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Daryl Janzen

@darylj.bsky.social
239 followers 613 following 734 posts

philosophical physicist/cosmologist interested in understanding what reality is.

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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Perspective, happens only in the infinite limit of the universe, at infinite time.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
The “event-of-events” I’m saying is the event horizon is “the wall at that moment, plus your friend at that moment, plus you at that moment, etc” and all those things at that moment are events that occur coincidentally, at the same place and time. And that time, described from any external…
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Idea. With the wall, we need to add in time and think about not just “the wall” as the thing, but “the events” describing the wall at every moment of its existence. In that scenario, the event horizon isn’t “the wall”, but “the wall at the moment when you and your friend both get to the wall”. And..
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
The best answer I think is that the wall example actually doesn’t work specifically in this case. It’s just a bad example, because it assumes to begin with that a thing (the wall, the horizon) exists when it doesn’t. The rock sitting there chilling getting denser with the collapsing gas is the right
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Of course. And if you have questions still I’m happy to keep chatting. I just think I did a better job of it there than anything I can do here. There’s also this one if you want another angle that might just make it click better: cosmicave.org/2026/04/14/w...
cosmicave.org
When black holes happen
When a star collapses to a black hole, from the outside it never quite gets there. Everything that ever falls in reaches the horizon together, at the end of time. What follows isn’t destructi…
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I think the best I can do is point back to that blog post. The metric singularity isn’t a simple object to understand, but the whole development there and the thought experiment with images and the greedy astronaut should help.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Sort of. Except that in the general relativistic version that isn’t the silly wall thought experiment it’s actually more like the wall never reaches your friend and you. From the outside, another person just describes you and your friend as approaching it ever more slowly.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
All collapsing towards their event horizons as things fall into them. They’re all finite density objects that just get denser and denser over the history of the universe.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Ah sorry! I responded too quickly. I’m done that thread I posted now. Do you see the difference in what I’m trying to say? Basically the rock is always there at any finite time and the event horizon only happens infinitely far into the future from the outside perspective. So black holes are still…
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Hawking and Wheeler and Oppenheimer et al fucked up the concept because they didn’t stop long enough to think about the very basics of the geometry and just went off assuming and calculating things based on wrong physical concepts.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
And the event horizon happens at infinite time from the perspective of the outside universe, from the perspective of any outside observer watching things fall in. Even though everything that falls in gets there in finite proper time. It’s trippy, but I think it’s right and people like Penrose and
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Event on your own worldlines, but your individual events will all be parts of the one event when you both arrive there. That’s what an event horizon seems to be to me when I work through the geometry of it all. Everything that falls in gets there at one event-of-events—the event horizon.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Now put your friend halfway between you and the wall, 500 m from it, and have them run at 5 m/s towards the wall. In 100 s, both you and your friend will reach the wall coincidentally. Your friend will get there “first”, since they’re between you and the wall, and you’ll each be able to mark the
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Essentially, where _I_ think your thought experiment goes wrong is in treating the event horizon as a place that forms and exists. We’ve gotten that wrong for 60+ years and the math doesn’t add up on a closer look. Imagine there’s a wall off in the distance, say a km off and you run at it at 10 m/s.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
This post explains how the event horizon works mathematically, using thought experiments that ive tried to make the concept as accessible as possible: cosmicave.org/2026/05/11/x/
cosmicave.org
Chapter X: in which the inquisitive astronaut reveals the metric singularity
A geometric proof that black holes remain finite in size/density, and the event horizon occurs as the next moment after the universe.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Cool! Someone added this post to Hacker News yesterday and a whole bunch of people read it. It’s nice to see a story that means so much to me being read and shared.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Here’s a sort of intellectual autobiography I wrote. I hope you find it interesting and thought-provoking. 🔭🎢☄️⚛️🧮🧪 cosmicave.org/2026/09/15/w...
cosmicave.org
Why does the universe expand?
