dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaA Word from a Black Female Relativistic Astrophysicist: Setting the Record Straight on Black Holes
| Authors | Reva Kay Williams |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/0404029 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0404029 |
Abstract
This Letter is written to clear up a situation, and hopefully we will learn something from it: scientifically and morally. Herein is presented a true ``historical'' scenario of events, that led to my being the first person (Williams 1991) to successfully work out the Penrose mechanism in four-dimensions (three-space momenta and energy). Before working out a solution to the Penrose mechanism: to extract energy from a rotating black hole, the Penrose mechanism (since first proposed by Roger Penrose in 1969) had been attempted by scientists over the world for nearly two decades, with little success, although making some progress. In the Penrose analysis of Williams (1991, 1995) details of the behavior of efficient Penrose relativistic scattering processes in the ergosphere are described. The reason a solution eluded other scientists before me is that there was very little known about orbits inside the ergosphere, where space and time are no longer separable, as measured by an observer at infinity (i.e., far away from the Kerr black hole). In this Letter, I describe how analytic derivations of the conserved energy and azimuthal angular momentum of particle orbits not confined to the equatorial plane allowed me to succeed where others, whose ``shoulders'' I stood on, had failed. Also, I will mention some well known scientists in the astrophysics community by name, as I discuss their involvement, and outline the facts behind an author feeling the need to set the record straight.
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"abstract": "This Letter is written to clear up a situation, and hopefully we will learn\nsomething from it: scientifically and morally. Herein is presented a true\n``historical\u0027\u0027 scenario of events, that led to my being the first person\n(Williams 1991) to successfully work out the Penrose mechanism in\nfour-dimensions (three-space momenta and energy). Before working out a solution\nto the Penrose mechanism: to extract energy from a rotating black hole, the\nPenrose mechanism (since first proposed by Roger Penrose in 1969) had been\nattempted by scientists over the world for nearly two decades, with little\nsuccess, although making some progress. In the Penrose analysis of Williams\n(1991, 1995) details of the behavior of efficient Penrose relativistic\nscattering processes in the ergosphere are described. The reason a solution\neluded other scientists before me is that there was very little known about\norbits inside the ergosphere, where space and time are no longer separable, as\nmeasured by an observer at infinity (i.e., far away from the Kerr black hole).\nIn this Letter, I describe how analytic derivations of the conserved energy and\nazimuthal angular momentum of particle orbits not confined to the equatorial\nplane allowed me to succeed where others, whose ``shoulders\u0027\u0027 I stood on, had\nfailed. Also, I will mention some well known scientists in the astrophysics\ncommunity by name, as I discuss their involvement, and outline the facts behind\nan author feeling the need to set the record straight.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/0404029",
"authors": [
"Reva Kay Williams"
],
"categories": [
"physics.soc-ph",
"astro-ph",
"gr-qc"
],
"title": "A Word from a Black Female Relativistic Astrophysicist: Setting the Record Straight on Black Holes",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0404029"
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