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

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.

There seems to be some lingering confusion here.

Both the outside observer and the falling person are correct in what they experience, even if they don't agree.

The falling observer does hit the singularity in a finite amount of time.

The outside observer will see all falling objects crowded around the even horizon, frozen in time. However, this freezing of time also produces a huge red shift and so the outside observer will have trouble actually seeing them.

Now, the issue of light is complicated. Light does still travel at the speed of light close to the event horizon and even inside the event horizon. What varies is the curvature of spacetime. Inside the event horizon, spacetime is so curved, that light, which travels straight in its own frame, will actually have a decaying orbit around the singularity. Outside the even horizon, light passing by will have its path bent as it enters and exits the region of severely warped spacetime.

When the outsiders see the man as frozen, for them he is not dead.
He is traveling into the future. After an infinite amount of time has passed to the ousiders, he will die in their time frame. Because an infinite amount of time will never pass, he will never die in their time frame.
He however will die in his own timeframe, and his friends that he left behind will be then dead too, as they will be an infinite number of years old.