A story about the main reasons I now think the universe expands because collapsed matter must continue as an expanding cosmology, the expansion is the collapse read from the other side, and the rat…
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I wrote a book this summer that fleshes out the details of a physics framework I began working on with my PhD thesis seventeen years ago. It’s freely available on my website. Here’s a link to the preface. 🧪🎢🔭☄️🧮⚛️ cosmicave.org/2026/09/10/p...
cosmicave.org
The Universe: from an antimatter black hole
A friend’s question about an Eddington–Finkelstein diagram sent me looking for a better explanation, and I found a cycloid. Eighteen papers later, here is what came of it: horizons that are n…
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
I know the words. I also know what salad means.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
That’s a word salad. That’s the opposite of plain English.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
You can’t learn if you can’t read. I just told you in two skeets what’s proven. Then there’s the proof. It’s as long as it has to be.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
The event horizon is a metrically singular event at which everything that ever falls in to that hole throughout the history of the universe reaches an event horizon at finite r at the boundary of infinite cosmic time. If you can follow middle-school math you can follow every line in the second essay
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
I linked two plain language essays that explain in detail the geometry and why it must be that in spite of relativity of simultaneity we must conclude for purely causal reasons (invariant-finite speed of light) that every collapsing object MUST be STILL collapsing objects within our universe. 1/2
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Yes I’m not unfamiliar with the system.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
I don’t want to publish it in a journal, for a mix of personal reasons. I like using my website to publish what I’m working on because it crosses a lot of style and disciplinary boundaries. Like the GR proof is really not more rigorous than the logic proofs in the other posts I added in comments.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
…the densest balls of matter physics will allow, spinning. “Kerr” just generalizes the spherically symmetric situation I’m describing to one that has a defined spin axis so it’s not perfectly symmetric without breaking anything about the fixed speed of light.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
lol that is hilarious. No, no dark matter at all here. It’s just pure geometry related to the fixed speed of light and basic general relativistic constraints and how certain things must be read to maintain logical consistency. And by “Kerr-like bodies” just imagine…
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
EXACTLY! That is exactly the situation. Jessica is not bad. She’s just been misunderstood. And how can you blame anyone given how she looks? But she actually fulfill adores Roger. Well played!
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
lol actually the irony in this case is that the limit does still exist, it’s just been badly misunderstood.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
And here is the second. This should be accessible to someone with a middle school grasp of mathematics. It’s very clear. cosmicave.org/2026/05/11/x/
cosmicave.org
Chapter X: in which the inquisitive astronaut reveals the metric singularity
A geometric proof that black holes remain finite in size/density, and the event horizon occurs as the next moment after the universe.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Since then I’ve written two highly accessible explainers. Here’s the first one: cosmicave.org/2026/04/14/w...
cosmicave.org
When black holes happen
When a star collapses to a black hole, from the outside it never quite gets there. Everything that ever falls in reaches the horizon together, at the end of time. What follows isn’t destructi…
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
A month ago. The preprint I posted of a 7-page paper that proves geometrically using nothing but standard GR that the common idea we’ve had of a black hole for a century is wrong. It’s been downloaded 488 times. Surely someone knows GR well enough to comment. 🧮 ⚛️ ☄️ 🧪 cosmicave.org/wp-content/u...
cosmicave.org
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
Here’s a fun little tour of the basic geometric principles of relativity. 🧮 ⚛️ 🧪 ☄️ 🎢 cosmicave.org/2026/05/11/x/ Requires only middle school level math—intervals, Pythagorean theorem, functions and asymptotes. It delivers a very simple proof that black holes aren’t what we’ve thought they are.
