Some Things Really do Take Forever

The wikipedia article on black holes says, "It is now widely accepted that the center of every or at least nearly every galaxy contains a supermassive black hole."

Well, it's not accepted by me.

In fact, I don't think that any galaxy has any black holes of any mass.  I don't believe in black holes.  Here's why: black holes are created by gravitational collapse.  I think gravitational collapse takes forever.

Einstein taught us that gravity pulls time.  The stronger a gravitational field, the slower time moves.  And as an object gravitationally collapses toward being a black hole, its gravitational field is extremely strong.  Its strength approaches infinity.  Thus, the "speed" of time near the object approaches zero.  Which means that the collapse itself goes slower and slower.  And, I would argue, never actually "finishes" (finishes in the sense of creating a real black hole).

I've talked to some physicists about this.  There was a guy in the office who had a PhD in black hole studies.  So I asked him my question.  He couldn't really answer it, and eventually he got very annoyed with me.  (Then he transferred to the US.  I assume this had nothing to do with our conversation about black holes.)

I emailed Brian Greene about this, and he said, "Talk to me after you read Susskind's Intro to Black Holes."  So I put it on my reading list, but I haven't gotten around to it.  I guess I could have written back and told Greene that I'd already read Susskind's Black Hole War, but I didn't.