More Info
I figured that you didn't want to hear anymore of my not-so-erudite musings and discussion of black holes. Therefore, I'm introducinfg a source page of additonal info that I found on the web. I didn't use this info on my page, generally because Project constraints limited the amount of verbiage I'm allowed to use, but I found it fascinating reading.... I provide brief explanations and descriptions of each of the sites.
http://physics7.berkeley.edu/Education/BHfaq.html#q2
This site by grad student Ted Bund is remarkably detailed and its question and answer format is a quick way to answer common questions. Particularly interesting is his discussion of reference frames and coordinate sytems affecting how we perceive being in a black hole. (either as an observer or as one who has fallen within the event horizon. A particularly interesting section of his webpage is interesting enough that I want to reprint it here.
So far, we have only considered ordinary "vanilla" black holes. Specifically, we have been talking all along about black holes that are not rotating and have no electric charge. If we consider black holes that rotate and/or have charge, things get more complicated. In particular, it is possible to fall into such a black hole and not hit the singularity. In effect, the interior of a charged or rotating black hole can "join up" with a corresponding white hole in such a way that you can fall into the black hole and pop out of the white hole. This combination of black and white holes is called a wormhole.
The white hole may be somewhere very far away from the black hole; indeed, it may even be in a "different Universe" -- that is, a region of spacetime that, aside from the wormhole itself, is completely disconnected from our own region. A conveniently-located wormhole would therefore provide a convenient and rapid way to travel very large distances, or even to travel to another Universe. Maybe the exit to the wormhole would lie in the past, so that you could travel back in time by going through. All in all, they sound pretty cool.
But before you apply for that research grant to go search for them, there are a couple of things you should know. First of all, wormholes almost certainly do not exist. As we said above in the section on white holes, just because something is a valid mathematical solution to the equations doesn't mean that it actually exists in nature. In particular, black holes that form from the collapse of ordinary matter (which includes all of the black holes that we think exist) do not form wormholes. If you fall into one of those, you're not going to pop out anywhere. You're going to hit a singularity, and that's all there is to it.
Furthermore, even if a wormhole were formed, it is thought that it would not be stable. Even the slightest perturbation (including the perturbation caused by your attempt to travel through it) would cause it to collapse.
Finally, even if wormholes exist and
are stable, they are quite unpleasant to travel through. Radiation that pours
into the wormhole (from nearby stars, the cosmic microwave background, etc.)
gets blueshifted to very high frequencies. As you try to pass through the wormhole,
you will get fried by these X-rays and gamma rays.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/gifcity/nslens_effects.html
This web page by Robert Nemiroff o f Michigan Technical University discusses, among other interesting tidbits in his papers (suitable for undergraduates, he writes), about a little known phenomenon known as Einstein rings, something he discusses in a paper entitled General Description of Visual Distortion Effects. Also, there's a pretty cool set of MPEG movies with some fantsy ideas about what a black hole looks like...its kind of like a roller coaster for the computer-bound.
NASA Question and Answer Page-Black Holes
The coolest of the cool! You can ask questions on anything if you go to the main question and answer page, and one question a week will be answered! In the meantime, there is an entire category on black holes containing past questions that have been answered, and often, additonal information sources to further answer the question. Muy fabuloso!
This site discusses the basic physics underpinning the origin and effects of black holes.. it is a teacher's page by a real live teacher!
Hellooo, an entirely new branch of physics with which to play. String theory is a fairly recent branch of physics, but this site is crazily detailed and quite complete. Feel free to browse around in the other categories after you zero in on how string theory applies to black holes!
Space.com Science and Astronomy page
So far I've mainly given you sites on wherefors and howtos. Space.com is a bootstrap endeavor to build support and financial muster for space exploration. Lets support them! In addition, they have this very cool page on news in the science and astronomy area, and due to the topic' simmense popularity, black holes are a recurring presence. So for updates and news on black holes...come to Space.com' s science and astronomy page!