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What Would It Look Like To Fall Into a Black Hole?
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."
How did a Goatse story get on the front page?
I don't assume you see red grid lines?
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama.
I think it's a lot like that.
The same person (Andrew Hamilton) is behind this website:
Inside Black Holes
Which has a lot cooler CG.
Yeah, but you have to get out while you're young, if you're a tramp who was born to run.
Figuring out the Riemann geometry for this was non-trivial and should be lauded not dismissed as some trivial "cutesy video".
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
If you were falling into a black hole, I think it would be far more interesting to do so while facing away from the hole, as this would theoretically (according to relativity) allow you to witness the remaining life of the universe played out at a greatly accelerated rate.
This might be completely wrong
I always thought that if you could see the outside universe as you were falling in the outside would appear to be moving faster and faster (from an inside perspective) the closer you got towards the center of the singularity. (effectively skipping ahead into the future faster and faster)
since quite a lot of junk falls into a black hole especially over the period of the universe's lifetime, you'd probably see all sorts of large amounts of crap following in behind you at a tremendous speed (stars etc) until it got close enough to be affected by the same space time distortion, but never quite catching up to your point
from an outside perspective if you could see what was happening beyond the event horizon, the stuff falling in would appear to move slower and slower the closer it got towards the center never quite reaching the center point
which makes me wonder if someone falling into one of these things would actually reach the end of time itself a lot more quickly than everyone else on the outside (assuming there is such a thing)