Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> > With a big enough black hole, you'll never know when you cross the event
> > horizon.
>
>   I have heard this, I have a very hard time understanding how it would be
> possible.
>
>   Space is *really* warped near the event horizon. The closer you get to
> it, the more warped it is. If you were to look out of your spacecraft as
> it's falling, the universe would look really weird. The closer you are
> to the event horizon, the weirder.
>
>   And after you cross the event horizon... Who knows. But you certainly
> would *not* see the universe in any normal way, if at all. You probably
> wouldn't be able to measure anything of the universe at all (because,
> if the GR equations are right, *all* geodesics inside the event horizon
> point directly towards the center).

Hm... I never thought about this in detail. I always imagined the event horizon
as nothing more than a theoretical construct, still a good deal away from the
singularity at its center - the distance beyond which a "fixed" outside
observer cannot see anything anymore. I also imagined that a non-fixed observer
in free fall towards the black hole would percieve the event horizon to be a bit
closer to the singularity, because after all light would only have to reach him,
not be able to zoom off to infinity...

.... but then again, if the light from inside the event horizon could still reach
a free-falling observer outside it, then what would stop the light from zooming
off from *there* to infinity?

So from this, and hearing that it would actually take an eternity (as seen from
an outside observer) to *reach* the event horizon, it sounds logical to me that
in fact the event horizon *is* the singularity...

.... whoa! so we have infinitely small spots the size of planets or larger... now
*that* is what I call weird...

.... and it makes me imagine that it is actually impossible to fall *into* a
black hole: If you'd take that trip, you'd experience it as being torn to
pieces by tidal forces, and in the next moment evaporating as hawking radiation
- seeing that the rest of the universe has aged some few gazillions of years...

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