Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
> >> it sounds logical to me that
> >> in fact the event horizon *is* the singularity...
> >
> > But it's not.
>
> By which I mean:
>   "singularity" has a specific meaning in mathematics, and the event horizon
> doesn't meet that definition, while the "center" of the black hole does.
>
> Take the graph of tan(x). At pi/2, there's a singularity. At 0, it just goes
> thru a 45-degree slope (and a point of inflection). That's kind of the
> difference.

Well, from an outsider's perspective - given that everything falling into the
black hole comes to a standstill at the EH... doesn't this qualify for a
singularity?

Okay, granted, from the poor victim's POV the singularity is still a few yards
away...


BTW, I've looked at the illustration with the "bent" ray by now, and the
illustration of what somebody falling into a black hole would see, and am now
coming to yet another conclusion:

I think that as a person closes in to the event horizon, (a) from his
perspective the *universe* will begin to collapse to a singularity (although
not a point, but rather a line), and (b) the event horizon will appear to
recede - until he hits the singularity, which in this sense is again identical
to the event horizon.

What happens then? Well - I guess that poor sod just falls through.
Back into the universe - which by then has aged by an infinite amount of time.
The only thing the poor guy suffered will be that he'll be turned around by 180
degrees when emerging from the singularity...

From an observer's point of view, the guy should thus appear at the other side
of the EH (and again take infinite time to get out of it).


You remember the famous greek thought experiment about Achilleus trying to catch
up with a turtle, and being unable to - because whenever he reaches the point
where the turtle was, the turtle will have crawled yet another bit ahead?

I guess we have a similar paradoxon here: An outside observer will see things
from the greek philosophers' point of view, in which a person heading for the
EH will never reach it. The poor victim, however, sees things from the classic
everyday perspective we know: He can just run past the turtle, no problem.

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