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What Would It Look Like To Fall Into a Black Hole?

Posted by timothy on from the phrase-your-answer-in-wine-review-terms dept.

CNETNate writes "A new video simulation developed by Andrew Hamilton and Gavin Polhemus of the University of Colorado, Boulder, on New Scientist today, shows what you might see on your way towards a black hole's crushing central singularity. Hamilton and Polhemus built a computer code based on the equations of Einstein's general theory of relativity, and the video produced allows the viewer to follow the fate of an imaginary observer on an orbit that swoops down into a giant black hole weighing 5 million times the mass of the sun, about the same size as the hole in the centre of our galaxy. The research could help physicists understand the apparently paradoxical fate of matter and energy in a black hole."

21 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. I thought it was April 2? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    How did a Goatse story get on the front page?

  2. Huh? by Jack9 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't assume you see red grid lines?

    --

    Often wrong but never in doubt.
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    Everyone knows me.
    1. Re:Huh? by AvitarX · · Score: 4, Funny

      Probably while your still pretty far away, you see a white light, and ancestors calling.

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    2. Re:Huh? by interkin3tic · · Score: 5, Funny

      I would have assumed you would see a completely black grid on a completely black background.

    3. Re:Huh? by lastchance_000 · · Score: 5, Funny

      You'll probably be eaten by a grue.

    4. Re:Huh? by nanospook · · Score: 2, Funny

      The very last thing you would see is a Walmart floating by..

      --
      Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
  3. hmm, I see by jollyreaper · · Score: 4, Funny

    So falling into a black hole looks and awful lot like a slashdotting. Good to know!

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    1. Re:hmm, I see by mikiN · · Score: 2, Funny

      The Slashdot Paradox:

      Getting first post on Slashdot while falling into a black hole.
      Cynical phycisists might call that an extremely slow news day.
      Other physicists might remark that now there are 2 things which can escape from a black hole: Hawking radiation and Slashdot posts.

      --
      The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
    2. Re:hmm, I see by lordofthechia · · Score: 4, Funny

      There's an alternate simulation here.

      --
      Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.
    3. Re:hmm, I see by Weaselmancer · · Score: 2, Funny

      Another simulation here.

      --
      Weaselmancer
      rediculous.
  4. What does it look like? by tnk1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    It looks like you are seriously fucked.

    1. Re:What does it look like? by schmidt349 · · Score: 3, Funny

      What actually transpires beneath the veil of an event horizon? Decent people shouldn't think too much about that.

      Academician Prokhor Zakharov
      "For I Have Tasted The Fruit"

  5. What it's like by BobGregg · · Score: 5, Funny

    I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama.

    I think it's a lot like that.

    1. Re:What it's like by orangesquid · · Score: 4, Funny

      $ /usr/games/bsd/nethole

      ** You are in a maze of twisty little distorted images, all alike.

      ** You have been eaten by an event horizon.

      $ # dammit

      --
      --TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
  6. I already saw it by OglinTatas · · Score: 2, Funny

    back in 1979.
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078869/
    man, that V.I.N.CENT. was such a character!

    --
    More music, fewer hits
  7. Simpsons Did It by rackserverdeals · · Score: 3, Funny

    Simpsons did it

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    1. Re:Simpsons Did It by buchner.johannes · · Score: 2, Funny

      Don't say "Simpsons did it", Southpark already did that.

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  8. How does it feel? by Locke2005 · · Score: 3, Funny

    About the same as it feels to be a bug hitting an Audi windscreen on the Autobahn... when you've been stretched to several hundred times your original length, you're most likely no longer capable of observing anything, so it looks pretty much like nothingness. Can a soul escape from the event horizon of a black hole, or is it doomed to spend forever in purgatory inside the black hole? And is that better or worse than being stuck in New Jersey?

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    1. Re:How does it feel? by An+ominous+Cow+art · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yeah, but you have to get out while you're young, if you're a tramp who was born to run.

    2. Re:How does it feel? by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 2, Funny

      There's always Hawking Radiation.

      So that's the source of that Jersey smell?

      --
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  9. erm... by M-RES · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...dark?