Illuminating black holes. Part 2: vortices, soap stars, and bubble galaxies

The addition of soap to vortexing water produces bubble structures around the vortices' 'throats' that resemble galaxies of stars. Such soap-bubble models can be used to suggest the prediction that, at the heart of spiral galaxies may lie supermassive black holes. Combined with earlie...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physics education 2017-05, Vol.52 (3), p.33005
Main Authors: Milgrom, Lionel R, Drillsma-Milgrom, Katy A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Astronomical models
Relativity
Soaps
Spiral galaxies
Supermassive black holes
Vortices
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Summary:The addition of soap to vortexing water produces bubble structures around the vortices' 'throats' that resemble galaxies of stars. Such soap-bubble models can be used to suggest the prediction that, at the heart of spiral galaxies may lie supermassive black holes. Combined with earlier work on illuminating black holes, these simple models could be useful classroom demonstrations of the extreme consequences of space-time distortion predicted by general relativity.
ISSN:0031-9120
1361-6552
DOI:10.1088/1361-6552/aa62e9