Thread: Do you ever die when you fall into a black hole?

No, the light never reaches the "actual" black hole, so you will still be able to see the object forever.

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

No, the light never reaches the "actual" black hole, so you will still be able to see the object forever.

What do you mean the light never reaches the "actual" black hole? The light passes through the event horizon and gets sucked directly to the "actual" black hole. This is why it doesn't escape, no?

No, it stops.

Everything that goes into a black hole just sits around it.

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

No, it stops.

Everything that goes into a black hole just sits around it.

I never addressed this one directly, but you are both right and wrong. The light (just as everything that goes into a black hole) just sits around the black hole. That part is true (well, sort of true, because most things that get sucked into a black hole are turned to cosmic dust, because the gravity is too great for anything to just "sit" there without being atomized). But it's not the light's existence, alone, that makes us able to see objects. It is light bouncing off of a surface and into our eyes that allows us to see it.

If an object gets sucked into a black hole, then the light that bounces off of it does not bounce back into our eyes. It tries to, but it gets drawn back to the original object because of the gravitational field of the black hole. This, again, renders both the collapsed star and the object in question invisible. That is why black holes are black. If the light bounced off and into our eyes, we would see the remnants of a collapsed star, and not a black void.

This is also how "invisible cloak" technology works. Fiber-optics bend the light around an object so that the photons don't bounce directly off the object into our eyes and, instead, they are funneled to another direction, rendering the wearer of the cloth "invisible."

I believe that is incorrect.

The outside observer would be basing his/her opinion on what he saw from the photons that left the event horizon and reached his eye. So, if the person in question entered a black hole, and the visual of his being spaghettified took x amount of time to reach the outside observer, it would be because the photons showing the person in question getting S-ified would take longer to reach the observer (if ever). That would not mean that the observer would be right in saying that the person in question wasn't already S-ified. Frame of reference does not change the absolution of whether or not that person has already been stretched/split into sections that no longer sustain human life. It's either happened and he's no longer intact, or it hasn't happened, and he is.

It's the same as someone saying "A star that we see with our naked eye does not actually exist anymore." We, as observers, may still see it, but that does not mean the star still exists, as it could have been destroyed light years ago. If that was the case, the person saying that it still exists (regardless of whether or not we could still see it) would, in fact, be wrong.

No..?

So many people seem to refute relativity, it's strange... it's all there in the name. Completely ignoring photons and information flow and that kind of thing; time for the outsiders would not progress at the same rate as the person in the black hole. It's got nothing to do with how long it takes signals to reach observers. They have different 'whens'.

Originally Posted by Xei

No..?

So many people seem to refute relativity, it's strange... it's all there in the name. Completely ignoring photons and information flow and that kind of thing; time for the outsiders would not progress at the same rate as the person in the black hole. It's got nothing to do with how long it takes signals to reach observers. They have different 'whens'.

I'm not refuting relativity. I'm simply saying that relativity must be looked at for what it is (a different frame of reference). Something can seem to still be existent, to someone outside of that frame of reference, but whether something does or does not exist, cosmically, is much more absolute, is it not? (As far as the relativity, I'm honestly asking, as I'm not 100% sure).

But, to call my initial analogy into question once again: If we (here, on Earth) can see a star with our naked eye that was, in fact, destroyed hundreds of light years ago (and the light from that explosion just hasn't hit us yet, so we still see the star as intact), would we be right in saying that star still exists? Or would it just be an error of perception?

I think so. The star does not exist any more, according to our now. If we put a mirror out of the direct line between us and that star that reflected its light towards us (ie increased the time it takes for the light to get here), following that logic we'd have to say that the star is simultaneously at two different points in its life according to us. What is true is that both things we are seeing are actually wrong, and that the star is indeed objectively dead at that time, even though we might not know it. Relativity and how long it takes to see something are separate.

Originally Posted by Xei

I think so. The star does not exist any more, according to our now. If we put a mirror out of the direct line between us and that star that reflected its light towards us (ie increased the time it takes for the light to get here), following that logic we'd have to say that the star is simultaneously at two different points in its life according to us. What is true is that both things we are seeing are actually wrong, and that the star is indeed objectively dead at that time, even though we might not know it. Relativity and how long it takes to see something are separate.

Ok, good. That was exactly my point in the previous post. No matter where we are, and what frame of reference we are observing from, there has to be a cosmic truth (in this case, at least). As is the case with the dancing man falling into a black hole. The question of whether or not the man is alive or dead (due to spaghettification) is not necessarily relative. There is an absolute truth (which would, most accurately, be determined by the reference point of the man who's actually undergoing the S-ification). When he's dead - from his own frame of reference - he's dead, no matter what an outsider sees.

I think the theoretical dancing man would be spaghettified to a more than fatal extent long before he reached the event horizon. After all, the event horizon is where gravity is so strong, not even light can escape its pull.

I also think that if death did happen after the event horizon, and the outside observers see the man freeze in place still alive, they would be incorrect to assume that he is still alive. While he may be frozen in time in their frame of reference, in his frame of reference, he is nothing but small particles.

An interesting thing to consider is that to the dancing guy, time for the outside observers at the moment he crosses the event horizon and is frozen in the outside observer time; he would see time pass for them (if he could see them at all) at an infinitely fast rate.

Originally Posted by Schmaven

I think the theoretical dancing man would be spaghettified to a more than fatal extent long before he reached the event horizon. After all, the event horizon is where gravity is so strong, not even light can escape its pull.

Very good point.