Comment by proteal

2 days ago

The black hole has two conceptual parts - the event horizon and the singularity. The event horizon is a one-way imaginary shell where once you pass it, you will end up at the singularity which is a point at the center of the event horizon. It’s the hole in black hole. Because the radius of the spherical horizon grows linearly with mass, but the size of the hole is fixed at effectively 0, it allows for a bit of sightseeing on your way to impending doom if the mass of the hole is large enough.

This is also the light barrier where light can no longer escape the gravitational forces (causing the blackness of the black hole).

Your “sightseeing tour” would be a kaleidoscope of light as it brushes past you on its way to the singularity.

  • Uh, that is the event horizon?

    • Yup, you’re trapped, so is light, and as gravity bends you and everything around you into pretzels, you’ll see everything yet nothing, as even the light will escape your retinas, before they pop like little grapes.

      Eventually your atoms will make their way to the center singularity.

      2 replies →

One of the more mind bending aspects of this is how the horizon becomes inescapable. The singularity is the only “forward” that exists anymore. You cannot conceivably go anywhere else. Every direction becomes “in”.

  • another way of saying it is that the singularity is a place in time, not in space. it's a place in your future, and you cannot escape your future.

    in a black hole time and space get switched in a sense.

  • it is not that hard to understand, if you jump out of a plane, there is also a spacetime singularity in your future, the ground

    • It's not similar to this at all. There is still a safe direction which exists - if you could reverse your fall, it would take you back to the plane. There is no reversing your "fall" into a singularity. "Out" no longer exists. Even if you reverse your direction, you'll still be falling towards the event horizon.

  • One could say the same thing about death (or life). Once you’re born, death is the only “forward” that exists. You can’t calculate its exact distance but it’s inevitable.