Re: A partial black hole?

On 2008-02-28, Crown-Horned Snorkack <chornedsnorkack@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> If an extended material object drops into a Schwarzschild black hole,
> is it destroyed before crossing the event horizon, or before hitting
> singularity and possibly after crossing event horizon?

It depends how large the black hole, is, and how strong the object is.
A person falling into a two-solar-mass black hole will be killed
substantially short of reaching the event horizon.  A solid ball of
steel of the same mass might remain intact until some distance after
passing the horizon.  Certainly a small ball bearing would survive,
having much less distance over which tidal forces act.

For a million-Sol black hole, a person would easily survive the tidal
forces at the horizon.  They would not even feel them at that point.
A few seconds later they would, but only for a fraction of a second.


- Tim