by alter-ego » Fri Jun 04, 2010 6:05 am
Beta wrote:mark swain wrote:
As I got closer and closer to the black hole... what would happen to my Body Clock?
You should probably get a firm grip on Special Relativity before you try General.
Hello Beta -
Certainly it is more helpful the more familiar you are with SR and GR, but Mark's question is relatively
easy to answer. Assuming that you are approaching a "dead" black hole (no accretion disk, no charge, no magnetic fields/non-rotating),
in your reference frame you won't shut down until until differential accelaration
(tidal force) rips (or noodles) you to death. In your frame of reference, everything is cool
, your body clock tics as normal. But what about the Event Horizon? If you were approaching a solar-mass black hole, you wouldn't make it to the EH
. But thankfully, you are heading toward a super-massive BH
. For these behemoths, the differential acceleration is much less at the EH, so you slip right on in, checkin' out the odd-ball, probably distorted views. For a 1000,000 solar-mass BH, you would have ~6 sec to enjoy life after crossing the EH
.
FYI, I'm comfortable with SR, and can talk some about GR, but I'm far from an expert. I lose it at the tensors...
Last comments: Clearly
no one really knows what physics really lies on the other side of an EH. Period. The discussion about not being ripped apart approaching the EH boundary is realistic. Calculations predicting acceleration past the EH assumes a singularity, and this is where I will share with you
my opinion. I
believe that the next significant breakthroughs will incorporate quantum theory into gravitation theory. This, by itself, is not a new thought, but I have high expectations that the fundamental point-source limits which result in infinite densities, infinite energies, and infinite times will go away in the same manner as the "UV Catastrophe" went away with Quantum Theory. This is just what I think, and only that - I'm don't care to convince anyone else. One can speculate on other ramifications, but I'm not. Sure it's fun to banter about this stuff, but ultimately, beliefs are argued and discussions become circular and not enjoyable any more. But one thing will be true: GR will be a direct fallout of whatever follows next - just as Newtonian Mechanics falls out of GR. We haven't found a robust alternate theory to GR yet, but it will come.
As far as a frame of reference goes, you truly only have one - yours.
[quote="Beta"][quote="mark swain"]
As I got closer and closer to the black hole... what would happen to my Body Clock?
[/quote]
You should probably get a firm grip on Special Relativity before you try General.[/quote]
Hello Beta -
Certainly it is more helpful the more familiar you are with SR and GR, but Mark's question is relatively :!: easy to answer. Assuming that you are approaching a "dead" black hole (no accretion disk, no charge, no magnetic fields/non-rotating), [u]in your reference frame[/u] you won't shut down until until differential accelaration [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_force][u][b](tidal force)[/b][/u][/url] rips (or noodles) you to death. In your frame of reference, everything is cool 8-), your body clock tics as normal. But what about the Event Horizon? If you were approaching a solar-mass black hole, you wouldn't make it to the EH :cry:. But thankfully, you are heading toward a super-massive BH :P. For these behemoths, the differential acceleration is much less at the EH, so you slip right on in, checkin' out the odd-ball, probably distorted views. For a 1000,000 solar-mass BH, you would have ~6 sec to enjoy life after crossing the EH :shock:.
[url=http://cosmology.berkeley.edu/Education/BHfaq.html][u][b]FYI[/b][/u][/url], I'm comfortable with SR, and can talk some about GR, but I'm far from an expert. I lose it at the tensors... :|
[i]Last comments:[/i] Clearly [u]no one[/u] really knows what physics really lies on the other side of an EH. Period. The discussion about not being ripped apart approaching the EH boundary is realistic. Calculations predicting acceleration past the EH assumes a singularity, and this is where I will share with you [u]my opinion[/u]. I [i]believe[/i] that the next significant breakthroughs will incorporate quantum theory into gravitation theory. This, by itself, is not a new thought, but I have high expectations that the fundamental point-source limits which result in infinite densities, infinite energies, and infinite times will go away in the same manner as the "UV Catastrophe" went away with Quantum Theory. This is just what I think, and only that - I'm don't care to convince anyone else. One can speculate on other ramifications, but I'm not. Sure it's fun to banter about this stuff, but ultimately, beliefs are argued and discussions become circular and not enjoyable any more. But one thing will be true: GR will be a direct fallout of whatever follows next - just as Newtonian Mechanics falls out of GR. We haven't found a robust alternate theory to GR yet, but it will come.
As far as a frame of reference goes, you truly only have one - yours.