asteroid deep in the gravitational well of a SMBH - if and only if that asteroid has a significant representation there - remember, most of space is compressed in the CR, which makes worldhopping possible after all.

So our not necessarily functional immortal worldhopper travels to his rock with a cozy cave near the SMBH, shields himself from the x-ray radiation radiated from the SMBHs' accretion disk, uses a chromium bubble, if available, waits the beforehand calculated time, perhaps taking a nap, and travels to the next planet where he is suppodedly needed through the CR again.

Now the real problem with this: the cosmere is a dwarf galaxy or more likely just a star cluster. Those usually don't have SMBHs at their center, so we need a stellar black hole if we want the mechanism to stay in-cosmere. Stellar black holes are way smaller than SMBHs and create a lot more problems with tidal forces before time dilation becomes relevant. But who knows what you can achieve with access to a bit of Investiture...

[+Extesian]

I definitely get what you're saying @Pattern and I always support discussion if astrophysics and particle physics (my great loves are the very big and the very small), but my issue is simply that it seems unnecessarily complex. We know there are Cosmere magics that can perform time dilation far more easily that finding and protecting yourself from a blank hole. So I like your thinking I just think it's a difficult method compared to some of the simpler possibilities. 

[Pattern]

@Extesian: I agree, it is more complex than necessary. I wanted to support @greyFlint's idea of time dilation by a black hole though, since it's awsome, if very unlikely for Scadrial. And Brandon mentioned relativistic time travel to the future. Just flying away with a velocity near the speed of light, then turn around and come back does work far worse than SR suggests.

Edited June 8, 2017 by Pattern

[+Extesian]

Yeah agreed  at the very least it's a nice little thought experiment and I do like the analysis from both of you. 

[Steeldancer]

COSMER-STELLAR! Fantastic. 

[greyFlint]

Thanks @Extesian and @Pattern !  @Shqueeves you are right that there is only a three hundered year difference between the eras, that was my mistake. 

On the note that you have to be very close to the black hole, I believe that it is not so. However, all of you are right in that it might be a little too overcomplicated for the  cosmere..... but who knows!

 

[Vissy]

A black hole in the Cosmere would be a big deal. A very big deal. Shards can shrug off the influence of black holes, of course, but then a black hole essentially hacks physical reality anyway. Who knows what is going down in teh Cogrealm next to a black hole.

The most terrifying black hole-related thought about the Cosmere I've had is what if Ruin discovered a supermassive black hole and decided to invest himself in one.

Edited June 10, 2017 by Rob Lucci

[greyFlint]

@Rob Lucci that could be one of the reasons that Odium so desperately wants to escape from Roshar (other that the obvious conclusion that he has it out for the other shards), and it is one that I didn't think about.

[Vissy]

6 hours ago, greyFlint said:

@Rob Lucci that could be one of the reasons that Odium so desperately wants to escape from Roshar (other that the obvious conclusion that he has it out for the other shards), and it is one that I didn't think about.

I'm not quite following, what do you mean?

[greyFlint]

Well I don't have a quote for this, but I remember that Odium was trapped on Roshar and could not flee. His righteous wrath that comes with the shard pushes him to destroy the other shards, as we have seen on Sel and Roshar. This wrath old then drive him to the other systems of the Cosmere. However, what if as a means to an end, he also wanted to invest himself in the hole, which is what you brought up. The investing into a black hole could be a secondary goal that he has.

[Scriptorian]

So, disclaimer, I'm not an astrophysicist, but I did just finish a course on stellar and galactic astronomy.

Based on my rough estimates, in order to produce any significant time-dilation over inter-stellar distances, a black hole would have to ludicrously massive, on the order of a billion billion solar masses (the super massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way is "only" about 50 billion solar masses.) A black hole with the mass of an entire supercluster is simply not reasonable in this (or really any) context.

Interesting idea, but, there are much simpler, and far less problematic, explanations.

[MoS03]

The only way I see this being possible is if the Time Dilation extends into the Cognitive.

[Kingsdaughter613]

Just as a side note, I believe the Cosmere is a dense star cluster in a dwarf galaxy.

[cometaryorbit]

On 6/7/2017 at 8:59 PM, Extesian said:

One other thing. I’m no physicist, but my understanding of black holes is that, to get close enough to one to seriously change time relativistically, requires getting so close that it would tear apart matter physically. I believe black holes don’t usually have outrageous amounts of mass compared to the Sun, for example, it’s about how densely it’s packed, so you need to be quite close to one to be affected relativistically. But one of the many physicists on this site can correct me if I’m wrong about that.

It depends on the mass of the black hole - a really huge one has a less steep gravity well, so you can get very deep into it without the tidal forces tearing you apart.

The more massive the object, the less dense it needs to be to become a black hole.

[Vissy]

Yeah, it's the small ones you need to watch out for - some of the biggest black holes we've seen are almost like supermassive stars in how they behave on the galactic scale. They form the centers of massive formations, like galaxies. The small ones, on the other hand, are deadly. Not only because they're harder to see, but also because their effect on realspace is more volatile.

