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skeptic
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><span> </span>This is a discussion about possibility or impossibility of crossing the event horizon of a black hole and I’m specifically soliciting the input of the moderators.<span> </span>To begin the discussion I reference the third paragraph of page 218 of Kip Thorn's Black Holes and Time Warps where, speaking of the implosion of a star into a black hole, he writes "...the implosion freezes forever as measured in the static, external frame but continues rapidly on past the freezing point as measured in the frame of the star's surface..."<span> </span>This statement is consistent with both the Lorentz Transformation and relativity.<span> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><span> </span>The Lorentz Transformation describes how much space is contracted and time dilated by the velocity of a moving object according to the formula 1/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2).<span> </span>In a gravitational field the v term is replaced by escape velocity of the gravitational field.<span> </span>This explains why at the event horizon length has contracted to zero and time has stopped. A star and everything else must be frozen at the event horizon forever.<span> </span>The falling object however, doesn’t experience this transformation but continues falling through the event horizon.<span> </span>How can the perception from the perspective of the infalling object be consistent with that of the external observer?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><span> </span>As Woody Allen said “Eternity is a long time, especially towards the end.”, and being frozen at the event horizon forever is a long, long time, perhaps long enough for the black hole to evaporate by Hawking radiation.<span> </span>If this is the case, might the infalling object never cross the event horizon but see the event horizon shrink to nothing beneath it as it falls?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><span> </span>It has been suggested that one means of crossing the event horizon is that objects don’t have to fall through the horizon, the horizon will grow past the object as more matter falls into it. <span> </span>This doesn’t really work.<span> </span>Just as two objects dropped an instant apart will gradually get farther and farther apart, matter falling behind an object will lag farther and farther behind the object and thus their mass will have less and less effect on the event horizon for the objects ahead of them. <span> </span>In effect each infalling object sees its own event horizon based on the time, position and speed at which it approaches.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><span> </span>Another way an object might cross the event horizon is that when the object gets so close that the uncertainty of its position lies both outside and inside the event horizon, the particle may then tunnel into the black hole. <span> </span>Of course it may also tunnel its way out again.<span> </span>It may turn out that by the time a particle could get that close the event horizon the black hole will have already evaporated.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><span> </span>Is the Lorentz Transformation valid inside the event horizon? <span> </span>If so does it require that both space and time become imaginary. <span> </span>If we try to calculate the velocity of a particle inside the event horizon, we end up dividing imaginary distance by imaginary time and get NEGATIVE velocity. <span> </span>Does that mean that instead of falling towards the center of the black hole, matter is repelled by it?<span> </span>If matter does continue falling towards the center, how fast does it fall? <span> </span>How is its velocity calculated?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><span> </span>I’m sure these interpretations are overly naïve and I’m hoping the experts in this forum can explain and clarify these issues.</span></p>