17 minutes

The black hole at the center of the galaxy emits flares, and with
careful analysis, the people at the VLT say:

The most striking result is an apparent 17-minute periodicity in the
light curves of two of the detected flares


Something rotating with 1/17 minutes has a maximum radius if we assume
that its border (the circumference) can't travel faster than light.

At (vacuum) light speed, this is 18 360 000 000 Km, the distance light
travels in 17 minutes. The maximum circumference of the center can't
go beyond that, and the radius is that divided by 2*pi = 2 922 084 755
Km or 19.46 AU.

Is this reasoning correct?

Thanks

jacob

[Mod. note: reformatted -- mjh]

In article ,
jacob navia wrote:
The black hole at the center of the galaxy emits flares, and with
careful analysis, the people at the VLT say:

The most striking result is an apparent 17-minute periodicity in the
light curves of two of the detected flares


Something rotating with 1/17 minutes has a maximum radius if we assume
that its border (the circumference) can't travel faster than light.

At (vacuum) light speed, this is 18 360 000 000 Km, the distance light
travels in 17 minutes. The maximum circumference of the center can't
go beyond that, and the radius is that divided by 2*pi = 2 922 084 755
Km or 19.46 AU.

Is this reasoning correct?

Something is wrong, and as I am lazy, I will not go over it,
but use a simpler approach.

The time for light to reach the Earth from the Sun is a little
more than 8 minutes. Thus 17 minutes is just about the time
for light to travel a little more than 2 AU. As we have to
divide by 2*pi, we get approximately 1/3 AU for the radius.

--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

In article ,
jacob navia wrote:
The black hole at the center of the galaxy emits flares, and with
careful analysis, the people at the VLT say:

The most striking result is an apparent 17-minute periodicity in the
light curves of two of the detected flares


Something rotating with 1/17 minutes has a maximum radius if we assume
that its border (the circumference) can't travel faster than light.

At (vacuum) light speed, this is 18 360 000 000 Km, the distance light
travels in 17 minutes. The maximum circumference of the center can't
go beyond that, and the radius is that divided by 2*pi = 2 922 084 755
Km or 19.46 AU.

Is this reasoning correct?

Something is wrong, and as I am lazy, I will not go over it,
but use a simpler approach.

The time for light to reach the Earth from the Sun is a little
more than 8 minutes. Thus 17 minutes is just about the time
for light to travel a little more than 2 AU. As we have to
divide by 2*pi, we get approximately 1/3 AU for the radius.

--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558