Edited June 16, 2017 by Rob Lucci

[Scriptorian]

2 hours ago, Rob Lucci said:

Yeah, it's the small ones you need to watch out for - some of the biggest black holes we've seen are almost like supermassive stars in how they behave on the galactic scale. They form the centers of massive formations, like galaxies. The small ones, on the other hand, are deadly. Not only because they're harder to see, but also because their effect on realspace is more volatile.

This is correct. Supermassive black holes have such a gentle gravitational gradient that you can actually cross the event horizon without being spagetified. There's no going back, but you and your ship will be perfectly intact as you descend into oblivion (well, assuming the x-rays don't fry you).  

The problem here is that time-dialation is related to the same underlaying mechanic as the gravitational gradiant: the curvature of spacetime. Namely, the lower the gradiant, the less time dialation. This is why the black hole in this situation would have to be so universe-breakingly huge: it has to be massive enough to have an interstellar range, but as the mass increases, the gradiant smooths, and time dialation becomes less obvious. I did some more calculations, and it turns out that the schwartzchild radius (distance to the event horizon) would have to be 100,000 parsecs. That's the approximate size of the Milky Way, and dwarf star clusters like the Cosmere are only about 200 parsecs. And even then, it only works if the Cosmere is sitting right on top of the singularity.

To recap, to get time-dilation on an interstellar scale, you'd have to be inside the event horizon of a galaxy-sized black hole. Have fun with that one theorycrafters. 

Edited June 16, 2017 by Scriptorian
For clarity

[Vissy]

1 hour ago, Scriptorian said:

This is correct. Supermassive black holes have such a gentle gravitational gradient that you can actually cross the event horizon without being spagetified. There's no going back, but you and your ship will be perfectly intact as you descend into oblivion (well, assuming the x-rays don't fry you).  

The problem here is that time-dialation is related to the same underlaying mechanic as the gravitational gradiant: the curvature of spacetime. Namely, the lower the gradiant, the less time dialation. This is why the black hole in this situation would have to be so universe-breakingly huge: it has to be massive enough to have an interstellar range, but as the mass increases, the gradiant smooths, and time dialation becomes less obvious. I did some more calculations, and it turns out that the schwartzchild radius (distance to the event horizon) would have to be 100,000 parsecs. That's the approximate size of the Milky Way, and dwarf star clusters like the Cosmere are only about 200 parsecs. And even then, it only works if the Cosmere is sitting right on top of the singularity.

To recap, to get time-dilation on an interstellar scale, you'd have to be inside the event horizon of a galaxy-sized black hole. Have fun with that one theorycrafters. 

The funny thing about a galaxy-sized black hole is that it would be approximately near the maximum mass a black hole can have, at the mass where it loses the ability to have that disc of gases it uses to power its growth. So basically it would already have devoured a galaxy's worth of stars and planets.

[Brightlord M. Alhstrom]

On 6/16/2017 at 10:55 AM, Rob Lucci said:

The funny thing about a galaxy-sized black hole is that it would be approximately near the maximum mass a black hole can have, at the mass where it loses the ability to have that disc of gases it uses to power its growth. So basically it would already have devoured a galaxy's worth of stars and planets.

So, maybe the entire Cosmere's dwarf star cluster is on or near the event horizon of one of the maxed out black holes? The "maxed out" part means that the star cluster is fine, while also being close enough to the black hole to get the time effects. And entire multi-epic universe happening in the event horizon of a black hole. Wow would that be cool....... 

[Vissy]

On 26.6.2017 at 8:53 AM, FiveLate said:

Woah...there is a maximum mass?  What happens if 2 collide?

Well "maximum mass" is a bit of a misnomer, it simply means that there is a certain point, a certain threshold of mass, where a black hole loses its ability to actually absorb mass from stars. Usually black holes have a disc of gases from the stars it has spaghettified around it, that is then funneled into the center. At a certain mass this ability is lost, because the bigger the black hole gets, the less volatile its gravitational effects become. (The effects become stronger on an universal scale of course.)

A "maxed out" black hole can still collide and merge with another black hole, and get bigger in this manner.

[Scriptorian]

4 hours ago, Lord Maelstrom said:

So, maybe the entire Cosmere's dwarf star cluster is on or near the event horizon of one of the maxed out black holes? The "maxed out" part means that the star cluster is fine, while also being close enough to the black hole to get the time effects. And entire multi-epic universe happening in the event horizon of a black hole. Wow would that be cool....... 

Not quite. Like I said in my original post, the Cosmere would have to be sitting dead center on the black hole, within the event horizon. Again, what's important is the gravitational gradient, the difference in gravity from one point to one right next to it. A maxed out black hole has essentially a graidiant of zero at its event horizon, and thus there would be no time dialation. Same reason there would be no accretion disk, like Rob Lucci explained.