Fighting for a Just Cause

The last verse of The Star Spangled Banner says "conquer we must, when our cause it is just, and this be our motto: in God is our trust." I dislike confrontation, and much prefer peaceful coexistence. However, there are times when we must conquer others and their ideas. 

Recently I have gained an interest in an organization called Operation Underground Railroad. They rescue children from horrible people who sell them for sex. It is one of the most vile crimes I can imagine. On the other hand, those who save the children are some of my biggest heroes. 

This is a cause I believe to be just. This is a cause I can fight for. I know there's not much I can do, but I want to do what little I can. For me that means raising awareness and support for the jump teams that enter dangerous situations to rescue the children, as well as those who care for the children after they are rescued. 

I also want to fight against pornography. Every person who is involved with this heinous crime started on their path toward darkness with pornography. Of course not everyone who views pornography will become a seller or buyer of children for sex, but it is nevertheless as much a gateway drug as alcohol and tobacco. Except that the draw of pornography may be even stronger than many drugs. 

The world may have a lot of problems, but there are also many good things. And I at least am going to fight for them, trusting in almighty God to help me.

Sticking Your hand in a Blackhole

So I was doing an interesting thought experiment today that I wanted to share with you all. What would happen if you had a minature blackhole next to you and you decided to stick your hand into it? Would you be pulled in and disappear for ever? Would your hand be ripped off instantly? Or would something else happen? A similar situation is to have a space ship just outside a blackhole's event horizion and then extend a rod into the blackhole.

I think that your hand or the rod would be ripped off. As you know (or soon will) once an object or even light crosses a blackhole's event horizon it can never escape. An extremity extended past this point would be spagettified and ripped from your body or spaceship as gravity pulled one way and you pulled the other. If the extended object had a tensile strength great enough to endure the opposing forces then you would also be pulled in.

There would be no escape for the object thus extended. If the object's tensile strength was sufficient and did not break then you and the extension would act as a single body and once it reached the event horizon you would also have reached the event horizon and there you would meet your doom of being stretched into a chain of single molecules. If you were able to escape with the extension then you had not actually crossed the event horizon. There is no return from a blackhole.

This led me to question if the event horizon is really more of a continuum than a single border with snaller objects  able to escape with less energy having an event horizon that is closer than larger objects. Though perhaps the event horizon is simply the point beyond which nothing regardless of mass or energy expended can escape.

I think this experiment could be simulated using a very strong magnet and a magnetic material.

At any rate it was fun to think about.