From: joe@strout.net   
      
   In article   
   <5aa0689b56ba71affcef7e9723c03599_124953@mygate.mailgate.org>,   
    "Joseph Devaney"  wrote:   
      
   > from the little research that I have done and looked over about   
   > blackholes, I is to my understand that the bigger the body, the larger   
   > the graviational pull would be to pull in other objects.   
      
   Well, if by "bigger" you mean "more massive" then yes.   
      
   > my question stems to this.  is it possible for 2 (or more) blackholes to   
   > exist withn a close proximity.   
      
   Sure.   
      
   > the gravitational collapse of a star or   
   > even greater, a galaxy does cause a blackhole, unless I am mistaken...   
      
   Well, a sun-sized star wouldn't form a black hole; below a certain   
   threshold the best you could get is a neutron star.  I don't recall what   
   the minimum mass is for forming a black hold, but I think it's on the   
   order of several solar masses.   
      
   > but, say it were to happen in close proximity of another star?  say 2   
   > stars begin a gravitational collapse at the same time?   
      
   That's highly unlikely.  But I suppose it could happen.  (Actually, I   
   suppose it's even possible that one star going supernova could actually   
   trigger its companion to supernova as well...)   
      
   > will one star more rapidly collapase, thus "sucking" the other star into   
   > its force?   
      
   No, gravity doesn't work that way.  The black hole has no more mass (and   
   therefore, no more gravity) than whatever went into it (i.e. the star it   
   formed from).  It doesn't "suck things in" any more than it did before.   
   If the Sun suddenly collapsed into a black hole today, Earth and all its   
   planets would continue in their orbits unperturbed.  (Though it would   
   get mighty cold!)   
      
   > or do they for lack of a better term, happily co-exist?   
      
   Yes, and the better term you're looking for is "orbit".  They'd continue   
   to orbit their center of mass, just like they did before.   
      
   Of course there is a bit of a hitch: black holes don't last forever.   
   They evaporate -- and the smaller the black hole, the more rapidly it   
   evaporates, converting its mass into energy (radiation).  So that   
   *would* disrupt the orbits of stuff orbiting it, over large time scales.   
   Not by sucking them in, but by setting them loose as the black hole   
   disappears.   
      
   > can someone explain to me in the most detail possible how they can or   
   > cannot exist in the same proximity?   
      
   You're thinking of black holes as magic sucking machines.  They're not.   
   They're just very dense concentrations of mass.  From a distance, they   
   cause no more gravitational attraction than the mass that went into them.   
      
   The only thing special about a black hole is that you can get much   
   closer to one -- where the gravitational attraction is very strong --   
   before you actually hit anything.  I.e., for their mass, they are   
   extremely small (theoretically, a point).  But that only matters for   
   things which are actually that close.  Further away, the behavior is no   
   different from a similar amount of ordinary matter.   
      
   Cheers,   
   - Joe   
      
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