cosmicave.org
Chapter X: in which the inquisitive astronaut reveals the metric singularity
A geometric proof that black holes remain finite in size/density, and the event horizon occurs as the next moment after the universe.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
When the Ship Comes In. And Desire is my favourite album.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
...of our response, I imagine we are done here. 3/3
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
...odd when you've not pointed to a single step where the proof goes wrong, you've never explained how you imagine zero invariant separation to mean anything other than coincident, and you've merely offered a suspicion that I must be confused about what that means. Anyway, given the tone...2/
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
I'm sorry. You told me you didn't understand the formal paper and I should have taken you at your word. Obviously, an explainer article is not a formal proof. I don't think I've given you any reason to assume I'm "simply convinced I'm right and everyone else is wrong." That feels unfair and...1/
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
@gregegansf.bsky.social @johncarlosbaez.bsky.social this is the scenario I was talking about yesterday. I ended up writing this today. Cool, isn’t it? Thats an incredibly important feature of the geometry to have just missed all this time! And so simple and profound. docs.google.com/document/d/1...
docs.google.com
What, exactly, is a black hole?
Headline: What, exactly, is a black hole? Black holes are the most enigmatic, intriguing, captivating, confusing and confounding objects in all of physics. In fact, despite decades of focused researc...
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
It's a fact, forced by the causal structure of the geometry. The very causal structure that defines what the event horizon is. It's a geometric identity. And it is formally proven in the paper I linked above.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
An updated figure for this thought experiment. 🧮 ⚛️ ☄️ 🎢 🧪 The thick blue line is the flash of light shone towards the black hole from Earth. The thick red lines are photons reflected back at beam splitters. The collapsing star's surface, flash of light and astronaut all arrive coincidentally at r_h.
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
It’s like discussing the physical nature of planetary epicycles and the problems their existence creates: there are no epicycles to begin with, so there are no associated problems either. 3/3
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
…approach that involves “existing horizons within the global extension of the geometry” simply goes away because the thing those problems are all based on just isn’t a thing. They’re furnishings for a room that doesn’t exist. 2/3
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
Not at all. The paper is just simple Lorentzian geometry, and the essence of the proof is that horizons are not things that form in the universe. The event horizon is a metrically singular EVENT that happens at the end of the universe. Forewalls, Hawking radiation, holography—every semi-classical…1/
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
@gregegansf.bsky.social @johncarlosbaez.bsky.social this right here might be the most incredible variant of the null temporal degeneracy theorem. Catching up with a ray of photons emitted a million years earlier while travelling < c throughout 🤯
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
Anyway, so for now at least the proofs will exist just where they exist and we’ll see if anyone’s willing to accept a straightforward proof without institutional endorsement. Maybe someone like @johncarlosbaez.bsky.social who knows the theory perfectly well will look at it? 3/3
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
…culmination of 17 years of thinking beginning with my PhD thesis and wrapping in the paper I shared with you and this other one: cosmicave.org/wp-content/u... You’re right lots of people won’t like the conclusions they draw. But you don’t have to like the truth for it to be true. 2/
cosmicave.org
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
Thanks for reading the paper, Greg. I suspect you understood it far better than you’re giving yourself credit for. In any case, I owe you a book and will get on that in a morning. Fwiw, I don’t think either of these papers will ever hit traditional peer review, for personal reasons. They’re the…1/
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
…a million years before the astronaut decided to dive in. And yet the astronaut, the light ray, and the collapsing star all reach the horizon with zero metrical separation between them. They’re all coincident events. Read the formal proof here: cosmicave.org/wp-content/u... 5/5
cosmicave.org
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
…shone IN to the black hole, travelling at the speed of light. The astronaut just catches up to that light ray, all while travelling there slower than the speed of light. And the surface of the star too. The star might’ve collapsed a billion years ago. The light ray might’ve been shone in…4/
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Daryl Janzen @darylj.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
That gap becomes identically zero by the time the astronaut reaches the horizon. At the horizon, the photons reflected back out when the ingoing null ray hit the horizon travels a radial distance dr=0 to reach the astronaut. In other words: the astronaut reaches the same light ray they earlier…3/
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