Wormholes

[Radio Storm]

What things do you theorize about black holes and wormholes?

If by some means there ever comes a way to explore a black hole without being spaghettified and turned into a mash of molecules and then leave in one piece, do you think it could be some kind of time warp or otherwise have some bizarre effect on the universe or the perception of the said explorers?

What do you think might happen if you were to go inside a wormhole, if they truly do exist?

[flyboy2112]

Originally Posted by J-Rod

If by some means there ever comes a way to explore a black hole without being spaghettified and turned into a mash of molecules and then leave in one piece, do you think it could be some kind of time warp or otherwise have some bizarre effect on the universe or the perception of the said explorers?

In short, it is possible to enter a black hole without being spaghettified. Here's why:

Spaghetiffication occurs due to the gravitational gradient between points closer to the gravitational field, and points further away. This is known as the tidal force. An astronaut falling feet first into a black hole experiences a stronger gravitational force at his feet (being that his feet are closer to the gravitational field) than his head, and thus the tidal force literally stretches the astronaut like a spaghetti noodle.

The gravitational force comes from the very center of a black hole, where a very large amount of mass is concentrated into an infinitely small volume. This is called a singularity. Tidal forces increase the closer you get to a singularity. So we can say that for a singularity of a specific mass, spaghettification begins at a distance r away from the singularity, depending upon the strength of the object falling in (something made of steel will spaghettify closer to the singularity than something made of rubber).

Another feature of a black hole, and a basis for what we mean when we say you're "inside" a black hole, is the event horizon, which lies at a distance from the singularity called the Schwarzschild radius, which is equal to Gm/c^2, where G is the gravitational constant, m is the mass of the singularity, and c is the speed of light. The event horizon is defined as the boundary at which a perfectly circular orbit around the black hole would have an orbital velocity of the speed of light. In other words, once one crosses the event horizon, it is impossible to escape, because doing so requires that one travel faster than the speed of light. This also means that whatever happens inside the event horizon cannot effect anybody outside of the event horizon.

For small black holes, those formed from the collapse of giant stars, the Schwarzschild radius is not very large. The smallest black hole known has a mass almost 4 times that of our sun, yet has a Schwarzschild radius of 9 kilometers, or 15 miles. Yet for supermassive black holes, which reside in the centers of galaxies and have masses of hundreds of thousands to billions of solar masses, and radii of several hundred million or more kilometers.

So what this has to do with spaghetiffication is this: since tidal force changes with distance, and since the Schwarzschild radius changes with the mass of the black hole (and we define being inside a black hole as being a distance from the singularity that is less than the Schwarzschild radius, or within the event horizon) then yes, it is possible to enter a black hole without being spaghettified, provided the black hole is large enough. Supermassive black holes are probably required for this. Keep in mind, however, that once one passes the event horizon it is inevitable that one will fall into the singularity, so while it is possible to observe the inside of a black hole for a certain period of time, one will eventually die due to spaghettification.

This is of course assuming you have insane radiation shielding. Because black holes pull in light along with them, the radiation approaching a black hole will be greater than the radiation encountered almost anywhere else in the universe, so you're likely to be completely disintegrated far before you have a chance to be spaghettified.

And even assuming you could make it into a black hole unscathed, there would be no way of telling other people what you saw. No radio transmissions you could make will leave the event horizon. Even if you weren't inside of the event horizon but very close to it, it will be extremely difficult or impossible to communicate because your radio signals will be so far redshifted that they will not be possible to interpret.

[Zwitterion]

The only question that needs to be asked:

Are Stargates possible?!

[flyboy2112]

I hope at least someone found my post helpful.