Shouldn't black holes all be spinning infinitely rapidly because practically everything in the universe rotates?

The most general black hole 'solution' is defined by exactly three physical parameters; Mass, Charge and Spin. An object collapsing into a black hole with non-zero spin, conserves its angular momentum during the collapse, and this causes the geometry of the resulting 'Kerr' black hole to have a very different shape than a non-rotating 'Schwarschild' black hole. No, the black hole does not spin infinitely fast, because the event horizon always has a finite and large extent where the outside observer 'sees' the total angular momentum locked up. Now, the singularity that forms is not a mathematical point at the center, but becomes a Ring Singularity with a finite radius, and a 1-dimensional cross section. Inside the ring forms a new kind of space-time that some solutions suggest is traversable into another universe like a doorway. The enormous gravitational radiation fluxes present inside the event horizon, however, make this possibility very remote.


Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
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