If you were falling into a black hole, an outside observer would see you stretch out into a long thin ribbon. but from your perspective nothing would change because the space you exist in stretches along with you, right? #gravity #relativity #physics
@logarithmic_function But if space/time itself is stretching at the same rate as the matter "filling" that space, then why would you get ripped apart? For that matter how could you even tell you're being stretched? You could possibly detect you were being pulled into a black whole based on the Doppler shift of light frequencies along one axis...but it seems like if space/time itself is warped, and you exist within that specific space time, there wouldn't be any localized distortion. No?
@logarithmic_function Maybe some properties of physics don't change at the same rate with respect to gravitational distortion? Maybe electromagnetic fields warm less than matter does? I could see that causing atoms to come apart at some threshold...but I thought electromagnetic fields were just as distorted by gravitational wells as every other physical property...
@aproximation In theory you'd get to watch the heat death of the universe. In practice the spaghettification would tear you apart before then, so you'd get to see everything speed up towards the inevitable, but not quite reach it. (At least that's my understanding after many StarTalk episodes.)
@theartguy Ya, i think it would take a long time to reach the singularity, possibly infinitely long, that was my understanding as well. But I don't get how you can get ripped apart if the local space/time itself is stretching at the same rate...
@aproximation It's stretching at the same rate for the same distance from the event horizon, but as a being that takes up space, we would have different parts of us stretched more than others depending on how close they are to the event horizon.
Eventually, something gives because it's being pulled more than the parts that are further away.
@theartguy Thanks for helping me to get a better understanding!
But I think I'm still tripped up on understanding how matter would come apart when matter and it's related properties (gravity, electromagnetisim) and the 'context' for that matter (spacetime) both stretch at the same rate.
@theartguy I get that a part closer to the singularity has a different amount of distortion than a part further away, but if you were to graph the curve of that distortion it wouldn't have any discontinuity, so I would think all properties, like those that bind two bits of matter togeather, would also distort smoothly.
@theartguy They seem made up of the same "stuff" to me, sort of, like a tiger-print design printed on spandex womens leggings: if a skinny girl wears them or a heavy girl does, the pattern stretches along with the spandex; in order for the pattern (matter in this metaphor) to come apart, the spandex (spacetime) would also have to come apart.
@aproximation Think of it this way: Closer to the singularity the forces get closer and closer to infinitely strong, and increase is exponential, not linear. Eventually, the increase is enough.
It's difficult to imagine forces strong enough to rip apart atoms into hawking radiation, but then it's also difficult to ponder infinity. At those scales, "normal" physics break down.
In another way: spandex cannot stretch forever. What might fit a skinny girl will not fit a full grown elephant.
@theartguy Exactly: spandex will rip at some point (spandex is still spacetime in this metaphor), and that cases the pattern printed on the spandex (equaling matter) to rip. I guess I thought that spacetime didn't rip, so therefore matter wouldn't rip either. It sounds tho like you're saying spacetime does effectively rip and takes the matter occupying it along with it, if we apply the spandex metaphor?
@aproximation To be honest ... it might. We really don't know what's going on with things on the other side of the event horizon.
@theartguy But thank you for trying to help me!
@aproximation when you're close enough the gravity pulling the parts of you're body near the backhole will be so significantly stronger then from the part of your body farther away that you are ripped into shreds. This is called spaghettification