Is there a project I can do on black holes? (Intermediate)

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I think that your best idea is to do an experiment relating to some of the physics behind what a black hole is or how astronomers find them. Some ideas I had:

Measuring the density of various materials. How does this compare to the density inside the event horizon of black holes of different masses? (I think the answer might surprise you!).
Gravity. Any experiment you can think of to do with gravity can be linked to black holes. For example can you derive the 1/r² law for gravity in the same way Newton did?
Demonstrate the Doppler effect. How is this used to detect black holes?
Make a spectrometer. How is this used to detect black holes? (Note 3 and 4 are related).

Hope that will give you some ideas to think about. Good luck with the project.

This page was last updated June 27, 2015.

About the Author

Karen Masters

Karen was a graduate student at Cornell from 2000-2005. She went on to work as a researcher in galaxy redshift surveys at Harvard University, and is now on the Faculty at the University of Portsmouth back in her home country of the UK. Her research lately has focused on using the morphology of galaxies to give clues to their formation and evolution. She is the Project Scientist for the Galaxy Zoo project.

Twitter: @KarenLMasters
Website: http://icg.port.ac.uk/~mastersk/